Category: Statements

by Women Who Submit Leadership Team
Cover image from the media toolkit for Asian American Day of Action.

Xiaojie Tan
Daoyou Feng
Soon Chung Park
Hyun Jung Grant
Suncha Kim
Yong Ae Yue
Delaina Ashley Yaun Gonzalez
Paul Andre Michels

Rest in power.

Another act of white supremacist misogynist violence has torn a hole in the world.

Again, women who should be living, loving, creating, eating, laughing, hugging their families, working, writing, resting, women who should still be here to live their cherished and beloved lives, are gone.

Again, the institution of policing extends its empathy to a man who acted out of white entitlement.

Again, those in power throw around insulting excuses. “A bad day.” “Sexual temptation.”

Again, a white-centered media tries to gaslight us by hesitating to call the gunmen’s murder of eight people, seven of them women, six of them Asian women, as anything other than white supremacist and misogynist. 

Again, Women Who Submit mourns the lives of the women whose lives were cruelly cut short by a man who viewed them as disposable, a man who was cushioned and encouraged by a system that confirmed those views and abetted his actions.

WWS members are AAPI. We are mothers and grandmothers. We are workers. Immigrants. The children of immigrants. We reject a world where women of color are expected to live in fear of their lives being severed at the hands of a violent white person. We reject surveillance and policing “solutions” that only increase harm done to Black, brown and indigenous communities. These responses only increase the harm done to AAPI women and all women of color already made vulnerable by jobs that demand enormous emotional labor with scarce protection in return: hospitality, personal care, sex work. Our hearts are with the loved ones of Soon Chung Park, Hyun Jung Grant, Suncha Kim, Yong Ae Yue, Delaina Ashley Yaun, Xiaojie Tan, Daoyou Feng, and Paul Andre Michels. We reject their erasure. We affirm their irreplaceable humanity.

We know that no words can bring them back and make the world whole again. We know that this is not the first act of violence towards Asian American and Pacific Islander communities, that this violence is older than the United States, and has increased dramatically over the past year, and that denouncing the pattern of racism, harassment and assault is not enough. Declarations are not enough. They must be paired with action. We encourage all of our readers to take action with us.

We want to amplify the voices of those in our literary community who celebrate AAPI life and resist white supremacy culture. Please join us in showing love and gratitude to these organizations:

Kaya Press

Kundiman

EastWest Players

Asian American Writers’ Workshop

Asian American Literary Review

Arkipelago Books

Bamboo Ridge Press

Hyphen Magazine

Hmong American Writers’ Circle

We believe words can be a balm and a fire. We have deep love and respect for these writers and we hope you will let their words ignite you to demand transformative change:

Sex Work is Care Work by Jean Chen Ho

A Letter to My Fellow Asian Women Whose Hearts are Still Breaking by R.O. Kwon

The Atlanta Shooting is Another Reminder that the Police are Not Our Friends by Steph Cha

Sundress Publications Interview with WWS Member Muriel Leung, by Julie Leung

Anti-Asian Violence must be a bigger part of America’s racial discourse, a conversation between Alexander Chee and Cathy Park Hong

They Pretend to Be Us While Pretending We Don’t Exist by Jenny Zhang

We encourage everyone to follow and support these organizations that advance justice for Asian American and Pacific Islander communities.

Stop AAPI Hate

Red Canary Song

Asian Americans Advancing Justice

Tsuru for Solidarity

Japanese Americans for Justice

We will continue working for a world that uplifts the dignity and humanity of AAPI women.

by the Women Who Submit Leadership Team

People in power always find a way to accuse the underserved of not being worthy of justice.

Women Who Submit was founded in response to male editors looking to justify the paucity of women authors in their publications. Those editors made excuses: women weren’t submitting enough, weren’t working hard enough, the submissions from women simply weren’t good enough. We were told it was our own fault that every Tier 1 journal in the nation disproportionately published more men.

We learned how to recognize the rhetorical acrobatics of the privileged.

Now, powerful white men (and women!) tell us that immigrants and refugees aren’t following the rules, aren’t working hard enough, aren’t “getting in line,” and aren’t worthy of citizenship (as if being born in this country means you are somehow better than). We are told they deserve to have their young children ripped from their arms and taken to detention centers several states away. We are told they deserve deportation. We are told that their families aren’t worth preserving. We have always heard this. Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian, and all people of color have always been told by U.S. policies and institutions that their contributions mean less, that they are expendable. We are all told to fear Black and Brown voices, instead of respecting and amplifying them.

There can be no literary justice without immigration justice. There can be no gender parity in publishing without racial justice. Breaking down submission barriers is not enough if border walls still stand, if prison walls still stand. How many rapturous, beautiful, soul-searing poems is the world being deprived of, because of racism and xenophobia? How many refugee children have dreams of growing up to be novelists or journalists, and are told, by our national policies and our shameful cultural attitudes, “You aren’t worth our time”?

Continue reading “WWS statement against the Trump Administration’s racist immigration policy”