If I Told You

1

2 3

If I
Told
Yo u
S p r i n g 2 0 1 7
4 5

Table of Contents
18
24
27
30
32
36
40
42
44
46
48
54
56
We are on the outskirts of the jungle
Our land is alive, Esperanza
I can’t fall asleep
Most nights, the room smells like kimchi
Yellow is a colour
A border separates between distinct things
I am anonymous
I feel around the rim of my pill bottle
i am 22 years old
When I was a sophomore I took Modern Genetics
Fifth grade’s a week away
A little girl ran to the doors of the church
Shahad left his brother and his watermelon patch
6 7
59
History

If I Told You is a Gordon publication that collects
anonymous stories from students and alumni regarding their
experiences with issues that are difficult to discuss within
the church. To provide a space for students and alumni to
share personal stories about topics that are often difficult
to openly discuss within the Church due to fear of shame or
judgment; To combat a sense of isolation these individuals
experience through stories and dialogue; To assist the Gordon
community in thoughtfully and compassionately engaging
with these topics.
Note from the Editor:
We share narratives that find themselves within the borders of identities. We are learning to discover and learn about ourselves
within the margins of the names we grew up knowing. This year, If I Told You chose the topic of Borderlands as a means to
collectively reflect upon the diversity of identities and stories that perplexes us, that enables us to find ways to grow. We ask that
you hold this publication with openness, openness to yourself, to wonder what those spaces within yourself are that have been
left unnamed. James Baldwin notes, “you think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world,
but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me
with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive”And it is also us—our community, that teach us that the things that
most torment and inspire us are the very things that connect us. May we continue to be open to building those bridges within
ourselves that we were told were unnecessary.
8 9

Resources:
Published By:
Gordon College Student Association
Edited By:
Rachel Dale
Ember Hayden
Willens Jean-Jules
Marianthy Posadas-Nava
Events Coordinator and Publication Manager:
Winnie Penketham
Designer:
Taylor Axtmann
Logo By:
Grant Hanna ‘06
Special Thanks to:
Dr. Rowe
Katie Knudsen
MIO
ALANA
Jennifer Jukanovich
Faculty Advisor:
Irv Levy
Gordon College Counseling Center:
P: 978-867-4301
E. counseling.center@gordon.edu
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline:
1-800-273-TALK (1-800-237-8255)
The Trevor Lifeline
(Suicide Prevention for LGBT Youth):
866-4-U-TREVOR (1-866-488-7386)
CDC-INFO (formerly known as the
CDC National STD and AIDS Hotline):
1-800-CDC-INFO (1-800-232-4636)
Veterans’ Suicide Prevention Lifeline:
1-800-273-TALK (1-800-662-8255), press 1
Treatment Referral Hotline (Substance Abuse):
1-800-HELP (1-800-622-4357)
National Sexual Assault Hotline:
24-hour online hotline: http://online.rainn.org
1-800-656-HOPE (1-800-656-4673)
National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline:
1-866-331-9474
National Eating Disorders Association Hotline:
1-800-931-2237
Lead Them Home
(Loving LGBTQ People In The Church):
http://leadthemhome.org/what-we-offer/talktosomeone
10 11

12 13

1. Find a pair of scissors
2. Cut along the dotted lines
3. Fold along the straight lines
4. Stick tab through slit
5. Build your bridge
14 15

16 17

1
5
asap /a·sap/ n.
The thing with cigarettes is that they don’t kill you all at once.
1. uap yang dapat terlihat yang dihasilkan dari pembakaran
2
Each time you inhale, a little more tar slips into your lungs. Every puff, every cigarette, every pack is a little step to the point where
you’re bedridden and cancerous and wondering why you made the choices that you did. At least smoking gives you the luxury of a
contemplative death. Some things kill quicker.
We are on the outskirts of the jungle, balanced precariously on the edge of an abandoned reservoir. It’s a sunny Malaysian day, and I am
puffing carcinogens into the atmosphere. I watch as the grey smoke curls up into the air, for a moment imperious. Danny* says a funny
thing and I am distracted from my observations as I laugh. By the time my smile has faded, so has the smoke.
This ritual is a regular one. Every weekend, or every other. We smoke and carry conversation that resembles the suspect crop in our
cigarettes: scattered strains, unfiltered, smushed messily together. But it is good. We talk Kafka and the girl he’s kind of dating and
Nietzsche and the faith that I’m unsure of and Vonnegut and how fucked up America is from what we hear on the news, how lucky
we are to be on an island on the other side of the world. And when the substance of our conversation is burnt out and all that’s left are
cigarette stubs held loosely between fingers, we let the last bits of smoke seep out of our mouths and take our cue.
6
For all the millions of my kretek-puffing countrymen who experience those drawn-out deaths, with time for reflection, there are others
that meet their end quickly. In the May of ‘98, many in my city did.
What began as a series of student demonstrations against the government devolved into violence when law enforcement shot and
killed protestors. Indonesians in the city and across the nation lashed out, the smoke of fury and unrest obscuring common sense.
The government was too protected to attack directly. There had to be a scapegoat. So rioters targeted the ethnic Chinese, my family
included, who were perceived to be corrupt and ever-wealthy and in league with those in power. The situation fanned into flame.
We wisp away on our bicycles for home, and it is as if we have never been.
7
3
I was born and raised in Jakarta, Indonesia. City of smoke.
I am a child, gazing out the car window. We’re stuck in traffic and it is normal. My small eyes scan the sidewalks and I see Indonesians
of all sorts—bankers and peddlers, chauffeurs and their employers. They are all the same, gripping their cigarettes loosely, smoke
trickling from the smoldering ends. We pass, and I see office buildings that hide banks and businesses inside them. Somewhere within
their tinted windows and concrete walls are smoker’s rooms, where workers can go on break to take a puff. We turn a corner and find
ourselves on a larger road, where every divider billboard is an advertisement promoting one cigarette brand or another.
It’s a smoky recollection. I suspect that it is many memories fused together, shifty and indistinguishable. It’s better that way, I think. It’s
true to the spirit of the city.
II looked up a video from that time on YouTube. I wanted to see what it was like. Here’s what it showed me:
A rioting crowd surging forth, shouting incoherently. You can’t see fire, but you know it’s there. Somewhere behind buildings are
burning. You know because of the smoke. It is instead black and dangerous, thick with evil. A far cry from the wispy grey trickles that
sprout from the tip of kretek cigarettes.
It is one of many fires that break out across the city at the time, as rioters loot and burn down Chinese-run stores, reasoning that the
rich can afford the loss. They don’t stop to think about how ridiculous that sounds, how irrational it is to assume financial status from
ethnic heritage, how the real enemy is a corrupt government that is largely native Indonesian. Blinded by smoke, black and thick, they
rage and there is gang-rape and destruction and the lighting of mad flames. Ironically and tragically, most of the people killed by the
fires are the looters themselves, trapped in the buildings they aimed to destroy.
8
4
A statistic: seventy-two percent of Indonesian men are smokers, the highest proportion in the world. That’s according to the World
Health Organization. Smoking is part of the culture. That’s just how it is. To be an Indonesian man is to smoke. I’ve seen it. The people
in my city puff on their A Milds and L.A. Lights and Djarums, just like my father did a generation ago.
He got into smoking at thirteen. Typical, for an Indonesian kid. He worked odd jobs to earn money, most of which he passed on to his
parents. He spent them on kretek, clove cigarettes. He smoked with all his friends, smoked like all the adults. He smoked like his middle
school history teacher, who couldn’t teach without a cigarette in his mouth. He smoked with the advisor for his high school newspaper,
who passed out cigarettes to his students with a conspirational wink and smile, saying Don’t smoke these, they’re bad for you.
We live on the east side of the city when the riots rage, away from the center of the violence. Wealthy areas with a known concentration
of Chinese are the go-to targets. We’re a little safer. We aren’t wealthy, and we live in a mixed-race neighborhood. We leave early in the
morning, and we’re fortunate to still be able to catch a taxi, fortunate the airport is still running so we can board a plane to fly away
from everything. I’m not yet a year old. We land on another island to stay with my grandmother, who is Chinese too. Except she’s lived
here all her life. Like her husband did, before he passed. Like my father and all his siblings, who don’t speak Hokkien or Mandarin or
any other Chinese dialect. They speak only Bahasa Indonesia, and sing the anthem, and struggle to make ends meet like everyone else
in their country. In spite of all of that, all the progress they’ve made—my father and uncle changing our surname to make us seem less
Chinese, my grandparents accepting the assimilation policies that stifled their language and traditions, my father enduring the jeers of
fellow schoolchildren and their cries of Chinese pig-eater! When you die you’ll be crucified!—can go up in smoke.
My father quit smoking at seventeen when he became serious about church.
18 19

