The Importance of Asian Feminist Collectives

This article originally appeared on VICE Belgium.

For over a year, Mélanie Cao has been posting portraits of Asian artists and activists on her platform Asiofeminism Now!, which she built to highlight Asian identities that are usually lacking in mainstream media. The project slowly morphed into the Belgian podcast Here I Talk About Something that Doesn’t Exist (or Je vous parle ici de ce qui n'existe pas in French), a show about the white gaze, gender, decolonisation, the diasporas and dreams of the future.

According to Ya-Han Chuang, sociology and migration researcher at the French National Institute for Demographic Studies, young Asian people today have become more aware of inequalities and the label of “model minority”, which “serves only to distinguish between ‘more desirable immigrants’ and ‘less desirable immigrants’,” she says on Cao’s podcast. “We are now much more aware of the historical depth of this racism and of these stereotypes. They serve to ostracise Asia and people from Asia as inferior, eternal foreigners impossible to assimilate into the Western body.”

The goal of Cao’s show is to create an archive of minority representation, “so that we can’t say it never existed because we didn’t have words for it”, as she explains. “Neither white nor black, on the edge of race, Asian people seem to remain mute,” she says on the show. “What do they think, what do they experience, who and what do they stand behind? Searching for these stories is a solitary quest. We sometimes think we're the only ones going through things because there are very few similar stories, experiences and faces reflected back to us. But that doesn't mean they don't exist.”

In collaboration with Cao, VICE is publishing some of the testimonials shared in her podcast. Below are the stories of people who opened up about their own journeys towards Asian-specific feminist collectives and the value they’ve added into their lives.

“My biological mother is Chinese but I was adopted into a half-white family: My adoptive mother is white and my adoptive father is Chinese. Growing up in a very white and fairly conservative town, I've always been aware of racism. But I think it was only when I came to Brussels that I realised things could be different.

“I always knew I wanted to take action in some way, but didn't know how in concrete terms. When Ann and I met [the other co-founder of Untold Asian Stories], we talked about a lot of things that I wouldn’t usually tell anyone. We realised how important it was to have our emotions recognised and validated. These usually difficult conversations flowed very easily between us, and that made us want to share them with others. A lot of people experience loneliness growing up, and coming together as a collective can really change that.

“I think creating connection and intimacy is at the heart of what we do. And that's what makes it all so difficult, because we stir up people's emotions. It's as if we were in a collective healing process. We really need these spaces to share our experiences, to start gaining confidence in talking about them and to ensure that the racism we've been through is named. And then we can even start talking about it with non-Asians. It's a whole process.

“Just being in a room with other Asian people or people from the diaspora is really new for a lot of people. It shakes you up to see your whole life in a new light. Outside our spaces, there are no words for the things we experience.

“Once, my mother saw me talking about my experiences with racism in the newspaper and asked me, ‘Why didn't you ever say anything to me?’ I told her I didn't have the words, because nobody ever talked about it. 

“The majority of people [in our activist community] are women. We organise a lot of events, but at the end of the day, conversations held in safe spaces are about sharing feelings, and I think that's something women have been taught to do more [than men]. We try to get men to come along because we think it's important that they also learn. They also have a lifetime of repressed experiences. For some, it's the first time they've opened up, at least without being mocked.

“The BLM movement was a clear source of inspiration for us – I realised that we could also take up space. Around that time, there was also the Atlanta [spa] shooting [when Robert Aaron Long killed eight people in three massage parlours in Atlanta in 2021 – six were Asian women] and the campaigns in reaction to the event, such as the Stop Asian Hate movement. They also inspired our collective.” — Lotus, 21, student and co-founder of Untold Asian Stories (UAS), a collective focusing primarily on anti-Asian racism

“In February 2020, I was running to catch the bus and some young people called me ‘coronavirus’. I have a big mouth, so I had a comeback ready and they didn't like that. They followed me to the bus and stopped it from leaving, before threatening to beat me up. I didn't give in and they got off the bus, but just before the doors closed, they spat on me. 

