Prasanta's March 2022 Newsletter

Mar 30, 2022

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Chai Chat
March 2022 Edition

In this issue…

1. Chai Chats: Conversations on Identity, Belonging, Culture, Crossing Borders 2. Of Thorns and Skin: I was privileged to share portions of my story of identity and belonging at The Mudroom; the text is below as well as a link to the Podcast! It was such a joy and privilege for me to share. Also: Bonus-I had a poem published! Details below.

3. The Rise of Asian America-Fascinating Podcast: What is Asia America? 4. Finding the Work You Were Meant to Do: How do you figure this out? 5. Interesting Links Found Around the Web: An assortment of interesting links found around the web Plus: Popular on Social Media

Chai Chats: Conversations on Identity, Belonging, Culture, Crossing Borders

The second episode of Chai Chats: Stories of Migration, Culture, and Belonging on Instagram Live was held earlier in March with author, entrepreneur, and runner Dorina Lazo Gilmore-Young.

Click here to watch that conversation! You won’t want to miss her journey from grief to hope, and the rich tapestry of her family’s cultural background.

I like to highlight a different person each issue of Chai Chats, and this issue is Dorina! Dorina and I both serve on the Board of the Redbud Writers Guild, and you can follow her on Instagram @dorinagilmore, Pinterest, and her website. Dorina has written books for children, as well a devotional called Walk Run Soar.

On Monday, April 4, I will have the privilege of interviewing Dr. Nancy Wang Yuen, professor, author, and sociologist. Dr. Yuen is one of the nation’s top experts on Asian Americans in TV, film, and media. Please tune in on Monday, 10 am PT/ 12pm CT to hear her story of identity right here on my Instagram page (@prasantaverma). Please join us! Hit reply to this email to send me some specific questions you’d like me to ask Dr. Yuen.

Of Thorns and Skin

I recently shared part of my story of identity and belonging in a piece in The Mudroom; you can view the written piece here and below, and you can listen to the podcast episode here. I’d be honored for you to listen to my story and hear the background of this piece. And, I’d really love to know your identity story, too.

“Your Task”*

Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it.

(*Attributed to Rumi, translator unknown)

A long wind brushes its fingers through the trees in a stretched whisper. It moves angrily, shakes and howls at the windowpanes. Branches rub against branches, abrasive and unyielding, with no soft leaves to muzzle against the north wind, during the harsh, naked tree season. Spring rains pummel the ground, softening the earth for new growth. The transition of the seasons is a sure thing, a known as far as seasons can be known, with visible signs and demarcations.

Protecting

We have them, too, these barriers, these invisible lines sprouting protective thorns, to keep us from rubbing too close to one another. I was 8 years old when I was aware of lines being drawn in the Alabama red clay, when I was reminded I was “different”, when a classmate told me to go back to where I came from. I was reminded of this for years, when anyone asked, “So, what are you?” Those questions can still threaten to haunt me, thrusting me a liminal space to reckon with voices that say I don’t belong.

For years, I imagined myself transitioning out of my brown skin and stepping into a costume of white. In my white world, I wasn’t singled out. I was automatically accepted, included; others looked at me and knew me in a way I wasn’t known being brown. I wanted to change my skin color, my hair color, and my name, with no assumptions about white-self me that kept people distant when I was brown. My white world was sparkling, gleaming, pristine, perfect.

Hiding

But it wasn’t real. I allowed these hallucinations to eat away at my own flesh, allowing my own true self to disintegrate, and what would be left surely wouldn’t be white. I couldn’t shed my old skin like a reptile, and a glowing white covering emerge. No, my real self would be transformed into a heap of brown ashes and blood, because in no reality would I ever magically grow white skin.

So, I hid my Indian side, idealizing the white girl I should have been, all the while shaking my fists at God, questioning His decision, pointing out His oversight at making me the conspicuous anomaly of brown flesh in a sea of white in the rural south. I didn’t know anyone else like me, and I struggled to fit in, to belong, and figure out how to “be” both. I learned how to shift from one identity to another, from Indian to American and back and forth, with one foot in each continent, my heart divided, torn, and splitting through the tug-of-war as I desperately sought to belong.

In tug-of-war, eventually one sides wins, and the other side succumbs. I couldn’t keep living this way, without ripping up a whole part of my identity, living-fractured, and half-assed at surviving in only one way. One side couldn’t fully win, because neither side fit me. I was too American to be truly Indian, which no one could readily see by looking at me, unless they knew me. The Indian side of me is clearly visible to anyone who looks at me, but I looked too Indian to be accepted as “American.” I struggled for years stuck in a liminal space, wondering where I belong in this black-and-white world that doesn’t make space for brown, for me, for those like me in the middle.