9
We fly back a couple weeks later, and things are okay. The government has changed hands by the time we arrive. The economy
improves, protests taper out. As a child growing up in my city, I am okay. I attend school alongside other Chinese and native
Indonesians, experiencing no prejudice that I can recall. After sixth grade, we move to Malaysia, to an island called Penang. I go to an
American school there, and I become friends with Danny. Three years later, we’re smoking on the edge of a reservoir on the outskirts of
the jungle. Three years after that I’m in America, far away from the city with the smoking rooms and cigarette billboards, far away from
the place where men lit angry fires, blackening the air with the smoke of their misplaced hate.
I don’t blame the angry rioters. Then again, I don’t have the right to accuse or absolve. My father, growing up with discrimination in
our smoky country, has that right. As a Christian, he forgives. He understands why the looters did what they did. He grew up poor, like
them. He looks down on the inept government for letting the situation grow out of control.
10
When I talk to my father, I appreciate the things that he’s been through, being Chinese, being Indonesian. But I know it’s nothing that
I’ve lived, nothing I can relate to. It’s been decades since those childhood days when my father smoked, when children called him
pig-eater. The riots that happened in my lifetime are too long ago for me to remember. So I feel like thin smoke, the last curling wisp
of a transgenerational memory, only a little Chinese, only a little Indonesian. From the first flame, the culture stoked by my Chinese-
Indonesian forefathers, comes the thick smoke of my father’s experience, of his father’s experience. I am but an afterthought: a trickling
vapor, insubstantial and barely visible, a shamelessly Westernized wisp whose Indonesian identity amounts to a brokenly spoken
language and dubious memories of cigarette billboards between city roads.
11
Even the memories of my childhood and my city are smoke. Psychology teaches that all memory is reconstruction, a never-perfect
piecing together of things that once were. Every recollection is just a thin reflection of the original event, fading with the passage of
time. That’s why what I remember about the city of my childhood lacks detail. That’s why I had to contact Danny again to see if our
memories matched up. That’s why my father had to repeat the stories he told me when I was younger of his own childhood and of our
escape from the riots. His memories, too, must be smoky after all these years.
Smoke is still something, though. It’s not a thing you can fully grasp, or hold in your hands. But it’s substance of a sort, however
insubstantial it may seem. If we squint hard enough, we can see that there is a form to smoke, and it is beautiful. Memories are a little
bit like that. It’s a beautiful thing to recall an experience, to put structure to smoke.
12
Danny’s driving up from Arkansas to visit for spring break. It’ll be good to see him again. I think we’ll have a smoke, for old time’s sake.
Perhaps we’ll talk about Kundera and the girl he’s engaged to and Tolstoy and the faith I’m sure I have and Vonnegut and how America
isn’t as bad as we thought, that it’s just as screwed up as the rest of a humanity that sends smoke out of the broken windows of Chinese
stores in Indonesian cities. That it’s just as messed up as the rest of a world that produces kids like us, like my father, who happily
breathed the fumes of a slow-killing poison.
And then, when the substance of our conversation is burnt out, we’ll stomp our cigarette butts out on some Massachusetts sidewalk, a
far cry from the reservoir we frequented in the twilight of our tenth grade year, and laugh at how thinly we resemble the people we once
were. We’ll find it funny that all of life, that childhood and violence and memory and culture, is really just smoke curling up into air,
fading away.
20 21

The Gall-Peters Projection (1974)
22 23

Borders
“’Our land is alive, Esperanza,’ said Papa, taking her small hands as they walked through the gentle slopes of the vineyard….
‘This whole valley breathes and lives… It gives us the grapes and then they welcome us,’”
You were crossing into Tejas. You remember your mother crying when you came home after school, as a five-yearold
to, ask her why our people had killed so many gringos at the Alamo. She never answered me, but I understood her tears
the day we crossed the border to spend Christmas with friends in North Carolina.
“Mami, I need bathroom. Why is officer angry with us? Mami, my pee wants to come out!” If we had still been in the
ashamed of my blue passport that my father kept in his pocket for me. The blue passport that brought us here; anyways we
were only driving through the border because I missed the love that my young hands had received in North Carolina. Now
I wanted to peel my skin off and let it run down the Rio Grande. The officer never looked at my brother or me, because we
had blue passports, said my mother. She whispered this under her exhausted breathing after my father had pulled over so he
could hold her hair back as she puked all over the Texan dirt, and her shoes, and dress, and all over my father’s white skin.
Today I understand that the officer was ashamed because he could not respond to her in the same language that had
loved and given birth to them. He wanted her skin to hate him and keep the border intact: los gringos aquí, y los mexicanos
allá. If he could have, he would have taken my mother’s white skin into his hands to make it his own.
car, we would have all laughed, because Bebé made funny sentences with his three years of age. But Mami’s hands trembled,
and her brows pushed the skin between them to form an “N”. “The officer just went to make sure where the bathroom is
so we won’t get lost when he gives us directions to get there,” she said without looking into his eyes. Those were too many
words for Bebé; his little index finger twisted his blond curls, trying to make sense of what she had said. I didn’t understand
why we were here, either. Why would a police officer separate us from Papi? The officer didn’t know Bebé needed to use the
bathroom. Bebé had asked to pee after he left. Why did the officer storm out when Mami only pointed out that we were just
hold this page up to the light
like him? Why did she whisper to us that-- if he’d only been given love as a child, he wouldn’t have to be afraid. What was he
afraid of? My ankles were falling asleep. But I couldn’t move. Because when Mami had moved to uncross her legs, the officer
had yelled at her, and tears made her head look swollen. I didn’t want him to yell at me too. So instead, I played tic-tac-toe
with myself in my head, and swallowed every time I crossed out a square.
I was shifting to get closer to Mami’s chair when he yanked the door open and tortured us by violently jiggling
the loose silver doorknob on his way in. I was just then crossing a square. My sister’s big brown eyes looked small, and it
made me feel like I didn’t know who we were- nor why we had left nuestra Ciudad de México in the first place. The officer
pounced towards my mother, stopping centimeters from her nose. I heard her swallow. Bebé began to cry; his hand was
trapped between the officer’s knee and my mother’s. Bebé will still not tell me to this day what the officer said to our mother.
But maybe it’s because we were both too aware of Bebé’s piss running down my mother’s exposed legs, reaching the officer’s
black military boots in an embrace. I looked up to see my mother’s swollen head decompress as tears streamed down her
face- but she never looked away from the officer, even while he killed her with his eyes.
“You do not need to lay hands on me,” my mother said in Spanish to him. This made him jump back and stomp out
the door. “When we get to Austin, you can jump on the hotel beds,” she said to us shortly after he slammed door shut; after
I pulled the bitter taste of vomit back down my throat. I wanted us to turn around and go back to Mexico. I didn’t want to
hear anyone hold the rounded syllables of English in their cheeks anymore. I wanted the officer to tell us we could not pass
into the United States, even if he used my mother’s excuse of: because I said so. There is no welcome in shame, and I was
24 25

Liked
I can’t fall asleep. Trying to stop my thoughts is like trying to catch a fish with my bare hands. Not impossible, but definitely not worth
the effort. The main question I’m wrestling with, and I use the word question because it’s more pleasant than the word fear, is this:
Will they like me? My rational side is quite reassuring. You’re a great guy, and your friends are really nice. They liked you last year
so why would this year be any different? But of course, why listen to my rational side when I could listen to its loud and obnoxious
counterpart? You dumb loser, they’ll probably all hate you and think you’re not funny and I bet your new teachers will think you’re
a kiss-up and the girls will think you’re weird and you’ll probably be single the rest of your life. To be honest, that last sentence is
inaccurate. My real 2 AM thoughts are far less coherent. I wish pleasing people was an easy prospect, rather than a daunting and
confusing endeavor. I take deep breaths. Just as I finally feel relaxed enough to go to sleep, I remember that I haven’t thought of any
jokes to tell tomorrow yet. I spend the next two hours brainstorming.
Tomorrow is the first day of school. How old am I? What grade am I approaching as I sweat in bed, anxiously plagued by how others
might think of me? Third grade I think. Or maybe ninth? Aw heck, who am I kidding? This happens every year.
In my third grade class, there are only three guys. Connor and Josh are best friends, like two peas in a pod. I guess that makes me the
awkward pickle. I never seem to fit in. I try extremely hard to be one of the guys, I really do. I try to act like them, talk like them, even
eat like them.
“But mom, no one uses whole grain bread!”
“It’s healthier than white bread.”
Needless to say, I eat my peanut butter and jellies privately, hoping no one sees the seeds in the dough.
Josh and Connor often come to me for help with homework, but I long for the day when I’m seen as a friend rather than a tutor. When
I’m around them, I always try to downplay my love of school and emphasize my love of sports. I come into school one day with a
glorious T-shirt, emblazoned with a bold message. “FOOTBALL” it declares across the top in all caps. Before our first class starts, I
wander over to Connor to display my new prized possession, shoulders held high.
“Look Connor! I have a football shirt!”
“That’s not a stinking jersey. That just has the word football on it.”
I turn away, crushed. I thought for sure that such a brilliant boy shirt would make him like me, at least for an instant. When I get home
I ask if I can buy a Patriots jersey, but I’m told they’re too expensive.
26 27

