Category: From the Collection

by Joy Freund

The digital and print version of the zine, Asian American Feminist Antibodies: {care in the time of coronavirus} is a collection of stories, essays, and artwork that offers tools and testimonies on navigating the COVID-19 pandemic as an outbreak that has been racialized as Asian. The zine was released in March of 2020 as a collaboration between the Asian American Feminist Collective and Bluestockings Bookstore. Editing, curation, and design of the zine were led by Rachel Kuo, co-founder of AAFC, in collaboration with Salonee Bhaman, Matilda Sabal, Vivian Shaw, and Tiffany Diane Tso. Birthed through an experimental process of building coalition in digital space, the zine features pieces contributed by a range of community members and perspectives including healthcare workers and caregivers, students, people living with chronic illness, journalists, and community organizers. Its content is divided into three primary sections in the following order: frameworks, stories, and resources, and includes content spanning a range of forms including poetry, essays, stories, visual art, as well as resource lists. In the midst of a global pandemic that has reinvigorated anti-Asian racism, the zine seeks to uplift protocols of care connected to Asian American histories and politics. The zine includes personal accounts, creative works, and analyses rooted in resistance to imperialism, capitalism, and patriarchy, and encourages networks of care that do not rely on the state.

The Asian American Feminist Collective is a New York City based organization of Asian American activist organizers, scholars, artists, and writers dedicated to community building and public and political education. AAFC emerged out of the surge of feminist resistance that initiated the Women’s March and Strike in January 2017 with the objective of reviving an Asian American feminist lens to create spaces for Asian Americans to speak to their intersectional experiences that may not be reflected within mainstream feminism. Bluestockings Bookstore is a volunteer-run, community-owned bookstore, fair-trade cafe, and community organizing center located on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

by Gabor Ptacek

This image depicts an art piece by Kathy Liang, who was a senior in high school at the time of its submission (May 26, 2020) to A/P/A Voices: A COVID-19 Public Memory Project. In the piece, a red figure in the center of a virus cell is speaking to a blue figure sitting in the fetal position. Surrounding the two figures is a quote from a student in University of California, Los Angeles’ Asian Pacific Coalition. The acquaintance of the student said, “… I’ve been trying to stay away from certain types of people… if you know what I mean” and “you’re not like from China.” At the bottom, there are more drawn virus cells. The artist’s Instagram handle (@kathydoesartstuff) is also at the top, left of the image.

This piece shares the fear and anxiety surrounding existence as an Asian-identifying person in the US during the era of COVID-19. Stop AAPI Hate, a center founded in March of 2020 to “track and respond to incidents of hate, violence, harassment, discrimination, shunning, and child bullying against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States,” released a report sharing information about the discrimination Asian-identifying people faced since the inception of Stop AAPI Hate.

Liang’s art piece illustrates a melancholic recipient of the verbal abuse, who may also receive harassment online or from sources beyond school. It’s important to consider the influence this treatment has on the mental health of Asian Americans and Asian American youth in particular. In an essay published on June 10, 2020, authors Hannah Tessler, Meera Choi, and Grace Kao share how the COVID-19 pandemic affected hate crimes, negative biases, and the mental health of the Asian Americans. Liang’s art piece highlights the importance of discussing such incidents, and encouraging those affected to seek help. Finally, it brings a spotlight to such a topic so that those outside of these institutions (high school/college) may know these struggles and do what they can to assist.

by Annie Wang

This image is the last in a series of six peach-colored pages. A graphite drawing of the head of a Chinese lion dance costume fills the left side of the square, its arrival indicated by the body in the previous slide. To its right, yellow text fills the page with the words “But I remember the resiliency that lives within the streets and the people here, my community keeps me strong, and so does the legacy and stories of all those who came before us. I know we’re going to be okay.” These words conclude the comic on a hopeful and determined note after previous pages of uncertainty and worry about anti-Asian racism in Seattle’s Chinatown International District early on in the COVID-19 pandemic.

As Chau indicates in the comic, Asian immigrant neighborhoods such as her own were already vulnerable due to forces of gentrification, which were only exacerbated by the pandemic and the significant rise in anti-Asian sentiment and violence. The repurposed “yellow peril” rhetoric resulted in local Asian businesses suffering major economic losses and vandalism, uncertain as to whether they would recover post-pandemic or be taken over by people “with deeper pockets.” Attributing the spread of coronavirus to Chinese culture and bat-eating, restaurants were hit especially hard as fewer people visited the district due to apparent xenophobia.

Monyee Chau is a 1.5 generation queer Chinese Born American based in Seattle whose work seeks to decolonize and convey the “in between land” of the Asian diaspora. “A Comic on Resiliency” was made for and donated to the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience, an institution that seeks to empower Asian Pacific Americans (APAs) by hosting the stories, histories, and work of the community through their own voices. With the record loss of business in the Chinatown International District during the pandemic, Chau’s work fostered support for the Wing after they had to cancel their auction event. The resiliency comic speaks to the role of art to foster hope and solidarity in such trying times.