Healing

Healing came as I recognized my identity as worthy: worthy of being loved, valued, and loved by God. Healing came when I learned that as is the case for many other things in life, I didn’t have to exist in an either/or existence, but rather as a person who lives in a both/and reality. I am both Asian and American. I am both Indian and not-Indian. I like samosas and I like burgers. I wear Indian clothes and I wear jeans. I grew up reading Nancy Drew and A Wrinkle in Time, and I’d like to have a long discussion with you about Bollywood films.

I am not one or the other, but both. I don’t have to choose one piece of myself and neglect the other. Embracing all the different parts of who I am makes me whole, otherwise I am a scattered jigsaw puzzle, constantly dropping and picking up pieces and trying to put myself together.

Belonging

Belonging isn’t exclusive to one space. Though others have tried to shut me out, one of the biggest barriers was myself shutting my true self out, inhibiting any divine work and creativity I was meant to impart. I was stifling my own growth. I was a barricade to myself by believing white was the supreme existence and color, because I grew up surrounded by everything white, when I came from a country half a world away in a continent where a billion people look like me. I don’t have to change my skin color or anything else about me to belong. I belong because I am, because God made me, and it is good.

I can inhabit more than one space, like the God-man, who was both physical-spiritual. My new resurrected self can transition in and out of both white and brown spaces, as easily as passing through a wall.

My task, then, is to break down these barriers I have built. What is growing now, out of the rains of what was once grief, is a vibrant new self, rebirthed, ready to rub shoulders with the world.

***

I had the privilege of having a poem published in the above volume, Dear Vaccine! What’s extra special for me is that the volume was edited by one of my favorite poets, Naomi Shihab Nye. Just to be in close proximity with her is such an honor for me! The volume consists of poems written from people all around the world, in response to the pandemic.

EXCLUSIVE JUST FOR YOU—here is a photo of the poem in the book : )

The Rise of Asian America-Fascinating Podcast

“What is Asian America? Can we trace the origins of this distinctive and important pattern in the tapestry of American popular culture? Jeff Yang and Phil Yu say we can, and they join us to show how with their new book RISE. Plus, it wouldn't be a Fascinating season premier without a feral hogs update!”

I encourage you to listen to this podcast here— when did the term “Asian American” begin? Listen for that, and more.

Finding the Work You Were Meant to Do

How do you figure out what you’re meant to do? Frederick Buechner says “Vocation is the place where our deep gladness meets the world's deep need.” How do we find that place?

Besides prayer, this article shares 7 lessons, or take-aways, when determining what work you were meant to do, including the fact that your work or calling may come out of difficult experiences. I appreciate this, because it’s often out of our deep pain, suffering, or loss, that we find that purpose. What else would you add to this list? How did you find your calling?

Interesting Links From Around the Web

What have you enjoyed reading around the web? Hit reply to this email and share your favorites! Here are a few I’d like to share with you:

The real story of the Green Book, the guide that changed how black people traveled in America

Beautiful libraries around the world

Assuming the Best or Worst - my devotional published for Lent, at my church’s yearly Lent Devotional book (and online)

Honesty is the High Price for Inner Peace

Five New Writing Exercises for Memoir Writers

The Stop Asian Hate Movement is at a Crossroads

Min Jin Lee’s Quest to Make Us Pay Attention to Anti-Asian Hate

On my TV/Movie Watch List:

Pachinko on Apple TV (Based on the epic novel Pachinko, by Min Jin Lee)

Blurring the Color Line (Chinese immigrants in the segregated south)

Popular on Social Media

A quick less-than-three-minute word about kindness! Who do you know that oozes kindness? Click the photo below to watch!

Click the photo below for the link to see the full post : )

Don’t know how to pronounce someone’s name? Click the photo below for a fun reel I made! : )

***Thank you, friend, for reading and subscribing! If this is your first newsletter from me, you probably subscribed from my website, for a giveaway, chai recipe, or other resource. I’ll share helpful links, resources, and inspiration each month. If this newsletter encouraged you in some way, would you consider sharing with a friend? (Make sure you check your spam folder and move this email to your inbox!)

Until next month’s Chai Chat!

Make it a lovely one,

Prasanta

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Belonging and the Human Experience

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