A couples weeks later, I sit at my desk during lunch time. I dig through my Trader Joe’s lunch bag and feel a jolt of excitement. Under
the apple sauce and thermos of spaghetti, I see it! A bag of Cheez-its! I grab the pouch and open it, hoping to make a public scene as I
mind and realizes that I’m the one she was made to be with, not Joseph. Valentine’s Day is coming soon and I know just what to do.
First of all, give her Skittles. Any guy can give chocolate but Skittles are
eat this popular snack option. After talking a while with the girls, I decide to try my luck with Josh and Connor again. They’re across
the room making a train of dominoes on the table near the window, hoping to create a fun and exciting chain reaction. Munching
loudly on my cheesy crackers, I walk over to them.
shockingly original. Second of all, write her a romantic note. I choose to write an acrostic of the word BUDDY. Beautiful.
Understanding. Dramatic. Dreamy. You. Okay I’m kidding about the dreamy part but it’s definitely some other painfully cheesy word.
“Hey guys how’s it going?”
After school, I leave her the note and candy in her locker, then rush to the bus. As I ride home, I compliment myself on how profound
and personal the note was. Surely I have succeeded in winning her over this time. Later that night I get a Facebook message from her.
“Shh… dude, we’re trying to concentrate” Josh tells me.
It’s a large block of text but I skim through it, desperately searching to see if the feelings are reciprocated. I need this. At the bottom of
the screen I see the words. “I think it would be best if we just stay friends.” I cry. Why can’t she just like me?
“That looks really cool! Could I help?” Connor glares at me which I take as a maybe.
Every day I go through life looking to please everyone I meet. I’m at my most comfortable when I know everyone in the room likes me
As I walk to see the table from a different angle, my foot brushes one of the legs. For a brief second, I realize what I’ve done and
desperately wish I could reverse it. My heart collapses along with the dominoes. Josh erupts at me, asking what in the world my
problem is. Conner just rolls his eyes and stares at me with hatred. They run and tell the teacher what I did as I stare dejectedly at the
floor. The rest of the day, the boys give me the silent treatment. When I get home, I cry. Why can’t they just like me?
and so I often make it my mission to ensure that becomes a reality. Usually I’m pretty good at it. Time after time, I win over my teachers
and peers, only enjoying life when I know everyone enjoys me. But sometimes I fail. The angry shout from a coach, the muttered
insult from a bully, the disappointed look of a parent. Sometimes, people don’t like me and it eats at me. I traipse from conversation to
conversation, wondering what it would be like to interact with another human being and not care what they think.
It’s freshman year of high school and I’ve found my soulmate. Her name is Tori Jacobson but will soon be Tori Sprigg. There’s only one
problem. She likes my best friend Joseph. At our first high school dance, I was using the bathroom when “Stand by Me” first came on.
As I reentered the cafeteria, finally brave enough to ask her to dance with me, I saw her with him. Her beautiful body was pressed up
And now I come to you, oh reader. You know what? This time will be different. I don’t care what you think. I don’t care if you find
my desperate longing for approval pathetic, or if you think my usage of the term “awkward pickle” was rather absurd. I refuse to be
emotionally invested in your response to me as an individual. Go ahead. Hate me. I’m not afraid!
against his mediocre-at-best body. It made me sick. And now after that one dance, she’s apparently head over heels for him. I hope to
change that.
Just kidding. Please like me.
As the date of our second dance approaches, Tori asks me who I’m going to take. I gasp. I’ve never considered actually taking a girl to a
dance. That would mean I’d have to ask a girl to a dance. How awful. But as I stare into her brown blinking eyes, I boldly ask her, “Who
do you think I should take?”
“I think you should take Tina,” she says.
I take Tina to the dance. Tina and I have a rotten time because I am trying so hard to be a gentleman that I forget to have fun. Plus, Tori
is having an amazing night with Joseph which really doesn’t help matters. After the fact, I wonder why on earth I decided to take Tina
and remember it’s because Tori, oh my beloved Tori, told me to. I don’t regret it at all.
After weeks of obeying her every wish and constantly making her laugh, I start to think I’ve made progress with Tori. Every time I make
her smile, it convinces me that I matter. We have grown closer and closer now to the point where we are no longer just friends, we are
“buddies.” The endearing term we both use for each other points to the love I am now convinced is mutual. Maybe she’s changed her
28 29

Kimchi Refrigerators
January, 2015
- Most nights, the room smells like kimchi.
- Tonight, it smells like Red Bull, vodka, and later—vomit.
- Why had I come in the first place?
- YJ called me on the phone, come; Dan and Eli are here too.
- It’s 10 p.m. I said, packing an overnight bag.
- My mother smiled, trusting me.
- They won’t want to continue our Bible study, I remember thinking.
- We had one a month ago, in a December snowstorm.
- I never asked them about it, again, after that night.
- YJ’s parents own a small apartment building; they live on the third floor.
- YJ’s mother is in the U.S.A visiting her newborn granddaughter. She has been there for a year.
- On the ground level of the building, there is a cold, tile-floored room where a church meets every Sunday.
- There is a pulpit and a ping-pong table.
- In middle-school we would play for hours.
- That was before Xbox, and alcohol.
- Now, whenever I stay over, we sleep in the guest apartment—where they keep their kimchi refrigerators.
- YJ’s mother left those well stocked before she left.
- Eli’s 15.
- Legal drinking age in Romania is 18.
- In two months, I’ll be old enough.
- Dan is 13.
- You’re a pussy, Eli says.
- Ok. I’m a pussy, I say back.
- Red eyes, flushed skin, handing me a 2-liter bottle of Ursus. I push it away.
- I think they think I think I’m more holy than they are, but the truth is I know I’m not.
- He downs a shot of vodka Red Bull, then another when I refuse him again.
- The plastic cracks in his hands as he drives it into the sticky table.
- Dan is cracking jokes—his eyes slurring with his lashes, words dizzy and hollow.
—
- Two months later, my father and Mr. Dunckel—my old history teacher—took me to a bar called Beer O’clock.
- I remember them talking about weekly “beer and bible studies,” and after his second beer Mr. Dunckel couldn’t
stop talking about his passion for seeing Muslims come to Christ.
- The second time I bought a beer, I was with Bethel. It was late April or early May, and I hadn’t seen him for a year.
- I told him to get a Stout, and he did. I had one too.
- Then we shared a Belgian Lambic, and laughed about how women would usually drink those.
- We had shaormas after, at the Turkish place on the corner, near both of our homes.
- I remember singing while I crossed the street wondering if I was a little tipsy or simply happy.
Or maybe a bit of both.
- The Bucharest sky was black, but speckled.
- All the snow had melted from the concrete.
- While I walked to YJ’s, I knew if Bethel had still been here, we would be walking together.
- He lived behind the gas station in front of my apartment building. Sometimes I would jaywalk to get to his
house, even though my mother asked me always to use the crosswalk.
- Eli throws up in the toilet.
- I’m rubbing his back.
- This feels gay, he says.
- I tell him to shut up; he vomits again.
- They are passed out in the same sheet-less bed. I toss a rough blanket over their bodies.
30 31

Yellow is a colour, but sometimes society forgets to teach this. At least, not as much as they do black and
white. My culture is not broken, the way my English is assumed to be. That is, until I actually open my mouth and speak, in
which it then becomes a plethora of:
“Wait what but I’m so confused, I don’t understand.”
“This is absolutely mind-blowing to me.”
out, “Your accent is getting more and more American.” I didn’t know whether to take it as a compliment or an insult. I don’t
do it consciously, I can’t help it. Imitating, adopting, adapting is my way of surviving in the country. The more native I sound,
the easier it is for me to get by; the more native I sound, the less I remember that I am a person of colour, the less I remember
that I am still an “other”. How do I hold onto me in a country that doesn’t know how to accept me for me, which in turn makes
me not want to be me here? How hard do I have to work at making sure I am more than what I am perceived to be? How is it
possible that I have this irrational worrying about being an English major because a typo or grammatical mistake might mean
that I am seen as less than what I could be?
“Excuse me, I was just wondering; where are you from?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude but may I ask?”
“I apologize if I sound ignorant, but how?”
“Why is your English so good?”
“How is your English so good?”
I say this very cautiously, but as a person of colour, it is tiring having the repeated race discussion. It is baffling to me that
people can’t see, can’t seem to understand. Can people not see that it is everywhere? I don’t know, but I personally can no
longer hear the colours black, yellow and god forbid white without associating it with racism and the negligence we have towards
some colours and the bias we have for a certain one in this country. All the hashtags that trend on Twitter, Facebook
and Youtube channels are mere reminders of things we can no longer see with simplicity but they are labels being slapped
onto things that should not be segregated or formulated into minorities. #BlackLivesMatter should not need to be a statement
or something that needs reminding. How is it possible that we are failing so badly at our humanity that we desperately need
something to remind us of something that should have been etched into our morals our ethics in the womb before we were
even born into this world?
Naturally, I have mastered the perfect response each time this question is posed, and it usually goes like this. I smile, nod and
say, “Yeah, English is my first language,” which then segues into a whole other series of related questions. It becomes rather
cyclical.
There is this constantly shifting paradigm for what I expect of myself when it comes to dealing with my race, my words, my
class, who I am in America. I do not know where I lie on the societal spectrum, perpetually staggering back and forth trying to
figure out where I stand in this country. I am a person of colour; I am an international student, I grew up 18 years somewhere
else 8,000 miles away; I am a USA citizen, yes, I voted on Election Day; I speak English as fluently as any other American,
though sometimes I mix up the pronunciation for certain words because all my middle and high school teachers were British.
I carry with me markers that make me the “other” but simultaneously I carry with me so much privilege that sets me apart
from the other “others”; privilege that allows me to blend in with the rest of white America. When we talk about issues related
to race, we are actually talking about optical conceptions, it’s all about perception. Social class is prominent everywhere yet
it is often times invisible. Class does the work of race and is all-encompassing of a lot of social issues such as race and gender,
therefore is more defining in terms of our identity within society. The dissonance and division evident within the class systems
of America are overwhelming enough, but when I plug myself into the equation, I can’t seem to figure out where I fit,
and honestly, I can’t see myself ever finding an answer I’ll be content with.
If whiteness is equated with class, do I hold a certain amount white privilege? My British high school teacher once pointed
Being in America for almost four years has given me a perspective I never thought to look at back home in Asia. Is it possible
to be colourblind as a person of colour? Perhaps. But once I began to understand what I do now, everything came flooding in
all at once, words became angry when I realized all the colours in society that are painted over, colours that have been omitted
from the palette. I began to notice how my home has been whitewashed, layer upon layer of white paint, like the stereotypical
picket fences in America that I grew up reading about. The community strives to make my city white. It strives to please the
white. It strives to make white comfortable. It strives to help white fit in. It tries to make room for white. With the population
density of 17,024 people per square mile, there’s no room for white. But somehow my city manages to allow white to seep in
and force my city in a new direction. White privilege is an issue prevalent in my society but white feminism fails to fully encapsulate
what it means to be an Asian female in an Asian patriarchal society. Because it isn’t enough to simply be a voice, nor
is it enough to be a single Asian woman with a voice, because single women over the age of 35 are equated to dinner table left
overs. So we must find our voice before the age of 35, before our voices become irrelevant and seen as nothing but white noise.
There is so much colour everywhere.
Everything is white on the inside. Coconuts, brown but white on inside. Mangosteen, purple but white on the inside. Rambutan,
reddish pink but white on the inside. Twinkies and Bananas, yellow but white on the inside. Oreo, black but with a
white filling. Eggs are white but yellow on the inside, mangoes are yellow throughout. Even fish balls are golden skinned with
white insides. There are many foods that are white with yellow fillings but only one with the reversal. An egg. Why is the yel-
32 33

