From the Margins | Issue 09
A monthly curation of powerful Asian voices exploring literature, grief, healthcare, and cultural identity
Periphery is a publication dedicated to fostering greater understanding and appreciation of Asian cultures and experiences among a global readership. Subscribe to Periphery to decolonize your reading and discover unique writing.
Announcements
Don’t forget to get your entries in by tomorrow for Periphery’s current submission period! Theme: hourglass. Submission guidelines.
Mansi would like to invite you to her VIRTUAL CREATIVE GATHERING, THE RIPPLE ROOM:
In a world that moves fast, The Ripple Room is a space to slow down. To create without hesitation. To connect without expectation. Every month, we gather for a live, no-agenda session where creativity meets conversation. There’s no pressure, no perfection ... just an open hour to explore, express, and be in the company of thoughtful, like-minded makers.A recap of the last session: Ripple Room – March 7
If this resonates, I’d love to see you on April 6: https://lu.ma/2fxpoui4
Do you have news you’d like included in next month’s issue? Email me at tiffany (at) peripherylit (dot) org by April 23, 2025.
Hi everyone,
This issue of “From the Margins” is brought to you by me, Tiffany Chu. It’s been a privilege to build this community with you. Thank you to everyone for making this a thriving place of support. I like seeing you pop in the chat to share posts and talk about whatever’s on your mind.
I hope you enjoy the picks for this month!
ASIAN AMERICAN LITERATURE CRITIQUE
The first article I’d like to share is from a while ago, but is interesting to read and still relevant. The thought has occurred to me at times: why is most Asian American literature lackluster? I have been lamenting to my husband about the many sorry Taiwanese American books I’ve tried to read in recent years. Is Esmé Weijun Wang our only great?! Speaking of Taiwanese, some of the stuff coming out of Taiwan itself is also embarrassing.
There are a few gems, some of which I’ve mentioned in our Decolonizing Your Bookshelf series. Most books, however, fall into the realm of mediocre. Granted, it’s difficult to write and finish a book. To be published at all is already an admirable feat, especially for us, I’m sad to say. I think we can do better, though. Asians have much more to offer the literary landscape than what they can filter out by trying to conform to their western counterparts. So much of the bold, passionate writing comes from translated works.
Another excellent article on this topic is Chris Jesu Lee’s Asian American Psycho. Both of these are long, but worth your time to read.
Asian-American literature is boring because liberalism is the mother-of-all identity shredders and our literary elites are approval-seeking strivers
— ARX-Han writes Decentralized Fiction
Why is Asian-American literature so boring? Why does it so thoroughly lack passion? Why are the characters so passive and never, ever, angry? Why do they almost invariably have nothing substantive to say about anything? Why does it so studiously deviate from anything interesting or controversial or innovative or offer a challenge of any kind?
In other words, why is it so deeply cucked by liberalism?
PERSONAL ESSAY
This personal essay comes from the desk of Ria Tagulinao, who writes about discovering her Writer Crush turned Soulmate turned ex-Fave Writer. At once humourous and heartbreaking, Ria gives us all a sobering warning not to elevate our heroes to pedestals, and that real love is built on being truly seen.
I’m sure we have all been there: admiring someone online from afar, sometimes forming a relationship with that person. In truth, there are limits to how much we can know someone virtually.
When I Found My Parasocial Soulmate
— Ria Tagulinao writes Skinny Deep
It’s intoxicating, both the prospect of being seen and seeing someone. But maybe it’s more elusive than we think, despite how much access we assume we have to other’s lives. Maybe that’s exactly what we need to be wary of lest we start conflating things, like mistaking knowing a person’s work with truly knowing them.
HEALTHCARE
Dr. Zed is a force to be reckoned with. Her patients are lucky to have her, and I wish she wasn’t such a rarity in the healthcare field.
I’m reminded of the time I had my first miscarriage (when I didn’t know I was pregnant at the time), and my primary care physician dismissed my ongoing bleeding as a result of my irregular periods. Despite multiple follow-up messages of me saying this had never happened to me before, that I had never bled for over a month straight before, she continued to message back with, “It’s fine; let us know if it doesn’t stop.” Only after I took a pregnancy test on the advice of ob-gyn friend did my PCP take me seriously—only because a risk of infection would have meant her career could be on the line. Sadly, my experience isn’t uncommon.
For those of us who have been invalidated, blamed, and treated as nuisances by our physicians, this post is one that might help restore your faith that yes, there are doctors out there who actually care about their patients.
The “Ungrateful Patient”
— Zed Zha, MD (she/her) writes Ask the Patient
He needed to know why, despite his every effort, he still felt powerless. He needed to know that he had done everything he could for his baby girl as he promised her he would since the day she was born.
