MEGAPHONE! The ASA Blog

MEGAPHONE! The ASA Blog is a place for the friends, allies, and members of the Asian & Asian American community of Vassar College to publish their original works in the form of essays, poetry, prose, and other personal writings, as well as photography and other media. Updates on the news and planned events will also be included. A note on content warnings MEGAPHONE! may contain explicit content and other material that may be distressing or triggering to some audiences. Where possible, we adhere to a loose standard of content warnings and will mark up most explicit material per post. However, due to the extreme varying nature of distressing content, I feel that it is best to post a general content warning preamble for MEGAPHONE! and include more explicit content warnings on a per-post basis. Therefore... MEGAPHONE! is sometimes a place of deep, serious reflection— prepare to enjoy it accordingly.

[vassarasa-blog]

Never Mind (2014)

ink on watercolor paper

Katherine Niu

[vassarasa-blog]

Hi, friends! 

My name is Laena, a biracial, South Asian, queer singer-songwriter, and I’m excited to share my new RnB single, “Love It or Leave It." This song touches upon fetishization, the commodification of identity, queerness, and more. I hope you enjoy (: 

My music is available on Soundcloud, Apple Music, Tidal, Spotify, Bandcamp, and more. 

Listen/DL: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/love-it-or-leave-it/1364734584?i=1364734589

You can also check out my 1st RnB single, "This Moment,” here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/this-moment/1253773067?i=1253773392

[Chorus]

V1: Accept what I am and all my parts And I’ll do the same for you

And if you should ask my questions, Just don’t try to start with this: Where I’m “from" or what I’m mixed with

That is all I ask, That is all I ask And you should know that Institutions love Our diversity, but They don’t love us, They really don’t, yeah, they don’t love us

[Chorus] Can’t live your life like no one Just be yourself and focus (Love it or leave it) My life goes on & on x2

V2: We have our dreams I love the glow of your skin

We have our dreams, We have our dreams Let us fulfill them Let us live them Give us strength, Not restraints I keep my head in the books, yeah

[Chorus]

[Bridge] I just can’t wait no more x2

[Chorus]

[vassarasa-blog]

Dear

Dear mom,

Was it hard on day 1, giving up your child

Hours after I was born

The cord still attached, a physical representation

Of our connection you severed.

Dear dad,

Who decided that a girl was too weak, too shameful

To carry on living, in the family who tried for a boy

Crying, a single note “Please take care”

A warming or a wish

Dear parents,

Do you ever wonder what happened, to the child

The child you left 19 years ago

A single packet of dried milk a few poor yuan

Hours after birth

Dear siblings,

Do you exist, did they keep you

Or are we scattered

Stars in the ripple of an endless ocean

Time passes, the universe expands

Lost at sea

-spencer dipasquale mcgrath

[vassarasa-blog]

Mahjong

the smell of cigarettes

i want to smoke a cigarette

if only to see my grandmother again

she filled her hair with cigarettes

she filled her heart with tiles

i miss the smell of cigarettes

i crave the porcelain skinned tile

i’ll fill my heart with cigarettes

and forget the day she dies

by jennifer luo

[vassarasa-blog]

Asian Alumnae/i Day!

Let’s welcome Charles Kim ‘92,  Reena Mehta ‘01, Jason Wu ‘07, and Eunice Chou ‘14 back to Vassar campus!

Charles Kim ‘92 is the Principal of Charlotte & Company and former Associate Publisher for the Museum of Modern Art. He advises Vassar students to go out and explore what’s out of campus — especially Lake Minnewaska and the Ice Caves and Vederkeerderkill Falls Trail Hike. He shares his story about an old white woman mistaking him for being a waiter because of his race; he corrected her and she apologized profusely. Charles believes that there is no reason for us to prove anything to anyone. Our race, gender, class, and other parts of our identity are strengths! When asked to provide advice to our students, he brings up an interesting question, “What do you want your retirement party to be like?”

Reena Mehta ‘01 is the Senior Vice President for Digital Programming Strategy & Content Planning at Nickelodeon/Viacom. She believes that being able to communicate effectively with anyone is profoundly important. Reena describes her journey of achieving high literary and exceptional writing by sharing a story about how she sat down with her professor and constantly corrected her mistakes. “How are you learning to write? How are you explaining your thought process?” she asks the audience. Not only does she mention how she feels about being the only brown identifying individual in her workplace, she also believes that we can create opportunities for others. What we say makes a difference.

Jason Wu ‘07 is the Staff Attorney of Legal Aid Society. He provides a compelling quote, “We’re the ones we are waiting for,” after explaining how not one person he knew could mention an Asian American’s name for making a feat in American history. Asian Americans’ achievements are not usually showcased in media which is why he advises us to strive for the best. Lastly, he encouraged students to find a place where work and the people they surround themselves with are of equal value. 

Eunice Chou ‘14 is a MD/PhD Student at SUNY Downstate Medical Center College of Medicine and SUNY College of Nanoscale Science & Engineering. She talks about feeling underrepresented as a woman in medicine; she says, “People expect you to be passive.” There is a lack of representation, but she inspires students to create a place for themselves. Eunice also emphasizes that science students should learn how to write so that they can clearly explain ideas to others for better understanding.

Huge thanks to our Administrative Liason, Janrey Serapio ‘20, for planning and hosting this event! You’re the best, Janrey!

[vassarasa-blog]

JONNY SUN!

On April 6, 2018, the author of “everyone’s a aliebn when ur a aliebn too” came to talk to Vassar students about his work and life as a doctoral student at MIT, an affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard, and a creative researcher at the Harvard metaLAB, where he studies social media and online community. Jonny Sun traveled to many places and talked about how he uses Twitter as a diary and space where he could call home; he created a space where he has a sense of feeling of knowing what to do. In one of his posts, he said “ you have ur entire life to worry about the rest of ur life. just get through today. dont tell urself "dont worry" but just.. worry smaller.” Many Vassar students enjoyed his presence and were inspired by his work. Photo credits to Kevin Arce. 