low called yolk but the white called white? Is this an example of white privilege? You see, I can no longer see something that
is purely white as simply innocently white. Why can I no longer see an egg for what it is? Humanity has been tainted by this
whiteness, and even if something genuinely is solely white I see it as being something superior.
Not one culture trumps another, but it scares me to know that this country that is aiming to MAKE AMERICA GREAT
AGAIN could be one that keeps my non-citizen friends out. I am a citizen of this land of the free, but it means nothing unless
I’m allowed to hold onto my culture without having it compromised for something supposedly better. I am waiting for the day
that white is no longer the desired color, not the one that defines minimalism, for we live in a maximalist society.
I am a privileged person of colour in a binary society. I am that voice; the muted one that people know exist but can’t hear. So
this is me trying to reach out and claw at society, for them to hear. Hear me. Yellow is a colour, but sometimes society forgets
to teach this. At least, not as much as they do black and white. But sometimes I forget that yellow is a colour at all.
34 35

A border separates between distinct things, represents where one thing
stops and something else exists. When you drive across a state border, it’s not a big deal, but if you travel long and far enough, you
may notice gradual changes between the states, see the changes in scenery, notice the types of license plates around you, the kinds of
buildings and animals that occupy that land, guess the financial status of that area.
My borders are not the same. There are no welcome signs with birds and flowers. There are no rest stops or tour guides and maps do
not exist. There are no attractions, nothing attractive about the states I cross.
The word, “sane” describes having reason, a healthy mind. Sanity is the state of being sane. Insanity is the state of being insane, being
mentally deranged.
I live, straddling the borders between these two states.
psy·cho·sis noun
“a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality.”
I wonder sometimes if people know how it feels. To actually live in a different reality than what is actually real. To undergo the tortures
and live with distortions and delusions that clash with your rational mind. To live with an understanding of the difference of sanity and
insanity, yet having to deal with distinguishing between the two in your own mind.
I physically live in the same world as everyone else, the same things happen around me as they happen to you, yet I am separated, by
the boundaries created by my mind, or brain, I’m not sure which one.
Welcome to the state of psychosis, the state of confusion, the state filled with hallucinations and crippling paranoia. Here, I started
the process of cutting myself off from the world, myself. Here, I’ve screamed in silence, unable to trust my brother, my parents. This is
where the reasoning, the realistic awareness of my irrational thoughts were not substantial enough, and paranoia wins.
This is where the hallucinations are so small, so ambiguous, so viable and seemingly authentic, it is impossible to distinguish between
what I am hearing and what is truly being said, or not said.
It’s not a joke, “People are out to get me.”
It’s not a joke, paranoia.
It’s not simply, “I am suspicious of that person.”
It’s more like “I know it’s not rational, but I’m convinced that everyone else is somehow coordinating something against me, and
everything I do, hear, see, think, and everyone around me is providing evidence to support that conclusion.”
Living in a state of “my thoughts are not safe” is terrifying. It’s the fear of sleeping because of the fear of what might happen to me when
I’m not awake. It’s the cessation of speech; they can read my mind anyway.
And finally, somehow, somewhere, slowly, I end up walking in the borderlands, where my journey in this terrifying state is slowly
coming to an end. And I’m not sure where I’ll be walking into next. It is not clear, no label or sign. There is no fence or gate that shows
me I am free, I am leaving. But this new place I’m walking towards seems to be closer to reality. The fog of paranoia is lifting and it feels
as if
the world is no longer a complex labyrinth trying to keep me trapped. But getting out of the confines of a labyrinth, is not easy to walk
away from, especially with confidence.
dis·so·ci·a·tion noun
“the disconnection or separation of something from something else or the state of being disconnected.”
This is much better than feeling like I’m fucking insane. I’m no longer crippled by the kinds of anxieties and stresses that accompanied
me in my state of confusion. The gunfire seems to have stopped; it’s not as loud in this state. I’ve walked into a state where there is no
conflict concerning delusion and reality. But I think I’ve entered the state of numbness and disconnection. I do not speak much, I still
have fear deep within me. It surfaces sometimes, but I don’t do much.
It’s more than just “zoning out.”
It’s more like a “blocking out.”
I guess it acts as a shield, does a great job of blocking off chunks of memories and events. Past and present. I have trouble remembering
things I did that day, which people I interacted with, the thoughts I had that day. Can’t recall or recognize most people’s names or faces,
can’t keep track of the things I’ve done, can’t keep track of current actions.
I’m living in some autopilot mode, where everything is a preprogrammed response or action. Breathing, listening, reading, writing
assignments, sleeping, watching Netflix. But am I really? Do I really recall what I wrote or read, what I saw or heard?
The moments where my true self does come out are rare and short lived. Unpredictable checking in, but there’s relief in the reliability of
the checking out.
I’m in this borderland where I’m stuck inside my mind and yet I’m in my body, which is presently in the world, alive, breathing,
functioning.
I could be walking, looking directly at you, and you could be looking right at me, but I don’t see you. Or sometimes, it’s the other way
around. My body feels paralyzed and I’m screaming “move, do something, say something, just anything, whatever, please.” Nothing.
I’m in the state of constant disconnection. Mostly I’m staring at nothing, a blank screen, or have headphones on, music playing but I
don’t know what songs. We could be talking, and I hear you, I’m listening to you. But there is often very little output. I want to speak,
but nothing will come out. I want to talk, but my mouth won’t open.
36 37

Dissociation is scary. I can see myself and have no control of what I’m doing. I can see myself, but I’m not really there, I’m not there and
I can’t feel, as if my nerves have been disconnected.
Recalling things that I didn’t remember before. Losing memories.
Always losing parts of me, little pieces of me falling out of my hands no matter how hard I hold on.
trau·ma noun.
“a deeply distressing or disturbing experience.”
It literally translates from the Greek word to “wound.”
This is the state of inescapable pain and unknowns.
Wounded by things I don’t remember. The missing memories and the little snapshots of what I do remember, do not fare well together.
A state haunted by uncertainties and unanswered questions, questions I don’t even know of.
My presence is just an act. I am in college because it’s what I’m supposed to be doing. I am here, but always keeping a distance. I exist
here, but I commute between the state of pain and disconnection. The unsettling fears of re-entrance, the painful discomfort of the
battles between my thoughts and my mind, my brain. The battle between feelings, pain, fear.
I hope you never enter this land, these states. But keep in mind, it’s not just me, and there are states left untold. Many are familiar with
them. Some hide it well, some do not. Some heal, some move on, some do not. Keep in mind, people do live in this maze of reality,
surrounded by borderlines that are not always defined or visible.
38 39

