saya

I wrote a 15-page paper on the practice of sati, or widow burning, where a widow burns herself alive on her husband's funeral pyre. I wanted to design something to share some of the facts I learned about the class/caste/religious/gendered motivations for why women committed sati (and yes, it was a deeply misogynistic practice).

pretending to gag at asian food

pretending to be weirded out by asian customs and cultures

excusing cultural appropriation (often through ignoring the stories of asians who have been mocked for wearing their ethnic dress while praising a white person for doing so)

not trying to learn how to pronounce an asian person's ethnic name correctly, or asking, "can i call you by something else?"

adopting an asian name for the ~aesthetic~

using the words "oriental" and "exotic" to describe asian people, particular asian women

ignoring the experiences and stories of south, southeast, *edit* west asians, and central asians

making sweeping assumptions about asian countries (including their political, historical and cultural landscape)

treating the entire asian community as a monolith and ignoring the fact that the experiences of asian nationals are remarkably different from the asian diaspora/migrant community