diaspora pt. ii
I've only been home three times since first flying off to college. Calling Southern California home is remarkable for a place I've only gotten to come back to only about twice a year, but it's nothing surprising for a place where for years of being driven around and driving around on them, the roads and street signs are at once familiar, automatic in their embrace.
How did Kevin spend his winter break? The first thing I did going into break was die of dysentery come down with the flu, and it sucked. The one upside was having very little else to do but read, so I read about the history of how my people came here to America, of where I can trace myself back ti. I first caught Erika Lee's The Making of Asian America: A History in the corner of my eye on a table in The Strand, and I'm grateful for how well it ties together the grand intertwining of all of our collective diasporas that form Asian America.
We all carry the diaspora within us. It's not hard to see it as a marathon, our forebears passing onto us the grand baton of our heritage; in spite of the awkwardness of feeling generationally out-of-touch or perpetually in-between, we make the handoff anyway, and we carry it all forward. I'm still navigating this handoff myself. I'm ABC (American-born Chinese), and I've gotten to know how messy the tangle of familial and personal obligations that comes with this identity can be.
We came from everywhere, and we find ourselves everywhere. The history of Asian America includes the cramped boats ferrying los chinos and coolies from South Asia and the Philippines to Latin America, the Cantonese immigrants who paid Canada's hefty head taxes or endured Angel Island's grueling screening, the Hmong people displaced by a conflict waged not too far back in our history, and so many more convergent narratives and histories.
How did anyone ever get used to moving around so much? Moving with hope and hearts clutched toward something better at best, moving toward something, anything, somewhere, anywhere, moving however best they can.
I like it a lot, moving fast: feeling the express train make its way uptown, riding a bike downhill, weaving through traffic and into the carpool lane. Being in transit from one place to another, though, where are you really but in between? Not where you were, not yet where you're going.
Mitski, whose music was one of the best things to happen to me in the past year, writes in "Texas Reznikoff":
From the water, from the home that I've wanted to make It somehow, in the city, you make it there and you make it Anywhere, anywhere
But I've been anywhere and it's not what I want I wanna be still with you
Being still and in one place with people I love is always the best part of break. Home gave me some of my best friends for life, and these kind of relationships have lately felt like the only honest threads holding up my universe. Home gave me a point from which to launch myself into the world, as well as a place and people I can always come home to.
It still being break, I spent some time one evening walking downtown. The towers, the lights, the heights, they're still magic for me; I still can't help but tilt my head upward, even when I tried not to. The things I can do for fun in New York City—watching a world-class opera at Lincoln Center or seeing some of the greatest masterpieces of Western art at any museum, not even an hour away on the subway—it's different from back home.
Even then, walking around in Trader Joe's or Target with friends (walking around in Target, for fun!), playing arcade games or belting out karaoke at Round One, or laughing over boba/ramen/popcorn chicken, even driving people back home—all of this has its own special kind of communal thrill. This kind of friendship resonates as much as does standing on 5th Avenue under the sunset with the regal Empire State Building to the north and the glittering Freedom Tower to the south.
I read through a thread of suggestions from Columbia alums on how they would've done college differently. The biggest theme was that there's this "sad friend diaspora" that occurs after graduation, one that I've experienced a lesser version of following high school. My favorite comment:
Just keep sitting on roofs and talking to cool people, all day everyday, all night every night, because soon those cool people will be scattered all over the world and it will be difficult to sit on roofs with them.
Ever since first flying off to college, I've met a lot of cool people, and a lot of them will be flying back for the start of spring semester. How many of them will I keep in touch with after graduation, theirs or mine? How much about them don't I know? I've rarely took the time to peer forward into what life might look like after graduation beyond anything general, but I was fortunate enough to have a really good preview over the past summer.
My summer experience was a lesson in adulting and a faithful reassurance of how things will work out after college. An incredible roommate, close friends within arm's reach, and the kindnesses of countless strangers. Having an actual daily commute, working in a building downtown, shopping and feeding myself. (You know you're growing up when going to Trader Joe's is something you really look forward to.) Rooftop parties, summer concerts, fun and fireworks—who knew I'd have so much fun? The promise of the summer of 2016: that I'll be alright in the end, even when all of this, these four years, are over.
The most precious part about summer was having the time to be with friends, untethered to classes or extracurriculars or studying or whatever makes community so hard to find at Columbia. Who will these people be in the future, when I'm out of school and working? Where will I end up after college? Once I'm there, who will I be spending warm summer nights with? Who will I get to sit on roofs with?
It's a new year, and I can't expect to form or keep strong relationships just because I exist. It's a new year, and I'm almost halfway done with college and I honestly don't know how I've come to the point where I can type that. I know where I'll be for the time being, but I'll be out the door before I know it. Who will I get to sit on roofs with this year?