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Articles

Vol. 2 No. 2 (2021): Becoming (Un)Productive: Grieving Death, Reclaiming Life

Affections and Afflictions With You

DOI
https://doi.org/10.25071/2563-3694.51
Submitted
August 28, 2020
Published
2021-09-27

Abstract

This poem is about the underlying discrimination that East Asian people encounter in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. After the pandemic struck, I started to analyze my thoughts and feelings on subtle and covert racism, especially during quarantine, which manifested into this piece. My poem explores firsthand experiences of the kind of microaggressions that second generation immigrants from Asia are regularly subject to, as well as the realities of xenophobia, cultural confusion, and identity disjuncture we often endure. Through the poetic form, I expose how everyday interactions are laden with histories of anti-Asian racism and, more specifically, how the coronavirus has further revealed these concealed racist beliefs. The piece opens up the deep-rooted feelings of displacement I have long experienced and ponders if the recent rise in hate crimes against Asians are mere infestations of a hatred that has been growing for generations.