Anna Luo

I am the East and the West

A conundrum to the narrow observer

A paradox of ideology.

I am the East and the West,

Definitions stop within me:

Neither harmony nor solution

I’m simply the result of migration.

I am the East and the West

I destroy the constructed chasms of difference

I command your language better than you

I strike down your impression

I deny your selective oppression.

So when you denigrate the East

Do you denigrate half of me?

Am I spared –

Because I’m West enough?

An appropriate accent?

Ambiguous enough?

I am the East and the West,

left with my questions unanswered

with words unable to escape

to sum up how I feel

when I see people like me – with the East in them –

Made to answer for made-up crimes

Held responsible for being too Other.

On ‘Anatomy of the Other’

This poem describes the experience of being biracial or transnational whilst witnessing violence and oppression towards one’s people. Biracial children are often celebrated as the “solution” to racism, which makes the problematic suggestion that only by mixing with whiteness can racial equity and tolerance be achieved. In light of anti-Asian violence and hate crime during the Covid-19 pandemic, this poem reflects on the guilt of being “West” enough by being ethnically ambiguous or having a suitable accent as protection against the most egregious forms of assault.

Art by Peri J. Law (@perijlaw), perijlaw.com