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What began as a 20-min quick-write in a writers workshop grew into my personal manifesto, public dedication, and political commitment … I wrote it in community. Among other writers, sharp and tender souls, bravely I wrote. 

“Ancestor Connections” is a poem celebrating the love, knowledge, and purpose that we already have deep inside us – if we choose to acknowledge and accept them.

In the 21st century, I am still hopeful that people try to think outside of the privileges that they have and understand that systematic oppressions have very real impacts. However, biases about what women of color can endure and transcend does not mean that we should be pushed to the point of exhaustion.

Many times, in the middle of the night, over the course of one year, I awoke from sleep and wrote lines for this poem. Even my subconscious wrestled with and struggled to understand what kept me alive during the day — HOPE. Believing that people could be better kept me alive. Believing that people could rise above and live beyond generational traumas, colonial legacies, and internalized oppressions gave me hope. And, it made me believe in people again and again.

This is a poem about the intimacies between food, memories, and being a transnational woman of color. I wrote it in real time while trying a new dish in Korea and grasping for language to understand the connections it evoked.

Sometimes, my notes came out as paragraphs. Other times, they formed poems. Here’s one of them.

“The goal was simple: Be the first to correctly identify the meaning then shoot the ball into the basket for points. In our case, the ball was a soft, green plushie toy that we named Softy and the basket was a plastic trash bin.”

“Looking out the window again, I recalled that if you have something that others think should be theirs, they will do their best to take it. Even when it’s yours, they try.”