chapter 2
Content warning: sex, sexual assault, rape, mental health, queerphobia
One of my favorite student-run shows at this university is the South Asian feminist student organization Yoni Ki Baat’s monologue show. I attended the show for the first time last year, and it both touched and challenged me in different ways. This year, I was invited to help co-write and submit a piece on cultural appropriation through the connection of my good friend Amy. She was originally invited to help write the piece, but as a transnational adoptee, she didn’t feel like she had any cultural ties and didn’t resonate with the topic as much. The piece didn’t end up in the final lineup, but I appreciate having had the chance to meet people and have difficult conversations about how our own marginalized APIA community can be harmful and oppressive towards other marginalized groups.
I attended last year’s show with Jamie and Amy, so the three of us bought tickets to watch together again. Sitting in the same auditorium at the Rackham Graduate School, I thought back to being in that room last year.
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“Remember how I cried eight times the day of last year’s YKB show?” I said self-mockingly to Jamie and Amy.
“Oh no! March 2017 was the worst,” Amy laughed. “What made you cry again?”
“I mean, I cried during this show, but I was just not okay at that time,” I replied.
“Wasn’t that when you were going through all that mess with Josh and Evan? And you were obsessed with being a part of the friend group even though you were literally in the friend group?” Jamie chimed in blatantly.
“Wow, I didn’t come here to be attacked but you are not wrong,” I responded, laughing.
I’ve come a long way in the past year. Listening to these women of color sharing their experiences with racism, sexism, colonialism, and more, I thought about how I felt last year--slightly awkward not knowing many of the people on stage, so shy to snap during resonant moments, a bit defensive to being called out through the pieces for my East Asian privilege. This year, I knew a lot more people both on stage and in the audience, my fingers snapped before my brain told them to do so, and I found myself challenging them on the minimal queer and trans representation in the show. And when I think to the past four, even eight years, I feel even more proud of my slow but steady growth. Old habits die hard, but at least I am trying to kill them.
One piece from this year’s show particularly got to me. It was an anonymous writer’s story about the process of how a seemingly innocent meetup with a boy turned into a seemingly unaware rape. The story walked through the steps of how it got to that point in a piercing way, but also elaborated on the aftermath: how the writer couldn’t touch anyone for a while, until they slowly started dancing with boys, kissing girls, dating a trans person--but with lingering trauma. I closed my eyes as I listened, getting distracted by deeply stored memories floating and flashing in my head.
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