An Anonymous Coming Out
I am anonymous.
But here I am.
I am bare.
Only I know me, my identity, and my pronouns.
I’m finally coming out to my select few.
I am honest to them and myself.
I am bisexual.
I came out the other day to a friend and I want to keep it on the DL.
I’m scared.
Because I’m in a position of leadership.
Because my environment is against it.
Because I don’t want to make the other people on my floor uncomfortable.
If I come out publicly, it could change my relationship with my friends and colleagues.
They’ll think I’m checking them out or hitting on them.
They would feel uncomfortable in the restroom and alienate me.
I’m aware of their ignorance and discomfort with with the term “queer”.
When I came out to my close friend
We acted like it was nothing.
Because it was.
I’ve been in they’re room while they changed and it was nothing.
Because it was.
It’s a body.
I have one, they have one.
They were just doing something mundane.
It’s natural.
The idea that I would lust after everyone I see is ridiculous.
I know.
My friend knows.
And I’d rather make peace with this.
It’s like an issue, pet peeve, addiction, or hobby. I am none of these things.
I am not my sexuality.
I am a human being.
And it’s my business.
I don’t need to broadcast this everywhere.
It’s like how only a few of my friends know my pant size.
It’s not something I discuss.
I feel no need to.
And part of me is still trying to figure this out.
Is this really a sin or was it a cultural issue in the Bible?
If I did not come out or admit to this, would I be sinning more by lying?
Is this something in the Bible that still applies today?
Is it part of the faith or was it part of the culture?
Is this considered okay?
Or is this something that I am supposed to “struggle” with?
If I’m meant to be celibate or single, why am I also attracted to the opposite sex?
I don’t know how to feel about this.
If I had kept this in the dark for any longer, it would have eaten away at me.
I told her that I didn’t know if I should tell my parents.
They don’t support this.
She said I didn’t have to tell them.
It’s none of their business unless I have a significant other.
She said it’s like a pant size.
If I have a new pant size, it’s my business.
And I agree.
I’m finally speaking up because I’ve known this for a long time and just ignored it. The Bible says, whatever you keep in the dark will
eventually come to light.
God knows.
40 41

Undiagnosed
I feel around the rim of my pill bottle, trying to line up the little triangles of the child lock between my thumb and middle finger.
In my head is a fantasy where I dump ten, twenty pills into my palm. The clinking of chalky pellets is a pleasing melody in the
darkness. It is too many and a few more for good measure. My roommate breathes in and holds it, waiting to hear if I drop
the extra back in. She will breathe and listen until I tumble into bed and all is clear. I will tumble into bed and not wake in the
morning.
I pause in the artificial moonlight of the bathroom night light and fiddle with the lid as quietly as I can. The cool plastic slides
under my fingertips, and I enjoy the thrill of standing in my underwear and socks at two in the morning. Finally the bottle clicks
open and I sprinkle three into my hand, instead of the recommended two. I swallow them dry because it suits me to.
I climb into bed and doze off wondering if ibuprofen can even kill you, or if it only results in a she-barely-made-it recovery. I
think that I would guzzle the whole bottle, just to be safe. I wonder what that slow, numbing dying would feel like and how long
you stay conscious. Maybe a shot to the temple would be better, but how does someone even get a gun…
* * *
It is not unusual for me to think about death every other day or so. More often, I just catch myself thinking how much it sucks
being alive. But the thing is I know without doubt that I will never do anything about it, as long as I stay where I am. I have reasoned
myself out of every suicidal weeknight thought so far, and I can’t even put a razor to my skin. Sometimes my depression
prods me, come on, just try one cut. And I prod her, come on, just make me. But I’m not quite that bad yet.
Depending on what day you ask me, my conviction that I even have depression will vary from “I think so” to “absolutely” to “no,
I’m just tired.” I have been like this for years, residing somewhere between clinical and all made up in my head. I like it here,
because it is up to me whether I trick myself out of it or indulge in it. Sometimes I thrive on the drawn-out all-nighters, and
midnight runs to CVS because I just need some chips so I can focus. I just need the fresh air to snap out of it.
of my living room, then to a café, then back home, then frantically to the grocery store at 11:30pm because I realize I don’t have
any food for lunch tomorrow. I threshold back to the library, can’t get anything done, and threshold cross back home. I think I
love this idea of thresholds so much because of the precious five minutes of movement I get from A to B, when my eyes cannot
settle back into their daily blur. On long weekends, I run home, drive to Maine in the dark, fly to California, Canada, anywhere
that keeps me moving and my depression distracted.
* * *
Somehow in all these years, I have never actually been diagnosed. This is probably because I don’t want to be. I think about
going to a doctor and trying to explain that I only think about suicide recreationally, and most days I just feel a little sad, and my
grades are fine, and I have a job, and all that. Maybe the technical term is “low risk,” or even “no risk” if the psychiatrist is busy
that week. I also do not go to a doctor because I cannot decide if I am more worried that they will put me on meds I won’t take,
or tell me that I’m fine and just need to get more rest.
I am confusing even to myself because no matter how chaotically dim my insides feel, I always keep performing life just fine. All
the times I plead with her to make me crash and burn, I still find myself handing the paper in on time, making it to the meeting,
showing up for work with only some extra cover-up under my eyes.
I recently told a friend that I like being messy, and think it’s perfectly okay to live life here forever. I told him I don’t want to get
my shit together or fall into daily monotony. I want to keep my spontaneous movements, and I like the way my house looks at
3am. I wonder if I really believe this or if it’s just a convenient way to account for the last five years as the product of something
other than depression. I like this idea because I still get to believe that I can find my own way out. That maybe the kind of
“messy” I will be in the future is a bit cleaner, more in focus. But even if it isn’t, between the midnight pills and weekend running,
I’ll still be alive.
Other days I get to pass myself off as doing just fine. I have the organized planner and checked off to-do list to prove it. I have
the GPA to prove it. I get to tuck myself into bed at 10pm and cherish my eight hours. I get to call in sick and spend the day in
bed because normal people take “personal days” too. And I never feel so alive as the day after an episode. Everything is crisper
and I am more productive than ever.
* * *
Last year I had a professor who was committed to the idea of “threshold crossing.” One night in class she came close to tears
talking about something sad I don’t remember, and she told us that after a hard discussion it is good to physically cross a threshold.
The whole class got up, walked out of the room, and came back in. We were spiritually different on the other side of the
doorframe.
I think I have learned to take her theory a little too seriously since then. Every time my mind wanders somewhere too dark, I pin
it on being in the same space too much and obsessively cross thresholds. Obsessively keep moving. I drive to the library instead
42 43

Coming of Age
i am 22 years old, and
boy awkward in the fullness of womanhood,
a newborn grasping for new air, now,
a senior rocking to and fro wondering
where childhood has gone.
mother, your daughter shall never return.
father, your little girl never was.
sister, your sibling remains only in play:
that prince, pirate, adventurer, king.
that hoister of trousers and paper towel rolls.
that too-large shadow you sought to escape.
mother, auntie will blame you.
father, grandpa will lapse silent.
sister, our friends will pray for my soul:
that god, jesus, and holy ghost, three-in-one,
that punisher of gays and trannies should convict me such
that too-large a sin as this i should seek to repent.
sometimes i wish i could say that
i am 22 and boy,
awkward in the fullness of womanhood anew,
born grasping for new air,
now a senior, rocking to and fro wondering
where childhood has gone.
sometimes–
but my days of shadowboxing my own reflection are catching up to me
and i am dying.
the heavier my chest grows the heavier my step,
and i swear each month i bleed more.
i do not know how to tell you all this.
i only hope that if you find this before i find the right words that
i will be around to know and
i hope that you’ll understand and understand that
i am used to black and blue and all hues in between–
and so if you choose to cut
me
i will bleed a flood in the color of god’s promise sign and
love you all the same.
44 45

