Literary Evening in Oakland Chinatown

It was great to have a literary event to attend yesterday evening in Oakland Chinatown, which is a part of Oakland that I love, and which is where I have spent and continue to spend so many of my waking hours working. It was also great to have Edwin Lozada come out to the East Bay to join us.

The Oakland Asian Cultural Center hosted a literary event curated by Neela Banerjee, Summi Kaipa, and Pireeni Sundaralingam, centered around the South Asian American poetry anthology in progress, Writing the Lines of Our Hands. In the spirit of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, this event was inclusive of other API women writers and authors; Minal Hajratwala, Aimee Suzara, Mimi Lok, and Diana Ip were also featured.

Between the featured writers, the curators took turns presenting samples of poetry from the anthology contributors, including Meena Alexander, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Reetika Vazirani, Tanuja Mehrota, as well as a short set of their own poetry. This was a really well-attended and well-presented event, which I am very pleased to have attended. As well, the warm and positive community energy of both the audience members and the presenters was quite palpable.

Some highlights, off the top of my head:

• Pireeni’s poem about Sri Lankan war and genocide, and the media censorship that has prevented us from knowing about it. Within this context, as she reflects upon soon becoming an American citizen, she tells us that here, she is grateful to have a voice and a platform upon which to speak.
• Pireeni’s assertion that Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s writings of Americana, and writings about “regular” American things is subversive because her poetry need not be about ethnicity and “ethnic” themes. Pireeni mentioned this to us in conversation, i.e. not on the mic.
• Neela’s poems in which Krishna’s consort is in dialogue with Calamity Jane. Jane tells the consort (I can’t remember her name) what she would do with Krishna, leave him in Sioux country without a weapon. The Sioux have their own gods; they wouldn’t care about Krishna’s blue ass.
• Minal Hajratwala’s “silk” poem, which confronted that trope of sensuality, silk, and peacock feathers of the South Asian/Eastern/”Oriental” woman writer. Wrap war, rage, critical discussions of race and white supremacy in silk, silk, silk, and the average Western reader will take it, anything wrapped in silk.
• Aimee Suzara’s reading here I think was one of the best I’d ever seen, and I’ve seen her read many times over the years. She read poems I’ve never heard her read, from her chapbook the space between (Finishing Line Press). Particularly strong, concrete, and compassionate was her poem for Crizel Jane Valencia and the other Filipino girls and women who came to be diagnosed with birth defects, debilitating illnesses, leukemia, and other cancers, as a result of living in proximity to Clark Air Base and its history of toxic contamination of the soil, the air, the water.
• Mimi Lok’s story of Granny Ito, an old homeless woman who “squatted” in a stranger’s house during the day, when he was at work. I remember hearing something like this on the news. A man discovered an old woman who lived/hid in his closet for months; he’d installed security cameras after he became suspicious about food disappearing. This story was from the fictionalized (or speculated) point of view of the old woman, and as it was excerpted, we didn’t get the whole story last night. Lok tells us the old woman’s son and daughter in law no longer wished to care for her, and were going to place her into a senior home, where the staff were mean and abusive, and stole the seniors’ valuables. So living in the nearby park’s tent city became a very real alternative for her.
• Diana Ip’s story about the family run Chinese take out business, which was both hilarious and very touching. The couple in the story expend so much energy in competition with the new neighborhood family run Chinese take out, when there are larger economic forces at work which disenfranchise the mom and pop businesses. Ip tells us that her interest is not the immigrant entrepreneur interaction with the white American customer, but telling the story of the immigrant family’s interactions in the business behind closed doors.

Again, yesterday’s event gave us excellent writing and presentation of work. The curators/editors also stressed the importance of a grassroots movement in promoting this anthology when it finally comes off the presses. I am with this, the community taking the initiative to move this book by bridging based upon historical, cultural, and political commonalities, and growing community; by finding new venues, and hence growing readership.

I am looking forward to future gatherings with these writers, as we have expressed mutual interest in supporting and hearing one another’s work, getting together over drinks and food the way I think community works best.

Writing the Lines of Our Hands editors maintain a website and a blog. Do pay them a visit.

Tags: Aimee Suzara, Diana Ip, Mimi Lok, Neela Banerjee, Oakland Asian Cultural Center, Pireeni Sundaralingam, Summi Kaipa, Writing the Lines of Our Hands