And now, by telling me how he felt and asking the question that had been eating at him for far too long, he was giving me the chance to make it right for him. Even if only a little.
There was only one thing left for me to say — the truth that we owed him and so many patients and parents like him:
“I’m sorry that…we never listened to you.”
GRIEF
Part artwork, part personal essay, this one is a beautiful tribute to Kris’s mother. It struck me especially hard when I read it, as I witnessed my mother-in-law dying a couple years ago. My husband now brings up how he doesn’t like that their ages are out of sync—that she will never grow any older while he will, perhaps one day surpassing her years. It’s sobering to think about as we watch our parents age, their movements less smooth than before, tasks they once took for granted now more difficult.
At times, I think to myself, I don’t want to think about anyone else in my life dying. There’s been too much death in my life the past few years. Yet, no one can stop the slow but steady march of time. It’s coming for all of us. Its reality ought to turn my attention toward treasuring all our remaining moments, however many or few we may have.
My mum and me.
— Kris Soebroto writes Go get em tiger go
It’s been interesting to think about how relationships can continue to deepen, even when someone is no longer here. There’s a depth of understanding, relating, and witnessing of my mum that only emerged through the unfolding of my own life.
FRIENDSHIP
I always love reading about friendships: what makes them work, what doesn’t, personal anecdotes of friendships that have survived against all odds, platonic soulmates. Like any relationship, each person has different needs and expectations, and it’s important to know what those are.
I really enjoyed this piece by Mansi, who lifts the pressure of making friendships look a certain way, and rests content in a mutual understanding with those who are life-sustaining for her. After all, friendship doesn’t need to come with banners or big get-togethers; they are often in the quiet moments that aren’t performative and don’t need proof.
Quiet Spaces, Deep Connections
— Mansi writes The Ripple Maker
Because real connection isn’t built on shared laughter alone.
It’s built on the friendships that exist in silence. The friendships where I don’t have to fill space with stories or jokes or presence to matter.
The ones that hold, even in distance.
And so I move in this world now without a need for proof, without a need to feel validated by a group, without a need to feel I belong.
SIBLING RELATIONSHIPS
Sibling relationships are another type that often gets overlooked. As someone who has such a close relationship with my brother that people used to mistake us for a couple before we each got married, I appreciated this heartfelt reflection on an older sister’s love for her younger brother.
Like many siblings, my brother and I also fought like crazy growing up. At some point, that shifted into a deep love. We still have some ferocious fights on occasion, but we also know we unconditionally have each other’s backs.
I hope Kanchan’s essay about her brother’s illness awakening a fierce protectiveness will move you as it did me.
Of Brothers and Sisters
— Kanchan Balani writes Homebody Stories
My parents stood frozen in shock. But something inside me shifted, awakened. The annoying little shadow who'd followed me everywhere was now someone I needed to protect. That reluctant hand-holding transformed into a grip I never wanted to let go.
They say love grows slowly, like a garden. But sometimes it floods in all at once, like a dam breaking. That day in the hospital, watching my brother's pale face against white sheets, I understood what it truly means to be an elder sibling.
POLITICAL
The last article I’m sharing with you is an incisive and sobering one from Lily Pond, which I hope will inspire thought and discussion. I’m certainly not the only one who has seen the multiple posts by people either saying they will or want to move out of America. While that sounds like an idyllic solution in theory, the reality is far less than rosy.
Lily touches on multiple angles, including American entitlement of expecting the country they move to to cater to them, Americans exploiting the cheap labor of locals—particularly in Asia—at the expense of residents (neo-colonialism), and the privilege of leaving the country. She references a few other articles which I also recommend reading.
The Great American Exodus
Don’t tell people what they should do just because their way of doing things is different from what you’re used to in America. Julia Hubbel tells a story in one of her articles cited above, of an American woman who couldn’t stand the sight of laundry hanging on lines outside buildings. She told the people to stop doing that! Can you guess the reactions of the locals?
This issue of Periphery features was curated by Tiffany Chu of The Untangling. If you enjoyed these picks, be sure to subscribe to her Substack.
A very warm welcome to the newest additions to the Periphery Directory!
Abhishek Singh, Lisa Angulo Reid, Miguel de la Fuente-Lau, Mansi, lee, Reem’s Substack.
Glad to have you all in this growing community.
To join the directory, you can fill out the form here.
Oooh I was also a fan of that ARX-Han piece. Great pick!
Thank you so much for this feature, Tiffany. What a gift to be in such company! Can't wait to read all the other pieces from this Issue ❤️