Free Press Free Write: Walking in a Gallery with a White Man

We stumble upon a pretentious art gallery

Showing off prints of Picasso and Haring, no less

But the snobby people working inside act as if they have the real things,

As if the art is too expensive for commoners to be in here

As if art was not meant to resist the harassment of this capitalist and racist world

I went to all the artsy schools,

I write, I draw, I design, I sing, I act, I dance on ice,

I make art. I perform art.

Everything I can do to perform. I overperform.

I overperform to get people to notice,

I overperform to get people to care,

I overperform to convince people my voice as a Filipino woman matters.

I overperform to convince myself that I matter.

You play instruments. 

From artsy summer camps, after school programs, to the specialized arts high school in New York,

Now: The New School

I don’t say all this to brag,

I find comfort in what these institutions have given me: some type of validity, some type of superficial safety

Some way for me to be able to say, “See, I belong here. See, I am good enough.”

They said I belong here so therefore I do,

Even though any day now I can walk out the door and be attacked just like my fellow Asian New Schooler.

What use are all these arts schools? What use is The New School’s “progressive” culture when I’m dead?

You studied communications in New Jersey.

Now walking inside this gallery

Where one might think I’d feel at home and safe as an artist

Inside this white gallery

A white woman immediately follows us

And deep down I feel she meant to follow me.

“Are you looking for anything specific?” she asks

I take a deep breath

The same breath I take when employees follow me around in retail stores

The same breath of “I didn’t do anything. But I have morena skin so they don’t think I belong.”

The same breath of walking out my door and wondering if I’ll end up like that Filipino man slashed in the face,

The same breath of walking out my door and wondering if today I’ll get murdered like the 6 Asian women in Atlanta

The same breath of wondering if I’ll end up like the Asian woman my age who was punched two blocks away from my job on 34th street

The same breath of worrying about my mom after reading about the 65 year old woman who was brutally attacked near Times Square

The same breath of wondering

The same breath of worrying

The same breath of suppressing