Luisa Luo
SIX RANTS FROM A NASTY YELLOW GIRL

One, I am a byproduct of post-colonialism, fortunately and unfortunately.

Post-colonialism is my explanation for everything I have been put through from racism to sexism to homophobia to the Red Scare you name it. There is a root to all problems and I’m thrilled to reveal that the root is right here.

To understand post-colonialism, we ought to understand that the world wasn’t so divided back then. My land was connected to the land bridge across the Bering Strait, like the other colonized people, and the colonizers. We weren’t so different back then, all unapologetically naked and crude.

I come from a tradition more ancient than the ancient colonial invasions. Where I belong, we possess the only mythological story in the world, a narrative unlike others: we believed that a flood wiped out the entire human civilization. So devastating children lost their parents and wives lost their husbands. However, it was conquered by digging channels and building hams through the unity of the people. The Goddess Nüwa and Saint Dayu fixed the sky with broken holes and irrigated the fields. So boy, don’t shove your Christian values down my throat. You have no idea what kind of ineffable power my land has given me.

My culture originated from the river, with hundreds of tribes residing in houses made out of clay, stone, and wood. We lived thousands of years fed by our “mother river,” where heritage is documented through pottery and jades, in shapes of animals and patterns. Boy, are you telling me that you’ve got any of that in your colonizing quest?

The flood of Earth, flood like a force wiping out sins; flood like the way you, America, irrigate my thirsty, desirous heart. Or at least you thought so.

You thought I was keen for you and that I desired your salvation.

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Two, I am a byproduct of sick but dogmatic romances, fortunately and unfortunately.

Clearly, you don’t understand how things worked back at home, where love is expressed through sliding letters into lockers. NOT sticking your tongue down my throat and holding my hips with your palm. NOT telling me to shave my bikini line because my pubic hair didn’t please you.

I had given up. When you told me you were attracted to me so, after watching hundreds of episodes of anime, I believed you, knowing what you appreciated was the gore, the plump breast, and child-like facial expressions of the female protagonist, not me. No, not my true form deprived of the abilities to trust and love; deprived of nutrition with a flat chest. So flat you can hear my heartbeats ten feet away.

When you asked me: “what is your problem, lady?”

I thought to respond and inform you that my problem was “I love my hair sesame black and healthy. They grow where they ought to be and shall not be removed. Like wildfire shall not be retained. Like my land shall not be taken away by your greedy ancestors. Like your men shall not have impregnated my mothers and sisters and tell us they were blessings. Like your semen ain’t sacred. Like you ain’t the improved breed. Like the linkages in my genes are just as valuable as yours in history prior to the birth of Jesus Christ.”

So I figured, penetration is your way of declaring your supreme rights over me, once your colonial subject from hundreds of years ago. So I figured, your genitals are your machine gun, firing at me with no mercy. No attempt was ever made to mask rawness. Have you seen the holes in my body, caused by your silver bullets? Even when we are both equally aroused, I am still the subject of your subordination.

I don’t suppose you would allow me to lay the blame. Don’t suppose you would be happy to hear rebuttals and reasonings from this little yellow girl.

For yellow is the color of weakness. For when people say Coldplay “didn’t mean it,” I can’t reciprocate the waves of laughter.

Yellow is never the proper term, stemming from racial classification. Your excuse to conquer, subjugate, and enslave me and my loved ones. Put aside your xenophobia and listen.

AMERICA, sweet, sugar-crushed America, you gotta stop thinking that I am subservient, passive, and quiet. I will voice myself so loud my scream echoes in an empty hall and your earlobes. If only you heard Edward Said loud and clear, you would know.

Being referred to as “exotic” and “submissive” ain’t compliments. They are the labels you use to satisfy your sick, pornographic mind. The rationalization to feel erotic and unleash your impaired, incurable fetish.

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Three, I am a byproduct of Orientalism, fortunately and unfortunately.

I am so much beyond the “Yellow Peril.” According to my DNA test, I have Pacific Islands, I have North African, and I have Indigenous American. That has gone unnoticed because my skin reflects the rays of the Sun. But does that hurt the Sun? No. It shines as usual. Bright, undeniably yellow and orange rays of sunlight. It only hurt me. I have no reason to be ashamed either. My ancestors crossed thousands of miles to be with each other. They united as if they had previously met. Their combinations were a reunion.

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Four, I am a byproduct of cultural unities, fortunately and unfortunately.

I spoke three languages growing up. One of my mother’s. Complex characters, four tonal variations, spoken to my grandparents. One of my father’s. Twisted, rolling tongue, masculine, feminine, and neutral genders come before the words. One of my own. The words I play around with, manipulate and write with. The language you, reading, see coming across the paper at this instant. But what you fail to understand is that I still fear my “supposed accent” can be detected and picked apart in the ears of every native speaker, who can diminish me as just another “knock-off” and “American-wannabe.”

The lost sense of cultural unities fed me so much confusion. I wasn’t sure who to believe in the documentation of history, whether the Communist Party had saved the peasants from poverty and famine or had massacred the innocents; whether the Bible was the most important spiritual guidance in writing or the Buddhist scriptures given to me from a rinboqe in Tibet was more worth adhering to.

In the Mahayana sutras, a path is explained as any person who intends to can become a Buddha. That the nature of Buddhahood was about awakening.

They offered me very little clarity but did teach me to become premature. So I think of post-colonialism so early. Early at an age when the world is thought to be definitive and that evil is evil. Conquerors are conquerors. The abused are abused.

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Five, I am a byproduct of melancholy nostalgia, fortunately and unfortunately.

I hear mysterious calls from my home at nighttime, a plain terrain covered in soft grass. It cries to me, “come home,” “come home,” and “motherland awaits your return.” I wake up and my pillows get a little wet even. I think my motherland shed tears in my dream and they are somehow transferred over to my familiar bed and room in an unfamiliar nation.

I’m sorry motherland. I have been a fool. My coldness is a wall between you and me. The day I deconstruct the wall is the day I find myself standing in front of your grave. Perhaps I can bring you a floral bouquet, then set the petals aflame with a lighter. You see, the bright color, she reacts with the air and the fire chemically then decays rapidly. You see, the brightness in my heart decays as it mourns for your passing away and a little piece of it dies with you.

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Six, I am a byproduct of a sensitive culture, fortunately and unfortunately.

I admit that this has all been a joke and I ought to be grateful. Apparently, I am a fortunate child with a false sense of misfortune. Dear America, if you ever read this, have a laugh with me and forgive. Will you?

After all, you are the one who has taught me that these stupid ideologies rule the world.

Luisa Luo is a rising senior in high school. She is originally from Beijing, China, and currently resides in Orlando, Florida. She is an avid writer, playwright, performer, and social justice advocate with an interest in pursuing Sociology, Comparative Literature, and Dramaturgy. She has produced works in memoirs, spoken word poems, dramatic scripts, and short stories. Her pieces have been featured in The Kenyon Review Young Writers Workshop Anthology and recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. She is exploring various genres and artistic expressions while preserving the elements of her identity that are important to her.

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