Author Archives: Hossannah Asuncion

About Hossannah Asuncion

Hossannah Asuncion is a writer, organizer and educator who was raised near the 105 and 710 freeways in Los Angeles and currently lives near an A/C stop in Brooklyn. She is the author of Fragments of Loss (Chapbook, Poetry Society of America, 2010) and Object Permanence (Collection, Magic Helicopter Press, forthcoming 2016).

Talking Trump: Dictionary of the Not-Normal

A call for neologisms for the Trump Era.

By Hossannah Asuncion and Caitlin Delohery

Trumpschämen (n)

  1. The feeling of shame for one’s country

  2. The feeling that hasn’t left Americans since November 9, 2016

 

 

From “locker room talk” to “alternative facts,” the gaslighting that got Trump and co. in power began with them weaponizing language. And in this surreal/waking-nightmare new world of ours, we need to create new language to name our shared experiences, to stay sane, to fight back.   Continue reading

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We Were There: Black Women Artists for Black Lives Matter at The New Museum

Black Women Artists for Black Lives Matter
Thursday, September 1st, 2016
The New Museum, New York City

Black Women Artists for Black Lives Matter

 

At 6pm there was a line coming out of The New Museum that went down Bowery and Stanton nearly meeting Chrystie. We were here to see the one-night pop-up event Black Women Artists for Black Lives Matter (BWAforBLM). As part of her residency, artist Simone Leigh invited BWAforBLM, a collective she organized this past July, for an evening of solidarity.

 

We were all in line waiting to see Black women artists. We were essentially waiting for them.

Through September 18th, Leigh is exhibiting The Waiting Room, a statement and response to what institutions do to the female Black body. She honors Esmin Elizabeth Green who died after lingering for 24 hours in a hospital waiting room.

“Obedience is one of the main threats to black women’s health; it was a survival mechanism that Green waited 24 hours before collapsing,” says Leigh. “What happened to Green is an example of the lack of empathy people have towards the pain of black women.”

For her exhibit, Leigh centralizes the care of the body, and asserts disobedience as a form of self-determination. There are stations for healing and time for healers.

Waiting or not waiting is a form of privilege choosing. I saw the waiting of us, the diverse formation of folks standing in line, as a kind of belated honor to Black women artists. As I stood with friends, young people of color who work in museums, there was a patience in the statement our collective waiting body said to institutions of art that evening, We value Black women, the bodies and spaces they inhabit, and the art they create. Give them your time, space, and attention. Continue reading

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The 2016 DNC OMMMGGGGuide: What Writers Are Drinking to Get Through Election Season

2016 DNC OMMGGuide - What Writers Are Eating & Drinking This Election Season

Summary: People are eating Cheetos and drinking Sauvignon blanc.

Y’all, I can’t tell you if there’s been a day that didn’t include some kind of personal freak out around the US Presidential campaign. It seems everyone is in some way.

 

Everyone is freaking out

About 1,970,000 posts about freaking out.

But as writers, we have a latent talent. And no, it isn’t offering clear but tender insights written on the soft belly fur of us humans. It’s our full-force but still narrative-driven capacity to self-medicate (I see you, poets). Note: I don’t necessarily see self-medicating as inherently wrong. Some of us (I see you, poets, who eat clean/yoga/notliveinNewYorkCity) successfully live lives that counter our demons in healthy ways (ping me?).

I reached out to literary friends and acquaintances near and very, very far (thank you, Facebook!), and asked what they’ll be, and have been, consuming as they watch the emotional circus of our present political state.  Continue reading

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Pulse Nightclub and the Queer, Brown Space

os-orlando-pride-stand-united-with-pulse-shooting-victims

Image via The Orlando Sentinel

Space, As in Room, Pt. 1

I tell her that if there is a horror like this that she must run.

If we are away from each other–I at the bar–she at the table–she cannot look for me. She must, instead, find the exit and run.

I cannot sleep because I do not want her to die.

 

Space, As in Room, Pt. 2

Queered spaces, especially when brown, are brick and moral stances. A room when kissing and dancing are acts of activism. We speak of these political outcomes first even though they are secondary. The main purpose for these spaces are for moments to reclaim a completeness; to access one’s humanity because every other place abstracts your identity magnifying the whitest, straightest, or wealthiest of learned postures.

Simply put these rooms are where people go to be people.

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What To Eat When You’re an Asian American Writer and The New Yorker Is Racist and Scarlett Johansson Is Asian

A Dining/Survival Guide for Those Moments as an Asian American Writer

asian american racism 

While Catching up via Twitter on the Latest Inkling That The New Yorker Might Not Have Enough Asian American or Other Editors of Color to Say, Um, No.
Bittermelon and beef with black bean sauce.1

When You’re with Your Friends After Work and You’ve All Agreed to Cancel Your New Yorker Subscriptions and Instead Subscribe to The New Republic and/or The Atlantic Because, Respectively, Cathy Park Hong and Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Dan dan noodles, Sichuan pickled vegetables, steamed chicken with chili sauce, fried lamb with cumin, chongqing diced chicken with chili peppercorn, tears in eyes, hot and spicy crispy prawns (in the shell), and Sichuan spicy ma po tofu.2

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