This article originally appeared on VICE Belgium.For over a year, Mélanie Cao has been posting portraits of Asian artists and activists on her platform Asiofeminism Now!, which she built to highlight Asian identities that are usually lacking in mainstream media. The project slowly morphed into the Belgian podcast Here I Talk About Something that Doesn’t Exist (or Je vous parle ici de ce qui n'existe pas in French), a show about the white gaze, gender, decolonisation, the diasporas and dreams of the future.
Advertisement
According to Ya-Han Chuang, sociology and migration researcher at the French National Institute for Demographic Studies, young Asian people today have become more aware of inequalities and the label of “model minority”, which “serves only to distinguish between ‘more desirable immigrants’ and ‘less desirable immigrants’,” she says on Cao’s podcast. “We are now much more aware of the historical depth of this racism and of these stereotypes. They serve to ostracise Asia and people from Asia as inferior, eternal foreigners impossible to assimilate into the Western body.”The goal of Cao’s show is to create an archive of minority representation, “so that we can’t say it never existed because we didn’t have words for it”, as she explains. “Neither white nor black, on the edge of race, Asian people seem to remain mute,” she says on the show. “What do they think, what do they experience, who and what do they stand behind? Searching for these stories is a solitary quest. We sometimes think we're the only ones going through things because there are very few similar stories, experiences and faces reflected back to us. But that doesn't mean they don't exist.”In collaboration with Cao, VICE is publishing some of the testimonials shared in her podcast. Below are the stories of people who opened up about their own journeys towards Asian-specific feminist collectives and the value they’ve added into their lives.
Advertisement
‘Just being in a room with other Asian people… is really new for a lot of people’
Advertisement
“Just being in a room with other Asian people or people from the diaspora is really new for a lot of people. It shakes you up to see your whole life in a new light. Outside our spaces, there are no words for the things we experience.“Once, my mother saw me talking about my experiences with racism in the newspaper and asked me, ‘Why didn't you ever say anything to me?’ I told her I didn't have the words, because nobody ever talked about it. “The majority of people [in our activist community] are women. We organise a lot of events, but at the end of the day, conversations held in safe spaces are about sharing feelings, and I think that's something women have been taught to do more [than men]. We try to get men to come along because we think it's important that they also learn. They also have a lifetime of repressed experiences. For some, it's the first time they've opened up, at least without being mocked.“The BLM movement was a clear source of inspiration for us – I realised that we could also take up space. Around that time, there was also the Atlanta [spa] shooting [when Robert Aaron Long killed eight people in three massage parlours in Atlanta in 2021 – six were Asian women] and the campaigns in reaction to the event, such as the Stop Asian Hate movement. They also inspired our collective.” — Lotus, 21, student and co-founder of Untold Asian Stories (UAS), a collective focusing primarily on anti-Asian racism
Advertisement
‘Before the doors closed, they spat on me’
‘It was like waking up after 28 years of silence’
Advertisement
“Being around Asian people is really powerful for me. It immediately creates trust. What you experience on a day-to-day basis is immediately understood. That's never happened to me before. The aim is to create a safe space, but also to create a movement with public initiatives (workshops at festivals, a dedicated block at demonstrations, among other things).“I'd been interested in feminism for around a year before I met the people at FAB. It was like waking up after 28 years of silence. Before, when I didn't feel well, I’d put it down to my emotional side, as if it was a fault. When I discovered feminism, I deconstructed these ideas, but it was often through the eyes of privileged white women, and there were certain elements that didn't speak to me as much. There was something missing. “As an adopted woman, I'm identified as Asian, but I don't have the same codes. I have ‘white codes’. However, when I'm at FAB, I'm completely integrated. They see me as Asian, and I am Asian – even if sometimes I still have trouble assimilating, understanding and believing it. Just observing the people around me and hearing about their experiences makes me feel like I belong. That's what's so powerful about being with this group: they are people who are like me and want to change things.” — Lindsay, 30, IT consultant and FAB member
Advertisement