HOEVICE

Japanese internment happened.  The Chinese Exclusion Act happened and was not repealed until 1943.  Chinese people could not become American citizens until 1943.  Asian Indians could not be citizens until 1946.  Japanese people couldn’t become citizens until 1952.  Asian-Americans had no voting rights protection until the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Make no mistake: discrimination and racism against AAPIs has been built into America from the start.  The diminishing and erasure of our contributions to building this country continue to this day.  We are the fastest-growing group and yet we either stay silent or are silenced.  We are not taught about our civil rights leaders.  We are conditioned to believe the myth of the model minority.

When it comes down to it, the rights we have today are a result of the Black civil rights movement and those Asian civil rights leaders who stood with them.  We are indebted to them, but as a group we don’t show it.  We are taught anti-blackness and colorism from an early age.  Some of us never realize our own racism and bigotry.

But we have to first understand it and second fight it, because this country is built on oppression of people of color.  You are either with other PoCs or you are not.  I’ll give you a hint: solidarity is the key.  Realize that the enemy is not other PoCs.  At the end of the day we aren’t white, and the past and present shows that.  They will try to divide us and pit us against each other.  They will offer us a seat at the table only if we remain lower.

That is, to be frank, bullshit.  That is not equality.  Reinforcing the hierarchy that white people have built only reinforces white supremacy and racism.  The faster we as a group understand this and combat it, the better.  This Day of Remembrance is a stark and moving reminder that we AAPIs remain targets.  It follows that it’s in our best interests to stand with other PoCs.

I support solidarity.