The Rage That Simmers

Imagine what it’s like to be told that you are a little brown fucking machine. 

What do you say? How do you respond in that moment?

You can feel the heat, prickly and tight, rising from your belly. Your ears catch on fire.

What do you say? What do you do?

You are a 5’2” Filipina surrounded by men’s laughter, breath full of booze, in a crowded half-lit bar with no escape. Hyper-aware of your clothing. Is your neckline too low? Are your pants too snug? Can you activate your powers of invisibility and disappear into the walls?

*

As I write this, I start to feel the old rage start to simmer.

But because I’ve done a lot of healing work over the years, I am able to observe and watch the tiny bubbles for a few seconds before it dissipates.

This has not always been the case.

I spent my twenties in a rage that roiled before the surface, ready to explode at any given moment.

Yet for my own personal safety, I could never release that pent up anger. 

And we all know what happens when you keep a tight lid on a boiling pot of water, preventing the steam from getting out.

*

One of the men in the bar was a former Marine who was stationed in Okinawa in the late 80s/early 90s. He was bragging, telling stories of conquest.

He was also my boyfriend-at-the-time’s roommate.

He looked at me when he said it.

Filipinas are little brown fucking machines.

The men laughed with a hunger for flesh that pricked the air.

I wanted to run. But I also wanted to fight.

“I could get you for a dollar,” he said, his 6’4” frame towering over me. You are a dime a dozen. Like ordering clams on a half shell at the docks. You are nothing but a hole for me to get off.

I felt a burn rise up inside of me and flash into a blaze. I felt my face get hot, my fingers curl into fists. My ears ringing. I stopped breathing.

I didn’t yet understand what was happening. But I so badly wanted to punch him in the face.

This, coming on the heels of having been raped a year ago.

*

I spent my twenties drinking. A lot. 

On the outside, it was what I thought all twentysomethings did on the weekends: go out and drink into oblivion. Shots with names like Mind Eraser, B52s, and Car Bomber. Vodka martinis, Long Island iced teas, bottles of wine, endless pints of beer.

I also spent a lot of time in kickboxing and boxing classes. I thought I was just trying to workout, stay in shape, practice healthy fitness. Though, admittedly, the other group fitness classes felt soft, too easy. They didn’t feel intense enough for me. I wanted to work so hard that I was out of breath every time. I wanted to hit and kick hard things. I never felt so alive. Or so I told myself.

One boxing teacher talked to me about training to be a boxer. Oh, how I wanted so badly to get into a ring. How, at one point, I wanted to simply get into a fistfight with someone. Bare hands, no gloves. Not to feel my punches land on a face. Quite the opposite: to feel someone’s knuckles slam into my cheek. To feel the power of an uppercut on my chin. I wanted someone to rearrange my face. Literally.

And maybe then, I could be a human being.

*

One summer, I attended a writing workshop for writers of color. I was 28. I had no idea what it was like to gather with other people of color, let alone writers of color. I was always surrounded by white people.

I didn’t realize how much role playing I did in my everyday life. How much fawning I did. How much people pleasing. How much accommodating.

Not until this workshop. Not until I understood what it felt like to be in a safe space. What it felt like to be seen and heard. Without explanation. What it felt like to be held by your own.

Those two weeks showed me I wasn’t insane. That I wasn’t the only one. That my anger was real. My trauma was real. That I wasn’t making things up in my head. And most importantly, that there is a kind of magic that happens with folks of color get together and cry and heal and love each other.

In short: those two weeks changed my life.

One teacher, an Asian-American poet and writer, sat with me after having read a story I had written. He said to me, “there’s a lot of drinking in this story.” Really? I thought to myself. What I had in there was normal. At least to me. He pointed out that in every scene, the protagonist had a drink in her hand.

“What is the protagonist hiding from? What is she numbing herself to?”

I didn’t have an answer right then and there, but something in me recognized what he was pointing to.

*

We are not okay.

Asian American women are fetishized and rendered as objects, as commodities. And disposable ones at that.

And no one cares.

It took the killing of 6 Asian women in Atlanta for folks to pay attention. Suddenly, the invisible has been made visible. But at what cost?

But, alas, even that attention, that visibility has been short-lived. The news cycle is on to something else.

So it is up to us AAPI women—and the entire AAPI community in collaboration and alliance with other communities of color—to heal from these deep wounds and to build resilience so that we can speak up, speak out, share our stories, and fight to be heard, to be seen, to be VISIBLE. We must insist on our presence, on our humanity, on our very existence.

We must insist so that we can finally release the rage, put it to rest, and thrive in our divine right to love, joy, and light.

*

This is part of the Maverick Monday series, where I talk about healing trauma (micro and macro) through the lens of a woman writer of color (that’s me!). Each week, I’ll share a personal story from my healing journey in the hopes that others will find comfort in knowing that they are not alone. I hope that by doing this, you can see that YES! Healing—true, lasting, deep healing--- IS possible and that you can thrive in your life, living as your most authentic self without shrinking from the world.