More Than A Magazine, A Movement
“Your son raped my daughter. As a mother, my life is now consumed with a new kind of worry for my precious daughter. (And myself.) … Our anonymity is for our emotional protection—not because of any shame on our part. You, parents of the rapist, you are the ones who should feel the shame.”
“In the Chinese zodiac calendar, 2020 was Year of the Rat—a year of supposed alertness, adaptability and observation. As a biracial Chinese American woman, I began to process what it means to be a person, woman and daughter of color in American society and in the current climate, and the year 2020 became, to me, the Year of the Daughter.”
Front and Center is a groundbreaking series which aims to put front and center the voices of Black women who are affected most by the often-abstract policies currently debated at the national level. The series highlights the success of Springboard to Opportunities’ Magnolia Mother’s Trust program, which this year will give $1,000 per month for 12 months to 100 families headed by Black women living in federally subsidized housing.
“I was part of the very first Magnolia Mother’s Trust program, back when it was just 20 moms almost three years ago. Then, talking about giving out money wasn’t this thing it is now, but I had a feeling it would be something bigger even back then. Because helping single moms, helping single women —it’s a great cause and people want to get involved with that.”
“I am, in mind and full heart, a New Yorker to myself. But, even in a city that is nicknamed The Melting Pot for its diverse population … I am still not universally recognized as a New Yorker, or even as an American, because I am Chinese.”
Rush Limbaugh made it clear: Women who desire power and self-determination weren’t real women at all.
Luckily, most of the values I learned—hard-work, guts, grit and kindness—far outweigh Rush Limbaugh’s disturbing messaging about how to be a woman in rural America, but it was a deep sexism that fueled the birth of my feminism.
A personal piece about the overlap of the body positivity movement, anti-racist activism, and musical theater:
“For theater kids, performing a title character twice before college is a dream come true. To me, as the person standing center stage, it was also a nightmare.”
We have 13 days left, and I hope we can survive it.
We can celebrate Warnock and Ossoff’s victories, at the same time that we hold accountable those who want to destroy the equality feminists and women of color have worked towards for centuries.
Prior to the pandemic, we were barely hanging on as we struggled with the strain of a too-busy, too-individualistic lifestyle, as we tried to prove we could take care of ourselves by suffering in our nuclear families alone.
Imagine a world where collective care was a daily practice rather than a reaction to cancer, global pandemics and structural oppression. By engaging in collective care, we may begin to believe that we belong to one another.
The chess world is not quite the women-friendly utopia depicted in “The Queen’s Gambit”—it’s full of sexual harassment and hostility.
I hope that sharing the jarring experience of my travel during COVID-19 will open eyes to the scale of the current situation, the contrast in attitudes between Americans and Canadians—and remind everyone the important power of kindness in these trying times.