When I was a sophomore I took Modern Genetics.
One of my favorite parts of the class was the weekly ethics
discussions, but I was not prepared for the discussion on the
genetics of homosexuality. What was supposed to be a discussion
about genetics quickly devolved into my classmates giving their
opinions on how to handle the “gay issue” in the church. None
of their points were overly offensive, but during the discussion
my classmates didn’t even consider that a gay person might be in
the room. The issue was completely conceptual to most of them.
It was the only discussion all semester that I didn’t contribute
to. I didn’t feel like there was a place for my voice. The issue was
too real for me, too personal. My classmates wanted to discuss
a theological issue, not be confronted with a complex human
being. I left that room feeling more invisible than I ever had in
my life.
I was in high school when I realized I was gay. Mostly, I forced
myself not to worry about it. I thought that if I didn’t act on it,
it wouldn’t matter. The first time I realized that was going to be
problem was in a bible study. Somebody mentioned a same-sex
relationship, and the girl sitting next to me immediately let out
an exclamation of disgust. She let us all know that she could
not understand why someone would want to be in a same-sex
relationship. To her, it was revolting. I sat next to her in silence.
Slowly, I processed that she was talking about people like me.
I wanted what she found so revolting, so I must be revolting.
My heartbeat sped up, and a wave of nausea washed over me.
I wanted to leave, but I was wedged in a booth between my
youth pastor and the girl who found me so disgusting. For the
first time, I understood that it wouldn’t matter if I acted on my
attraction or not. There would always be a part of me that didn’t
belong in the church.
Growing up, the church was always my sanctuary, a place where
I felt loved and valued. I was raised in the church in the Bible
Belt. In many ways, evangelical Christian culture is my culture.
The stories of the Bible are my stories. Hymns and worship songs
are my songs. I have been having theological discussions since
I was three, when I asked my mom to explain the Trinity. The
church is my home, like America is my country. It might not
be the best, but it is the place where I understand the language,
the place where I am comfortable, and the place where I feel
like I belong. Realizing I was gay didn’t change any of this, but
it did give me an insurmountable fear that I was going to lose
all of it. I was afraid that I was going to lose my home, lose the
people I deeply cared about, and lose my God. Instead of risking
this, I chose to stay silent. I let my secret eat at my heart, eat
at my relationships with other Christians, and just devour my
relationship with God.
Over the last three years, I have told many friends and some
family that I am gay. Some of those experiences were funny.
Some were heart-warming, and some were heart-breaking. They
were all extremely awkward. Even though I have been honest
with many of the people in my life, I still have trouble talking
about my sexuality. I hate using the word lesbian to describe
myself, for example, even though it’s accurate. The phrases “you
know” and “the thing” are my crutches when I dare to bring
up the subject. And, to top it all off, I’m still not sure if God
is okay with same-sex relationships. I have been in love with
two wonderful (unfortunately straight) women, and I am still
not sure if that was disgusting or not. For the last four years, I
have walked the border between affirming and non-affirming.
I have prayed to God. I have cried out to God. I have yelled
at God. Everyone in my life seems to have an opinion about
my sexuality, but the only word I have ever gotten from God is
“wait.”
When people protested the life and conduct statement during
my sophomore year, I wanted more than anything to join them.
I wanted to find a community of people who understood me.
However, I never could bring myself to join them partly because
of my social anxiety and partly because I knew that I didn’t
agree with them. I didn’t want to bring my struggle into their
affirming space. I never wanted them to feel judged, especially
by me. Since I wasn’t affirming, I was scared that this group
would just be another place that I didn’t belong. I feared yet
another rejection, so I just walked by them.
Mostly, I have dealt with my internal struggle by masking my
true emotions. For me, it is the easiest way to avoid conflict.
When the topic comes up, I just brace myself like I do when I get
my blood drawn. My muscles tense up, I take deep breaths, and
I pretend I’m not terrified. One night I was talking to a few of
my friends who didn’t know about my sexuality when the topic
of Gordon’s life and conduct statement came up. I nonchalantly
put in my two cents, trying to pretend that the issue didn’t
matter too much to me: “Well, I just think that many different
denominations have different views on homosexuality. As a
non-denominational school, it seems inappropriate to include
a statement on homosexual behavior in our code of contact.”
However, on the inside I wanted to scream. I wanted them to
understand that the life and conduct actually affected LGBT
students on our campus. I wanted to tell them that the policy
made me feel unwanted and reinforced my fears that I could not
be a real Christian, but I didn’t. Instead, I let my blank face hide
a girl who was falling apart trying to belong.
46 47

Funny, Isn’t It?
Fifth grade’s a week away and I haven’t worked on my assignment yet. I’m supposed to make the comic section for our class newspaper
and I’m panicking. A girl in my class called a while ago, asking if I wanted to help her out. She figured because I’m the funny guy, I’d like
to make a comic strip for the paper she was starting. I agreed immediately, confident in my comedic abilities. Now I’m not so sure. I sit
in front of the blank piece of paper, fighting back a growing sense of dismay. I should have started this right when she called me but my
inner procrastinator won out. Now, the deadline is fast approaching and I’ve got nothing.
I run to my mom on the brink of tears, already picturing doomsday scenarios in my head. “Wow, he lost his sense of humor? That’s all
he was good for. Guess we can’t hang out with him now.” They’ll say that and more. I can already feel my popularity withering.
“I don’t know what to write my comic strip about mom!” I pant.
“Well, what’s something you all have in common?”
“I don’t know! Most of our class is girls! Why did Victoria have to ask me to do the stupid comics section anyway?” The tears are
starting to come as I realize the horrible truth. I’m not funny anymore.
“Why not write a comic about a class? It is back to school season after all.”
I go back to the paper, its blankness mocking my anxious heart. I wonder if I can scrawl the words “PLEASE LIKE ME” across the page
and achieve the desired effect. Probably not. I need a way to send that message with subtlety. I pray. Lord, help me to be funny.
catcher’s mitt and for a brief moment the scrappy stick of a second basemen was the best player on the team. Screaming with elation, I
ran to high five the guys in the dugout. My persistence had led to significance.
Hustle is essential to success, not only in sports. The comedian must also bust his butt to achieve his goal. Night after night, he takes the
stage to entertain. Joke after joke after joke until one day the right person laughs and he finally matters.
I’m in seventh grade Sunday school. The chairs in the old sanctuary where we’re sitting are dry and scratchy, much like our teacher’s
voice. I’ve lost count how many weeks we’ve spent in Revelation and it’s getting harder and harder to pay attention. Our teacher
mentions the Left Behind movies which reminds me of a joke I heard the other day.
“Hey Chris,” I whisper, nudging my friend next to me. Chris eagerly leans to hear me, glad for a reason to stay awake. “Did you hear
about that new movie Constipation?”
“No.”
“It hasn’t come out yet.”
Chris pauses a second as he absorbs the punchline, then explodes into a half-giggle, half-cackle. Our teacher stops, most likely knowing
that the Seven Bowls of God’s wrath aren’t the cause of Chris’s laughter.
Chris gets the worst of it, our teacher talking quickly and sternly with words like “disrespect” and “unacceptable.” It isn’t until afterwards
that he realizes I was the instigator of the disruption. I too get reprimanded. I outwardly express my regret for my irreverence and
disrespect but on the inside I can’t help but think that it was totally worth it.
I end up using my mom’s school idea even though I give myself the credit. I draw a “school of fish” with all of them floating behind their
desks and listening to their seahorse teacher. I carefully draw the classroom, filling it with underwater puns. It takes a while, but I enjoy
knowing that I’ve played my role. I exhale after finishing it, existential crisis averted. It makes the final print of the “Fourth Presbyterian
School Fifth Grade Times”.
It’s the first day of tenth grade and we are performing introductions. “Please say your name and give four descriptions of yourself ”
It’s the new kid’s turn and I’m not really listening, trying to think how I can condense myself into four characteristics. I know it’ll be my
turn soon and I’m already feeling nervous.
A week has passed and fifth grade has begun. I’m tired as I say hello to friends I haven’t seen all summer. Shutting off my brain the night
before school starts is near impossible so I’m running on minimal sleep. When Victoria starts handing out the papers though, I become
vigilant. I’m nervous for the moment when they’ll see the comic. It’s not funny. It’s a flop. How embarrassing. People are done reading
the front page and they’re flipping towards the humorless image. I take a deep breath, preparing for the shame.
“And I’m funny,” he concludes. My heart starts to beat a little faster as I realize the implications of what he just said. He’s funny? And
bold enough to describe himself as such? Class clown is my role and the threat of competition sickens me. My four descriptors must
be golden. Other people are saying theirs rather blandly, perhaps realizing that this exercise is meaningless, while I search for the right
words. What should I say? I feverishly rack my brain. Then, epiphany!
Surprisingly, they laugh, as if knowing that I need them to.
It’s my turn now. I swallow.
I always played my heart out in baseball. They called me Scrappy. While my best friend Michael won MVP, I won the “a little bit crazy
but I like it” award. Base running was the best part. When I ran, it didn’t matter how strong I was, or if baseball came to me naturally.
All that mattered was getting from Point A to Point B. I stole home once to tie the game. The pitcher gawked at me as I bolted towards
the plate, surely thinking “Nobody’s that stupid to try and run on me with the game on the line.” My foot slipped safely under the
I say my name. Then: “I’m funny, nerdy, and bad at counting.”
The slight pause gives me a jolt of anxiety but soon the room is full of laughter, the best medicine.
48 49

I had a teacher once who asked the class to only laugh when his jokes were actually funny. He said he didn’t want any pity laughs.
Yet we kept laughing at his dumb puns and random stories. I don’t think it was out of pity, more like kissing up. Sometimes I wonder
though. What would he have done if we had obeyed? Would the silence have tortured him, causing him to doubt his identity, frantically
wondering why no one was laughing? Or would he have shrugged and moved on with his life?
We’re reminiscing around the fire at yet another grad party. We’re talking about how our class could have made a good sitcom. We have
the egomaniac, the joke-telling nerd, the ladies’ man, the drama queen, the sassy girl, the super-sarcastic computer geek, and the goofy
Hispanic kid who always makes jokes about “his people.
“Everyone in our class is so funny,” I say. “And there was certainly enough drama to keep the show interesting.” Most agree with my
assessment but Christina, the girl next to me, has some doubts.
“Ehhh. I don’t know. Some of the kids in our class think they’re funnier than they actually are.” The fire feels warmer now, less friendly.
The next part she mumbles, expecting no one to hear, while looking straight at me. “Like you.”
“I heard that.” I say teasingly, pretending it didn’t just punch me in the gut.
She smiles sheepishly and apologetically, not sorry that she said it but sorry that I heard it. She shrugs, sticking by her statement. I try to
laugh it off.
50 51