Website: https://www.jomnysun.com/

[vassarasa-blog]

Brown/Round/Queer here.

AC Dumlao, a trans non-binary Filipino-American artist, activist, and educator visited Vassar on March 31, 2018 for a talk and workshop on intersectional identities, inclusive activism, and their experience growing up going to a Catholic school. They graduated from Vassar in 2013 and were profiled by NBC Asian America for the inaugural #RedefineAtoZ list of AAPI (Asian-American/Pacific Islander) emerging voices in Spring 2017. Mx. Ac’s work has touched the many hearts of students and seeks to uplift and center underrepresented communities; they talk about mental health and what it means to be confident in being who you are. 

Photo credits to AC Dumlao

Here is a link to their website: https://callmethey.com/

[vassarasa-blog]

The East Coast Asian American Student Union conference was held from March 2-4, 2018 at Cornell University, and it brought together students from various universities and colleges to “inspire, educate, and empower those interested in Asian American and Pacific Islander issues.” Several workshops sought to explore student’s internal and external identifies, identify the stratification of privilege, define radical love, and draw lessons from past activists’ actions to inspire our own quests for transformative justice.

There were also spectacular speakers who came and provided empowering words of wisdom despite the snowstorm. Paul Tran, a Vietnamese poet, educator, and editor ignited roars from the crowd as they expressed their passions through well-written poems. Steven Lim from Buzzfeed told us he was honestly nervous speaking in front of us, and we had a good laugh from his talk. Mei Lum and Diane Wong talked about the violent gentrification in Chinatown and how the displacement of residents was perpetual and stripped away their basic livelihoods. Lastly, Mimi Thi Nguyen, who is the Associate Professor of Gender and Women's Studies and Asian American Studies at the University of Illinois, mentioned about POC punks and her journey as a zine creator.

Vassar students believed that this conference was a great way to “get to meet and connect with new people better.” ECAASU had given individuals a better sense of different environments for Asian Americans at other colleges. One student said, “I realized the impact I can have if I choose to make a difference.” Students were motivated to be more active and create change that could better the lives of other people.

Photo credits to Heather Phan Nguyen

[vassarasa-blog]

selection from "aestival asthma"

i. hong kong age 13

the heavy homeland air of hong kong

poured harsh and milky down my teenage throat

it strangled me with my own timeline and bloodline knotted around my throat

it easily pummeled my made-in-china lungs from the inside of my chest out

and held me down in a fake room where i wheezed and whined;

i was always capable of inhaling the american dream

air that animates flags above an unapologetic land

but i could not down my motherland’s harsh realities,

compact air that coughed hot breath on our thin damp garments

clotheslined over rusty, chipped apartment balconies

suspended fearfully high above murky streets

where a shallow fog of people in sickly pastel-green face masks makes its path

my uncomfortably intimate encounter with an ancestry i’ve never known i’ve always known

i shared space with my past in a hot, cramped high rise

unfortunately shamed to believe that my blood was as dirty as the air i breathed

by jonathan how yu chung

[vassarasa-blog]

“Watercolor of a sushi platter, which was served in a small but reputable restaurant in Tokyo.

If there’s (only) one cuisine that I could eat for the rest of my life, it’d probably be Japanese. Whilst traveling there (and conversing with my Japanese friends), I realized how important the aesthetics of the meal is to them. There’s beauty in the placement of food and I had to paint an example of it.”

by AX, 1st year artist extraordinaire

[vassarasa-blog]

pressure

i wobble between sheer fear and quiet hope.

my thoughts are nebular - quivering above me in knots and turns.

attempts at positivity ebb and flow, then sparkling, then dimmed,

dichotomous feelings of disaster and calm soak into my pores.

i wobble between sheer fear and quiet hope.

everything i have not done waits ahead, wringing me out, grappling

my heart, the broken metronome, counting off the seconds i waste.

i hold my breath - and all my fears come crashing back.

i am not ready to face tomorrow.

From ML, a 1st year student

[vassarasa-blog]

If our work requires a trigger warning, is that okay?

Yes— of course! Thanks for asking! We’ve updated the “Submit your work” page to include a section on trigger warnings. 

[vassarasa-blog]

Death and the Vietnamese Diaspora

Submitted by Richard Le My last living grandparent died recently. She was in her late 80’s. I never spoke to her as an adult— because of our language barriers, I wouldn’t have been able to anyway— but I have fond memories of her home in Bến Tre, Vietnam as a child. 

It brings me bittersweet joy to think about the red bean ice cream that I would buy from the street merchants and the siestas that me and my sister took near the altar on the roof that commanded the grandest view of the block.

But the neighborhood around her home shifted and morphed as much as my connection with Vietnam and my understanding of what it meant to be Vietnamese and American. Urbanization reshaped the landscape of a speck of my childhood. Once a sole, towering, blue-stuccoed monolith that overlooked the nearby area, I have now heard that the neighborhood today is surrounded by multi-story apartment buildings and offices. And things never seemed the same after I had left; my grandmother’s prized talking (and swearing) parakeet died shortly after we returned to the United States.

It makes me deeply sad to realize that her knowledge, wisdom, and lived experiences— 80+ years of unimaginable experience of the remnants of French colonialism, the Vietnam War, and a changing world— are lost forever. And I— we— are left to live with the heavy heart and everlasting uncertainty of what was before, what is now, and what is to come: diasporic children of immigrants, second-generation Vietnamese Americans.

Sept 2014