Some acknowledged and some forgotten.
Exploited — to build these railroads thinking the pay was good enough because we naturally work harder than the American
Robots!
To be the competition of this white supremacy.
To conform to money hungry tactics so, we travel half day flights to America with suitcases filled with cash to buy out the property the recession pushed you out from
This cycle…
To pursue an American Dream that isn’t even obtainable by the American.
My mother left communism to get shoved down the totem pole by capitalism
Hungry to feed this appetite that will never be satisfied.
It took me 12 years to understand my cousin’s abuelita, is not my abuelita because I am the chinita that was never really accepted by the family — shoved into every clothing rack in every store.
It took me 21 years to understand that I am woman, powerful, God-like, a temple
And that no friend should ever let a friend be put in the emergency room by a man who didn’t understand her power
It took me 27 years, to finally say… I am a Chinese woman.
Not just, a little Chinese woman that you’ve imagined on the bus with the pink thank you bags with accents discounting cents from your chow mein orders to hustle every dollar
Not just, a little Chinese woman they have the audacity to push off the muni platform and throw bread at while crossing the street
But a Chinese woman — who has embraced her ancestors trials, her ancestors fight to survival, her mother’s attempt at being more.
I get told to be not be confrontational
To be just this little Chinese woman
Smart enough
You’re not white, but..
You’re more white so stop trying to be black
Fly under the radar
Set a new path and new future
Use your natural birth right into a labeled hard-worker
Use your hands to build and calculate
Instead of using my hands to fight you!
Instead of using my words to ignite you!
Instead…
Silenced.
This silence
Burns through my esophagus with words climbing up and punching through my lips
These words
That make your two beautiful eyes stare at me wondering
Why is this little Chinese woman.. so.. angry.”