My Chinese By Athena Chu Poem by Poet Anonymous

If you ask me if I'm fluent in Chinese, I will tell you my Chinese is a ghost lodged in my throat. A dried up flower I tore from the ground long ago, rootless.

My Chinese is missing pictures in a photo album: the first day of preschool, a mouth full of useless characters, ancient taste buds numbing out of existence, leaving the bitter aftertaste of a new language.

My Chinese is kneaded dough cut into little circles, filled with meat and folded over, cooked and served with vinegar in porcelain dishes.

My Chinese wears red dragons on silk qipaos, dressed in pearls and jade earrings. My Chinese is red. My Chinese is gold.

My Chinese is something I must hide.

My Chinese is a racist joke I threw in the garbage, wrapped in a napkin, stained with my culture and made a sound as it hit the bottom. Chink.

Chink as in the weakness in armor. Chink as in crevice, gap, hole. Chink as in the slits they called our eyes.

My Chinese remembers Yellow Peril hysteria, Chinese Exclusion Act, remembers alienation, remembers otherization, remembers being banned from this land, being treated as everything but human, remembers the clanking of metals to railroads as immigrants built train tracks to connect this country. My Chinese remembers. My Chinese forgets.

If you ask me if I'm fluent in Chinese, I will tell you that my Chinese doesn't think it belongs here sometimes.

Sometimes my Chinese is angry.

My Chinese wonders why, "Hey, this person I know is really into Asian girls. You should talk to them, " is a compliment. My Chinese wonders why it is exotic, why you think fetishizing my culture is the same as loving it.

My Chinese wonders why it is beautiful only if it is white enough. My Chinese wonders if it is white enough.

My Chinese wonders why it is minority only when it is convenient, wonders why the massacres, mass expulsions, and near genocidal policies are missing in the history textbooks. My Chinese wants you to know that it is not invisible.

My Chinese wants you to know that it is not an accessory for you to wear. My Chinese wants you to remember that it cannot be eaten and then spit out.

But even I forget sometimes.

My Chinese settles for less than what it deserves sometimes.

If you ask me if I'm fluent in Chinese, I will tell you that my Chinese sits in the back of class, knows the answers, but does not raise hand.

My Chinese sits quietly during family reunions, knows what they are saying, has something to say, but can't. My Chinese is reaching for words, but only finding air.

If you ask me if I'm fluent in Chinese, I will take you to the grave where my Chinese lives.
On the tombstone it says: Here lie decomposing words. Here lie broken skeletons and broken sentences. Here lie rotting corpses and rotting cultures. Here lie the missing limbs of history.

Here, in memory.

Here. Take a shovel and dig with me.