INUIT
TLINGIT
SLAVEY
DOGRIB
INUIT
CHILCOTIN
CREE
CONFEDERATION
BEOTHUK
EMPIRE
HAIDA GWAI
SHUSWAP
BLACKFOOT
CONFEDERACY
HURON
SUPREMACY
SALISH
CROW
CHINOOK
CHEYENNE
GREAT SIOUX
NATION
UTE
POMO
APACHE
EMPIRE
CHUMASH
FLATHEAD
HOPI
ANASAZI
MOHICAN
IROQUOIS
CONFEDERACY
PEQUOT
OJIBWA
PAWNEE
SHAWNEE
NAVAJO
COMANCHE
CHICKSAW
POWHATAN
CHEROKEE
SOVEREIGNTY
MI’ KMAQ
AZTEC
EMPIRE
CREEK
AZTEC CALENDAR: THREE ACTL
(APPROX 2015 AD)
OLMEC
KINGDOM
ARAWAK
MAYAN
EMPIRE
52 53

A little girl ran to the doors of the church, pleading for sanctuary.
Refusing to believe she didn’t fit anywhere, she opened the doors.
The plastic chairs and tile floors of that school gym did not bother her,
Because the souls inside built a church that would make cathedrals envious.
Inside, she stood among worshiping souls and marveled;
Together the souls lifted their offerings to God, mingling in the process.
The girl quickly and irreversibly fell in love with that dingy gym,
And with the people who welcomed her there each week.
In that makeshift cathedral, the strange little girl belonged.
In the arms of this beautiful community the little girl flourished,
But the loving arms were comforts, not shields.
Even surrounded by love, the girl was not immune to reality,
And good intentions could not stop her from understanding herself.
She began to understand as she braided her friend’s long tangled hair.
She learned as her heart fluttered when their hands touched.
Finally, she understood that she should be ashamed, so she hid inside herself.
But a secret is a worm that eats the soul.
She started to carefully watch her words in the place that had been her safe-haven,
But the people who had been her refuge still wielded their words like weapons.
Casual comments and well-meaning advice left her wounded,
So she
built wall of stone to fortify her already bleeding heart.
And the worship that had filled her heart with wonder started to drown her.
As the congregation sang their praises all the girl could hear was:
You
Do
Not
Belong
The girl cried to the God who had always heard her,
But the God who hears would not bother to respond.
Today the girl still stands in a pew, the weight of her secret on her shoulders.
Love still surrounds her, but the love only adds to the weight.
She knows that a love she could destroy with truth is not true,
But it is still love, and she cannot leave it.
54 55

Shahad, Jesus, Me, & You
Shahad left his brother and his watermelon patch,
his mother and his holy mountain.
He left his happiness in Kurdistan,
his joy in Sinjar,
his peace in that cement brick home
when ISIS came to kill the Yazidis.
He walked across a border that his god never willed him to cross,
and wandered like Abraham in a country not his own,
though it bore the name of his people at points.
He paid the smugglers with his very soul to cross that ravaging, refugee-killing Aegean.
Truly, he paid them with his precious memories of red watermelon and red earth;
with dreams of freedom and normalcy spilling out of his pockets for refuge.
And the worst part is… he isn’t special—
He’s just one of the hundreds of thousands fortunate enough to sell all of their memories in order to escape the sword.
So when I,
under the shade of opulence,
looked into his empty eyes which in themselves told the long story of an arduous journey,
I had to reckon with my truth.
Did I truly believe in that Godman, came down for the sins of tax collector and Samaritan?
Did I truly believe that his Gospel was pure hope to Americans and Kurds alike?
Would my Jesus bring hope, or was he just another Baal, fixed up but not good enough to call upon on the day of trouble?
Truly, I say, verily, verily,
our Truth had no home—no refuge in or from the hearts of man.
Much like Abraham, our TruthLamb had no place to lay his head.
He left his happiness in Nazareth of Galilee,
his blood on the table of the Upper room.
He left it all and climbed on the cross,
for Shahad, you, and me.
Is this the Jesus I know?
Is this the Jesus you know?
Reckon with your truth.
Does it have a capital letter?
Does it have a home?
Does He have a home in you?
Does He give hope to the refugee?
Does he give hope to you?
Because, Friends,
If Jesus isn’t good enough for the refugee,
He’s not good enough for you.
I tell you this in all kindness,
with more grace than the number of water droplets in the Aegean Sea:
If Jesus isn’t good enough for the refugee,
He’s not good enough for you.
Because Me, I’ve never had to leave anything;
not my mother or my figurative watermelon patches.
Although, I might, in some sort of lavish devotion, like Abraham, be willing to lay my everything down on my holy mountain.
So as I looked into the exhausted, empty, yet eager eyes of Shahad,
I wrestled like Jacob with this question:
Was my Jesus good enough?
Is my Jesus good enough???
And friends, my hip will forever be out of place because of the answer I received,
like living Hopewater slowly flowing out of my feeble mouth:
My Jesus, my Truth, my Hope, he left his brothers, too.
He left his mother and his carpenter’s shed.
He left his sea and his sermon mountain.
56 57

H I S T O R Y
This is the borderland where the present crosses paths with the past.
Here we voyage into our history and witness the experiences and
narratives from within our collective identity.
58 59

