(with lines from Langston Hughes) The student wrote in her assessment that she learned Asian Americans have evolved from being the filthiest to the smartest people. I guess she was thinking of the model minority, but somehow thought the stereotype a developmental endpoint, after viewing slides depicting how xenophobia is not new (nor only from 2016), but has been around for hundreds of years. "Yellow fever" scares were in editorial cartoons and magazines from the 1800s— In one, a rough-garbed Chinaman is drawn with buck teeth, sinister eyebrows, and a long queue whipping behind him like a snake. He stands suggestively astride a white woman prone on the ground, torch in one hand and smoking pistol in the other. 25 years ago, after arriving in this city, I didn't immediately realize why our landlord would drop by with no warning, and randomly mention that the previous tenant kept the premises scrupulously clean— though the week we moved in, I found a greenish slime across the entire refrigerator top. There have been students who refuse to address me by my title, even colleagues who've questioned my credentials. I used to keep quiet and just let the micro- aggressions slide, but not anymore. Not anymore will they pass. I laugh, and eat well, and grow strong.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
