#wrongAsian: Other Poets I've Been

When Asian-American comedian Ali Wong announced her divorce from husband Justin Hakuta last spring, mainstream media posted the news with the wrong pic: Wong’s co-star Randall Park instead of her actual husband. Nope. #wrongAsian — one of many nuh-uhs. Actor Randall Park is also not comedian Ronny Chieng. #wrongAsian. Singaporean actress Tan Kheng Hua is not Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh. #wrongAsian. Vietnamese-Australian lawyer Tu Le is not Sally Sitou from the Australian Labor Party. #wrongAsian. NYC community activist Grace Lee is not hate-crime victim Michelle Go. #wrongAsian.

#WRONGASIAN: OTHER POETS I HAVE BEEN. Join us for a night of poetry and identity messing.

The Exhibit:

Have You Eaten is a multi-pronged investigation of the Asian diaspora relationship to identity, otherness, and belonging. What does it mean to be from neither here, nor there? To be both of this place yet not completely, with traces of your you-ness from a different land, in a different tongue, where the sun feels different and perhaps closer. Where a familiar face is followed by “Have you eaten?” and an offering of a morsel to take with you. Where, exactly, do you belong? How have you come to know the feeling of belonging, or not? Where is your home, and what makes it thus? What transports you there? Or how have you created a sense of home, or felt the absence of one? Is home tied to a specific place? Person? Sound? Flavor? Smell?

Tell me, have you eaten yet ?