Navigating Belonging, Asian Diaspora & Settler Complicity
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"I am Asian-American", "I am Asian-Canadian", as attempts to say, "I belong here" —
but the impact being: legitimizing the settler colonial state, perpetuating colonial erasure of Indigenous peoples on Turtle Island.
The desire for belonging is deep. I feel it as an immigrant child of diaspora. My ancestors' pains of displacement run through my veins. And yet, our sense of belonging can not come at the cost of ongoing settler colonial erasure and violence.
How do we cultivate a sense of belonging that isn't dependent on legitimizing the settler colonial state, Indigenous genocide, and land theft? How might we cultivate a sense of belonging in the greater collective that is rooted in collective liberation and solidarity?
As people of Asian diaspora, we must hold the complexities of making room for our own pains, the white supremacist violence that we face, while also recognizing how white supremacy uses us to oppress Black & Indigenous communities and solidify the settler colonial state.
Proclaiming loyalty to and/or begging for recognition from these white supremacist, settler colonial nations will not liberate us.
I am located in what is colonially known as Vancouver, Canada. It is on the stolen land of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh nations. It is also the neoliberal city that was recently named the Anti-Asian Hate Crime Capital of so-called North America.
As an attempt to assert belongingness in the face of anti-Asian violence (the complexities and varieties of it — including but not limited to Sinophobia & Islamophobia) across Turtle Island, I have seen proclamations of being "just as" Canadian/American as white people.
I see the hurt. I feel the pain. And at the same time, I refuse to claim even closer proximity to colonial whiteness for temporary, conditional assimilation (true acceptance or humanization do not require assimilation).
I am a settler, an uninvited guest on Turtle Island. I am complicit in the ongoing land theft and Indigenous genocide that maintains the delusion of so-called Canada.
As a child of diaspora, of course, I hunger for a sense of home. With colonialism in my lineage, this longing is ancestral. But settler colonialism renders Indigenous peoples in diaspora on their own lands (Alicia Ellliott). And I refuse to be complacent in their displacement.
“ We’re here, in diaspora on our own lands.”
As a non-Indigenous, racialized person of diaspora on Turtle Island, I can and must cultivate a sense of belonging that isn't rooted in the colonial state and stolen land. I dream of and aim to embody belonging through community, my Corean ancestry, solidarity, and the pursuit of collective liberation.
As settlers, we need to go beyond one-time symbolism and shift into a daily commitment in unsettling the settler colonial project, in unsettling ourselves as settlers. This includes reorienting how we identify and relate to these nation states, centering the settler colonial context in our anti-racism efforts, and redressing our settler complicity (phrase from Squamish matriarch, Ta7taliya Nahanee).
If this resonates with you, please reflect on your long-term, daily commitments to Indigenous sovereignty, and send regular redistributions/reparations to your local Indigenous nations, organizations, land defenders, and water protectors.
Please email me at jiyoun@itsjiyounkim.com with any constructive feedback, in the spirit of collective liberation. I recognize that my perspectives will often be incomplete and I commit to continuously learning to be and do better.