Part 2 of the ExpectAsian Poetry series, I’m bringing you some Asian flames in the cold white winter of Poetry Land.
Thanks to Evan for kicking off the series, but I’m here to add some more fire. The piece below is titled “My Mother’s Accent” and it discusses assimilation and anti-Asian sentiments. What inspired me to write this poem is a small conversation I overheard at Walmart.
My mother: Excuse me, vair is the milk?
Employee 1: Oh it’s just right over there ma’am.
*My mother walks away and when they think she is out of earshot the other employee says:
Employee 2: VAIR (Laughs)
Employee 1: (Laughs)
So here’s to you employees at Walmart, you ignorant piece of shit.
My Mother’s Accent
Ever since I was young I have been a translator
When my mother needed to buy something, negotiate, or have a discussion
They will not look at the person who is speaking instead they would look at me
Their eyes would plead; they won’t say a word
But they expect me to translate
They expect me to translate my mother’s English into their English
They expect me to translate her accent
Accent thick like honey
Dripping down these walls
Too sticky to clean up
But sweet like tradition
In this beehive of her voice
You’ll realize you’re not queen bee
You’re a worker bee
Concentrating too hard to understand her
Because her accent only belongs in tv shows and movies
Whenever you need a laugh
You’ll look at me and expect me to translate her song into sounds you recognize
Claiming that its just too difficult to understand
But its beautiful, its like a pop song jumpy and happy
Even though to her, English sounds like imperialism
It sounds like invaders ripping apart your land and killing your family until the earth is red
sounds like stealing all your resources and leaving you pitiful and helpless
sounds like telling you that your culture is backwards and unsophisticated but their culture is the goal and development
English sounds like shaking, earthquakes in your stomach as you give the last of your grains as tax
It sounds like humiliation as you watch your father’s tears fertilize the ground
sounds like submission as you taste pork oil and blood on your lips and they tell you wear you belong
It sounds like British reports saying that the Indians were so huddled together that one bullet would go through 3 or four bodies
sounds like gunshots in sync with your heartbeat
English sounds like tearing up your traditions, and burying it to the ground
Erasing your history until it disappears like dust and you’re no longer a person but a dog
A dog that has rejected the very soil
that fed you for centuries
instead submitting to a white queen that will feed you scraps at her golden table that you built for her
English sounds like betrayal
English sounds like lost history
English sounds like ruin
And you ask why my mother doesn’t sound like you
English was never made for her mouth
It was never made for her history
And so her accent is like a defense mechanism
Protecting her from disappearing
Protecting her from a lifetime of servitude
And guarding you from your history against her body
So when she manages to speak English with such confidence and beauty
Really she’s doing you a favor
She’s hiding those years of pain and misery and instead delivers music
So when you ask me to translate ill say
Everything she says is correct
Her English is very good, A1, top class,
Her English is perfect