INTRODUCTION
In Loving Memory of Dr. Richard Leo Twiss
( – )
“ALL MY RELATIVES!” TAOYATE
Obnajin emphatically declared to open
the Beyond Colorblind week. Taoyate
Obnajin (“He Stands with his People”),
better known as Dr. Richard Leo Twiss,
spoke to the Gordon College community,
explaining that “All my relatives”
encompasses his belief that we are “related
to things above, things below, and
to things all around. It says that [we’re]
related to those who have gone before
[us], those who are here, and those
who are not yet. So [it] situates [us]
within the bigger picture of creation.”
He stated that as part of this creation
we each have a story, even expressing
that “God loves stories so much that
God created human beings.”
His challenge to us, therefore, was to
accept the responsibility to explore our
own stories: to share them, to hear others’
stories, and to create a bond aer
having done so.
Shortly aer our school’s “Beyond
Colorbind” week on February , ,
Dr. Richard Leo Twiss passed away. We
will continue to be mindful of his wife
Katherine and four sons Andrew, Phillip,
Ian and Daniel, as well as to reflect
upon what he came to impart with us.
As a campus we will not forget the lessons
he taught us in his last week on
earth: lessons of community, love, and
honest relationships.
In loving memory of Taoyate Obnajin,
Dr. Richard Leo Twiss, may he rest
in peace.
— THE EDITORS
March ,
more minutes though, in this weather.”
I think about making a joke about
how I bet her BMW was still pretty
warm, how I’ve always wanted to sit in
a seat with a butt-warming thing, but I
refrain. She’s nice, but I can tell she’s
not that nice.
“Well, just be careful around this
neighborhood,” she says. “Especially at
this time of night. It’s … well how should
I put it? It’s a bit … multi-cultural, you
know?”
Pause.
I just look at her.
“But there are a ton of new stores and
nice housing facilities going up around
here,” she continues, “so they’re trying
to clean it up.”
I think of responding using the word
“gentrification.” Of telling her that the
only way I even adequately found myway
to this street was from a “multicultural”
man on the platform who I was
afraid of because of an irrational fear
promoted by comments like hers
I wish I could tell you that I responded
back with something epic. Something
that would have perfectly targeted the
blatant xenophobia oozing from the
language she was using. But the shameful
thing is, I didn’t.
I didn’t say anything.
I just kept staring at my shoes, then
up towards her apartment, which was
a white, high-rise brick building. She
took the last of her bags out of her car
and as quickly as the conversation had
begun, it ended with her walking away,
pleasantly wishing me well.
TWO BLOCKS LATER, I WAS
mugged.
Just kidding.
But this is where I stop detailing last
Wednesday night, because the rest of
the night at the hostel just consisted of
techno music and me having to utilize
I'm at a loss for how
Perhaps we could
Whyhave
my disgusting “Sorry, I only speak English”
medallion. Can I expand on that
brief interaction with the woman on
Javastreet, though?
See, because there was a thread in
her words which was my choice to pick
up and continue with if I wanted. And
my stagnancy was just as damaging as
if I were to pick it up and run with it,
perhaps through laughter or a sighing
“Oh, goodness.” It’s the eyebrow-raising,
the slight conspiring smiles which
act as subtle signals for the majority:
“You and I, we’re the norm. Keep looking
into my eyes and laugh with me as
we reaffirm one another.” (We never
say it, but we attempt to settle on this
being, you know, a white country.)
ere are the obvious phrases which
attempt to establish this warped, exclusivist
sense of solidarity:
“It’s just a bit too … ghetto, you
know?” or,
“She was just so Asian, you know?”
or, similar to the woman on Javastreet,
“Let’s just say it’s getting, ummm …
diverse, you know?”
Other times, though, it comes in less
IF I TOLD YOU.ORG
ONE
.
You Know?
“Heb je
HULP NODIG?” HE SAYS
to me.
I shamefacedly offer up my first
of many “Sorry, I only speak English”-s.
“Do you need help?”
He is the only person around; it is
a.m. and I’m standing on an icy platform
in east Amsterdam. I’ve been doing
so for some time now. Compared
with the previous stop, Amsterdam
Central, there aren’t many people milling
about. I hadn’t yet been able to find
my way to an actual street yet; there
were merely tracks in all directions, enclosed
by gates.
“Ahh no – I’m fine.” I’m so screwed.
He takes his headphones off as I hike
my bag up closer to my back.
“You sure?”
“Yep. anks.” I’m screwed.
“Okay.”
He walks down the stairs and disappears
into a tunnel. I sit on a bench,
looking at the directions I’d made before
my flight, when I briefly found internet.
“Walk northeast (as if they’d be
offering compasses on the plane) – find
Celebsstreet. Then: Balistreet, Javastreet,
Delistreet. From Deli, take Borneo (missing
on Google Maps?) – you’ll hit mporlien.”
en, in large letters: “YOU
WILL BE FINE.”
I’m still sitting there ten minutes later
when I hear someone coming up the
steps. It’s him again; he walks towards
me, smiling.
“It’s freezing. Let me just draw you a
map. Let me guess: you’re trying to get
to the youth hostel?”
Now I smile. Defeated, I hand him
the piece of paper in my hand, which he
takes a quick look at and briskly flips
over. He sketches out a map, telling me
how many minutes each street would
probably take. e route he gave me
eliminated half of the streets I thought
I’d have to navigate.
“Just stay to the right. You will be
fine,” he says playfully.
“Savior,” I say, as I offer up the rest of
the chocolates in my pocket. “Savior.”
TEN MINUTES LATER, MY WALK
in my hiking garb isn’t feeling quite as
sexy as I saw it in my head. You know,
sexy; lone girl traveling through Europe:
my black hoodie, my lip ring, my
independence … but it’s more like slipping
on hidden slabs of ice and catching
the random shit that keeps falling
out of my bag. Nobody’s even around
to witness if I were actually pulling off
Lisbeth Salander – until a blonde woman
gets out of a BMW beside me on Javastreet.
“Headed to the youth hostel?” she
asks.
I stop for a minute and laugh. “Yes,
you could tell?”
“It’s huge. Kids are trekking past
here all of the time. You’ve got about
obvious strands: it’s almost culinary, a
bit like parsing. Because, sometimes,
when white people talk about black
people in ways which would be seen by
most other white people as positive or
inclusive, it’s just plain patronizing. It’s
my family’s proud self-identification as
“multi-cultural” (funny how versatile
this word can be) due to its newest
additions of Leo, my cousin’s “exotic”
Colombian doctor-husband, and Pat,
another cousin’s African American
husband who, as the Vice President of
Little League International, engages
one another, or on how it slips into
conversations with their non-white
friends. For years, their attenuated acknowledgment
and exposure of it has
been deemed over-reactionary and unfounded:
an unfair placement of guilt,
reverse racism.
I ’ M AT A LOSS FOR HOW MYSELF
and the rest of the white Gordon population
should address this, because “addressing”
it seems to imply that it can
be “dealt” with in a singular (or perhaps
even week-long) event.
Perhaps we could start by simply asking
ourselves the following basic question:
why am I here right now? I ask you
right now: why have you found yourself
reading this booklet, or seated at this
“My Story” event?
We must ask ourselves this and place
ourselves in a position to be asked this
by others for the following reason:
many white individuals, when asked
why they want to converse about diversity,
would describe their choice in
ways which reflect a desire for some
sort of self-growth or self-expansion; ofwe
should address this.
start by asking ourselves:
you found yourself reading this booklet?
with enough white people each day to
prevent too much discomfort.
It may seem extreme to you if I identify
this nuanced language as a key ingredient
of white privilege, even white
domination. Yet it’s a small part of a
series of active and smuggled interactions
which support a sense of superiority
among a particular group of
people: what else are we to call it? And
as a final note: it would be foolish if I
were presuming to “enlighten” my nonwhite
readers on the ways in which
white people employ this language with
IF I TOLD YOU # MARCH
60 61

tentimes this compulsion involves a
kind of civic or spiritual obligation or
mandate to better understand the experiences
of others. And for some time,
these all worked to motivate me to only
gently probe my privilege. ey motivated
me to speak about diversity in
brief public situations; raising my hand
to speak first in a room full of other
people with a face full of concern. And
while I am now repeatedly confronted
with the truth that these reasons fall
short, they can still magically construct
a safe haven for me to run back into
whenever I fear experiencing what Latina
feminist theorist María Lugones
terms self-disruption.
Self-disruption, she says, rather than
self-enlightenment or self-betterment,
is what the white individual needs in
order to honestly engage in matters of
race. As always, self-interest is easier;
self-disruption calls for us to “…learn
to become unintrusive, unimportant,
patient to the point of tears, while at
the same time open to learning any
possible lessons. You will also have to
come to terms with the sense of alienation,
of not belonging, of having your
world thoroughly disrupted, having
it criticized and scrutinized from the
point of view of those who have been
harmed by it, having important concepts
central to it dismissed, [and] being
viewed with mistrust.”
Given what this process requires,
it would be absurd for any white person
to actually engage in it out of selfinterest.
And furthermore, Lugones
asks, why would any non-white person
even want this white person to pursue
a greater understanding of race out of
their own self-interest?
“e severe self-disruption that the
task entails should place a doubt in
anyone who takes the task seriously,
about her possibilities of coming out of
the task whole, with a self that is not
as fragmented as the selves of those
who have been the victims of racism…”
she says. “is learning is … extremely
hard because it requires openness (including
openness to severe criticism
of the white/Anglo world), sensitivity,
concentration, self-questioning, circumspection.
It should be clear that it
does not consist in a passive immersion
in our cultures, but in a striving to understand
what it is that our voices are
saying.”
What would provoke someone to be
examined in such a naked, rigorous
manner? I feel it’s the experience of
being in close relationship with individuals
whose lives are affected negatively
by a lack of engagement in such
examinations; experiencing a mutual
affection with someone whose health,
opportunity, and desire to be understood
are overlooked by the same language
which espouses they’re a little
too “other”.
I ’ LL SAY THE FOLLOWING IN
closing: that I must consistently remind
myself that establishing intimacy with
anyone is possible. I say that because I
am a person who remains highly aware
of the times in which I feel misunderstood,
but who lacks an awareness of
how much I misunderstand others. I
could simply see my privilege, which
is blatant to non-whites, as immutable
– simply because of my near-blindness
to it. Even my small understanding that
these blind spots exist makes me fear
that it would be completely impossible
for a non-white person to form a deeply
trusting and intimate relationship with
me. Yet when I’m around certain individuals
– ones who have been patient
enough with me to keep the door open
for such discussions – I discover a place
where I’m able to lay down that hesi-
IF I TOLD YOU.ORG
tancy. It was when you, as a black male,
understood that my experience as a
woman could help me to understand
certain aspects of your silencing. It was
the first time I heard you lay down the
ground rules during an ALANA meeting.
At the risk of sounding like an
extremely horrid metaphor, it was in
all of the streets you and I had waltzed
down together in Boston, attempting
to harmonize with one another. And
next, at the risk of sounding creepy, it
was when you were sleeping at the hospital
and I couldn’t stop touching your
hands because I knew I would be away
from them for a while. Finally – just before
I le – (you know, before I arrived
in Amsterdam to get scared of a friendly
black man on a platform), it was in that
parking lot where you and I were saying
goodbye – and despite me being a far
cry from Whoopi Goldberg, we finally
nailed the gut-wrenching parting scene
in The Color Purple.
In all of these places, I am reminded
that our intimacy is perpetually
attainable, and furthermore, that
it’s indispensable.
– STUDENT, CLASS OF ’
When
ALANA
first approached
me and asked me to share
the different experiences I face as an
African American here at Gordon, my
initial reaction was to take this as a perfect
opportunity to go on a rant and regurgitate
all of the many negative racial
encounters I have had to face during
my time here – but then I began to wonder
if these experiences would actually
have an impact on you. Would I be accomplishing
or achieving anything? I
am not sure.
I could share with you all of the many
negative statements people have said
to me regarding my race; I could share
how it’s a struggle oen being one of
few African Americans in my classroom,
or I could share the stories of
the many times Barry Loy and others
have had to come to my rescue in the
different encounters I have dealt with
TWO
.
because of my race.
But I think it is far more important
to address how the resentment resulting
from these events have clouded my
view of what it looks like to be a daughter
of Christ. For far too long, I have put
so much emphasis on what it looks like
to be an African American in a predominantly
white culture and here at a predominately
white Christian College. It
finally hit me that I was missing out on
being able to see and value myself and
my white peers as children of Christ.
is could be because I did not grow
up with an earthly father, or it could
be because it is easier to see race first
rather than other parts of our identities.
I had an opportunity to talk with
a mentor recently who shared her insight
with me. What she shared with
me was, “It is important that you begin
to recognize that you are a daughter of
Christ first, and then you are an African
IF I TOLD YOU # MARCH
62 63

64 65

66 67

S p r i n g 2 0 1 7
68 69

I s s u e # 1 0
70 71

72