In this light filled letter to Asian women in the midst of dark times, Xoài Phạm offers a loving reminder of the resilience, beauty and wisdom that we are born from.

Inspired by Ocean’s Vuong’s letter to his mother in the New York Times, this is for mẹ lives online as a borderless mailbox for Asian identified people to share stories rooted in mothers, motherhood, motherlands, mother-tongues and family.

Love Letter to Asian Women

thank you mama for giving me my eyes. 

thank you for showing me how to tell off a bully. 

thank you for letting yourself be vain. 

thank you for crying when i said i didn’t like vietnamese food. 

thank you for showing me how wrong i was. 

thank you for showing me what a woman could be! 

thank you gramma for my hair. 

for giving me an example of how to be quiet and ferocious at the same time. 

for teaching me how to sing. 

thank you aunties for helping us reimagine what is possible in our future. 

thank you for making it look easy despite the fact that we’ve been facing this violence for centuries.

thank you for surviving. 

thank you sisters for laughing with me. 

for passing on wisdom. 

for wading through mud and forging a path, even when it feels like we have nowhere to go. 

i love you. 

i love us.

Author Bio

Xoài Phạm (@xoai.pham) is a Vietnamese trans person in a complicated relationship with womanhood. She descends from a long legacy of warriors, healers, and shamans. Her life’s work is in dreaming new futures where we are all limitless. She makes those dreams a reality as a poet, essayist, editor, and collaborative educator. She is currently the digital program manager of Transgender Law Center and trans subject editor of Autostraddle. She’s also utilizing her skills to fight the deportations of Southeast Asian refugees with Mekong NYC, and is additionally serving on the board of TURNNT, which studies the factors that determine health outcomes for trans women of color in New York City.