“It was the most violent racist attack I've ever experienced. Just before that, my mother told me that a lady had made a throat-cutting sign at her with her thumb. The pandemic brought me to the conclusion that I needed to find people who understood anti-Asian resentment. It's harder to create a network here than in North America, but the need was there.” — Lesley, 30, office worker and co-founder of Feminists of Asian Descent Belgium (Féministes Asiodescendantes de Belgique or FAB)  

“Two years ago, I went to a book signing by [Pan-Asian author] Joohee Bourgain. She had just published L'adoption internationale, mythes et réalités (International Adoption: Myths and Realities), a book that really touched me.

“I sat at the back of the room and listened to her with tears in my eyes. It was the first time I'd heard about this subject in a book and the person who wrote it was right there in front of me. There were four Asian girls in the corner, and thought to myself that was the first time I'd seen so many in one room. That's where I met some women from the FAB collective. That's how it all started.

“Being around Asian people is really powerful for me. It immediately creates trust. What you experience on a day-to-day basis is immediately understood. That's never happened to me before. The aim is to create a safe space, but also to create a movement with public initiatives (workshops at festivals, a dedicated block at demonstrations, among other things).

“I'd been interested in feminism for around a year before I met the people at FAB. It was like waking up after 28 years of silence. Before, when I didn't feel well, I’d put it down to my emotional side, as if it was a fault. When I discovered feminism, I deconstructed these ideas, but it was often through the eyes of privileged white women, and there were certain elements that didn't speak to me as much. There was something missing. 

“As an adopted woman, I'm identified as Asian, but I don't have the same codes. I have ‘white codes’. However, when I'm at FAB, I'm completely integrated. They see me as Asian, and I am Asian – even if sometimes I still have trouble assimilating, understanding and believing it. Just observing the people around me and hearing about their experiences makes me feel like I belong. That's what's so powerful about being with this group: they are people who are like me and want to change things.” — Lindsay, 30, IT consultant and FAB member

“During the pandemic, I started worrying about my parents. I don't have an accent – you can tell I was born here – but my parents do and are clearly immigrants. I started to get scared because I kept reading articles about Asian people being attacked after COVID started. I felt worried when they went out, and I'd never felt that way before.

“I've always had a problem with the idea of actively campaigning against anti-Asian racism because, compared to anti-black racism, it didn’t feel as legitimate. And then, with the wave of racism surrounding COVID, there was a lot more people talking about it. I started reading more on the subject and discussing it with people. Something clicked.

Now when I'm attacked in public, I react. I also joined FAB, and started to publicly display my activism on social networks.” — Laura, 32, FAB member

“The idea for UAS started a few years ago. I was a candidate in the local elections in [the Flemish Belgian city of] Leuven and was elected, to my great surprise. I later found out that I was the first Chinese person to be directly elected to the city council in the whole of Flanders. I couldn't believe it. 

“I started thinking about it and realised that if I looked around me, I saw mostly white people. In the summer of 2020, I read a newspaper article that featured an interview with [UAS cofounder] talking about being 18 during the pandemic. And there was this sentence where she said that there was a lack of representation of Asian people in Belgium and that she wanted to work on this subject. That's how it all started.

“Growing up in Leuven in the 80s and 90s, I felt quite safe. But, on the other hand, there was no space or language available to talk about these issues, no one to share these feelings with. I just pushed them away and ignored them for years. It's only because UAS exists – through creating these spaces and this language together – that I feel like I'm allowed to feel all my feelings for the first time.

“Over the past two years, I've been looking back at the way I grew up, and giving new meaning to past experiences. I used to just repress a big part of myself. I felt that no one would see or accept what I was feeling. I'm the kind of person who makes jokes about herself rather than feel the pain of being rejected or being made fun of. It's my way of coping, and it's only now that I realise how destructive it was and still is.

Another reason I started UAS was my son. I want him to have a space where he could feel the love of a community, and have the feeling of being carried by a whole group of people who see him and recognise him. That's what I want to give him.” — Ann, 40, co-founder of Untold Asian Stories (UAS)