With Donald Trump’s ascendancy to the White House, it can be easy to believe that while elections are temporary, dystopia is forever.
Trump’s campaign was rife with the kind of rhetoric that so many people have been fighting against for decades: the struggle against racism, misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, white supremacy — the struggle to defend and uplift our humanity.
Like so many progressives in the country side-eyeing Hillary Clinton, I filled the box next to her name because I just can’t stomach Trump’s rhetoric and the kind of response he incites from his supporters. That even though I am ashamed of America’s imperialism and will struggle to fight it on all fronts, I am also beginning to confront what it means to be on this stolen land.
While there have been so many reports and accounts of outright racism in different parts of the country (even in California!) since Trump’s election, I have been inspired by the ways that our communities have shown up for each other. Whether it’s resources like this, or the many forms of protest people have been engaging in, what gives me hope at the end of the day is that we are a resilient people.
An offering from my blog: a post-election bibliotherapy which features books I’ve read and written about on Libromance. These books confront different kinds of tension, conflict and contradictions but what they share as a common thread is the ability to understand that the most tender parts of ourselves are also deep wells of strength and resilience.
BAYI: Stories of Lumád Women from Lumad Women You Need to Know
An excerpt from the post:
At 92 years old, Bai Bibiyaon Likayan Bigkay‘s strength and courage has been a constant source of inspiration for many. She is a bibiyaon, a female Lumád tribal chieftain in a culture that is traditionally patriarchal. In the 90’s, she joined a tribal war to fight the logging company Alcantara & Sons (ALSONS).
Night Sky with Exit Wounds from The Inevitability of Ocean Vuong’s Poetry
An excerpt from the post:
In Night Sky with Exit Wounds, Ocean carries the stories of his parents seeking refuge away from Hanoi. His father is a constant subject, navigating political and emotional terrains. I remember reading “Telemachus” with a profound longing to reach through time and understand the visceral loss of a son, entwined with his father.
Known and Strange Things from Looking with the Eyes of Teju Cole
An excerpt from the post:
He takes us beyond what most would not publicly acknowledge, in spite of the increasing and damning evidence. Complicated as he is, Obama is still, for many folks, a symbol of racial progress in the country. Perhaps it is the experience and the perspective of an internationalist such as Teju, can one then really see the implications and reverberations of a messed-up foreign policy.
The Underground Railroad from A Lifetime of Remembering with Colson Whitehead
An excerpt from the post:
This is America. I think about how a queer, brown Filipino immigrant reads a book about slavery and the black folk’s struggle for liberation. I think about how easy it is to forget sometimes, that sometimes the kind of narrative that arrests our attention is beguiled by the media. Whatever makes a quick buck, as long as it turns the viewership up. How easy it is for Filipinos back home to vote for the son of the country’s former dictator, how easy it is to bury the memory of struggle, how easy it is to pull a trigger.
Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist from The Courage it Takes with Sunil Yapa
An excerpt from the post:
I am a Third World woman living in the First World. And I am both proud and ashamed of the glaring fact that I live on U.S. soil enjoying the benefits of the imperialist machinery but also fully aware that here, in the belly of the beast, are prime opportunities for change.
At that moment in the book, I felt like I was the protester and Charles at the same time. I’m in a Third World body with a mind that is increasingly adapting to the First World and at my core I am scared of losing grasp of my Third World-ness, the identity that I am proud of, all the wounds and the scars on my back, the struggles that have defined my existence, of what makes me stand up in the streets.
I remember writing The Courage it Takes, with Sunil Yapa earlier this year, when I was in an entirely different place. I was tired and burnt out but I knew that I had to keep on going. When I was reading Ocean’s poetry, I was reminded of the intimacy of personal and political work and the endless fusion of the two. I learned how to look and make connections from Teju, as I pored over his essays on politics and literature. In Colson’s book, I learned the face of imperialism, how liberty is reserved for other people. Last but not the least, I was inspired by the stories of the Lumád women as they continue to fight for their ancestral lands.
From this point, it is going to be a long and rough journey. But we’ll get there. It will take a lot of willpower, focus and love to overcome what we are facing, but again, we are a resilient people. Let the words of Bai Bibiyaon Likayan Bigkay, one of the Lumad women, continue to inspire us:
If we continue to struggle just as we are doing now, tomorrow is ours. The struggle must be continued by the future generations. What we are doing now, even if we die, we will die contented if our children, our grandchildren and the future generations will continue what we are doing. We know we can do and achieve many things. The unity that we have achieved now, can also be accomplished by future generations, even more.
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