Yes, I Am Chinese
And I’m damn proud, 5000-year-old.
I made paper, not to sow lies, but spread love and kindness.
I invented gun powder, not for guns, but the wonder of fireworks.
I invented printing, for art and beauty, not for the hate on your T-shirts, in your books.
I made compass, to lead humanity out of wars, towards peace.
Yes, I am Chinese, 5000 years young!
My almond eyes see your shadow of colonialism, genocide and slavery.
My bleeding hands built your first railroad, laundromat, takeout, farm.
My porcelain skin shields me from massacres, lynching, Exclusion Acts since 1871.
My yellow ears, trained for poetry, block your “Yellow Peril, plague, China Virus.”
My yellow brain designed your first nuclear bomb, rocket, missile, spaceship, won Nobel prize for quantum theory, Young-Mill theory, Lee-Young theorem…
My Yellow Emperor saved your lives with herbs from mountains and rivers.
My yellow heart feels your marching in the name of “democracy,” armored with your bombs, ships, soldiers, police, your colonial arrogance and prejudice.
My yellow feet stand firm in the yellow earth.
Yes, I am Chinese, and I’m damn proud
As an American poet, an artist, a scholar, a teacher, a human who laughs and cries just like you, who loves and fears just like you. When I bleed, my blood is just as red. When I nurse, my milk is just as white. When I laugh, I make your heart pulse with joy. When I teach, I inspire. When you smear my name in your newspaper and social media, I cry, filling your lungs with sorrow, filling your conscience with karma.
I will not let you soil me, Amazon!
I will not let you divide or conquer, America!
I will not let you mark me as Nazis marked the Jews.
Yes, I am Chinese. I’m your Bruce Lee, your atomic bomb, father of rocketry, your quantum leap and Zeno Eye. I’m your flesh and blood. I’m your conscience.
Go ahead, America. I wear your target over my heart.
Yes, I’m Chinese
Yes, I’m American
Printed on my chest, in China Red
Note:
Amazon has taken down the design, but Redbubbles are still pushing the sale. It was designed in 2019, but the sale has been going through the roof since March, 2021, as the violence against Asian Americans has been rising sharply.