I wrote the poem, “The Shove,” in 2019. I was just beginning my journey into my identity work when the very real memory depicted in this poem surfaced. In my child’s mind, I knew what happened in that 1960s grocery store was about being seen by others as Asian. In this artwork, I bury the poem in black tags symbolizing the government-issued identification tags worn by men, women and children of Japanese ancestry who were being transported to “relocation centers” during World War II, where they would be incarcerated for up to 4½ years.

Fast forward two years: we have been catapulted into the COVID pandemic, a time when an alarming surge in violent and virulent Asian hate incidents emerged. From March 2020 through December 2021 there were nearly 11,000 hate incidents reported by Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. These hate incidents are still taking place today.

I created this installation to help connect the dots between the “minor feelings” Asians are often confronted with in everyday life, like the one I experienced as a child, and the Asian hate incidents of today and yesterday. The distance between them is not very far at all, when the history of Asian America is considered. This work asks viewers to consider, “Why Hate? Why Not Love?” Such simple questions, but sometimes difficult to reconcile.