Last year, I spoke at a conference and the title of my talk began with My Invisible Journey…
By then I had learned to control it, use invisibility strategically, as my power. The conversation about being invisible began with my AAPI community a little more than a year before the conference. We were grieving the hate and violence against Asians. Portland Women in Tech, PDXWIT, offered a spot on their blog for a few of us to tell our stories. Asian hate doesn’t stop because we make a hashtag. It stops when our own humanity becomes visible to those who would dehumanize us without giving it another thought.
I am a descendant of people whose names were replaced by Spanish ones some centuries ago. I am the daughter of immigrants who stopped speaking Tagalog to their children after my older brother was bullied in kindergarten for his accent. Kindergarten. I am a cousin to people who have lived and worked in shadows after arriving some decades ago on student or tourist visas. I know something about making myself invisible.
Yet on a day a few years ago at the Clark County Fair, a military veteran I had never met considered himself perfectly congenial as he took hold of my arm and hand with both of his. He then declared that of all the women in all the countries he was stationed, Filipina women were the BEST. Emphasis his. I did not thank him for his service.
I could have been one of those women killed in Atlanta but for the sacrifices that my ancestors made to lift me on their shoulders. I could stay quiet, as my ancestors would have it, to protect myself. But in unlearning my power of invisibility, I am learning to value my voice. I am learning that the rules of survival they taught us as children were made by the people who would deny us humanity. I choose to be seen, to exist, to thrive.
To my resilient API family, I see you. We are as diverse and abundant as our languages and dialects. We share the loneliness of isolation, the pressure of expectations, the gift of endurance and the grace of community. We cannot be erased. We are not their model minority, but let us be models to our descendants. The fight against white supremacy must be our fight, not one we leave for our children. We have always known the rules were rigged and how to best the systems used against us. It is time to make better rules, ones where people are not property, not disposable, not less than. Together, let’s use our power.