Okay, okay, so Art Does Rhyme with Fart

But that is so totally INSULTING!

Why does Art always have to take such a BEATING?

Always the first to take a CUT in FUNDS & GRANTING!

Now, can you imagine a life without ART?

Art is the weave of a soft blanket

As it cuddles a child

Art is the Dance of our ancestors

And the movement of our souls

Art is what today your parents bring

And they are doing some marvelous things

Art is the lilt of different languages

Their soft cadences

Or hard, harsh curses

Art is Love

Ingrained in the colors

Of pastels, oils and charcoal

Art is all around us

Art is THIS POETRY

That may not rhyme

But pours from

The recesses of the mind

Ground in what our experiences find

Art are the stories

Of our men

Carried down from the ages

Art are the stories

Of our women

Deep seated in wisdom

Art is graffiti

Art of the masses

Emblazoned on bridges and halls

Art-Is-The-Writing-On-The-Walls

You know, our bodies can’t be healthy

Without farts

Because that is the natural order of

Ingestion

Digestion

Defecation

So too with Art

It is the very fabric of our lives

The very meaning of our being

The very essence of our souls

IT MUST BE NURTURED

WITH MONEY

WITH TIME

WITH DEDICATION

RESPECT

AND POLITICAL SUPPORT

Hey, Mr. Governor, sir

PLEASE DON’T FART ON ART

© Hedy Tripp, 2009

Written and presented for Perpich parent night

Opposing Gov. Pawlenty’s cuts to the art school

The river swirls

Grey and dirty

Catching at my heart

Wide-eyed in fear

The smell of sour milk assaulting our nostrils

We grasp the plastic bottles

Tied with string

It barely floats

I close my eyes as the water takes me

The river voices numbs my memories

Of dark places

Of strange jungle sounds

Of children strangled to keep

Their voices down

I am alone….

© Hedy Tripp 2012

My visions as I sit by the Mekong in 1976

The sun rises red and the red sun sets

Like the little red light

In the small room

That is all bed

The rice fields…I remember, picking thin rice grains

From wilted stalks standing

In earth parched and cracked

I was just 8 (a lucky number!)

Chasing scrawny chickens

In the red dust around the stilts of the ragged thatched hut

That was my home.

My mother….I remember, burdened with children, she scarcely knew my name!

My Aunty comes to visit…

And says in a voice so sweet and kind:

“Oh come, follow me to the big city, you can help with the shop,

Just cleaning work – for lots of money, buy pretty things for you

Or baht to send home to your family!”

The city’s sparkling ribbons of light

Entering into all the corners of my eyes

Blinding me,

Was this reality?

Smiling Aunty

Friendly people

Oh, hot delicious Pho (chicken soup)

Translucent noodles

Sliding into me

Then…in my small room

That is all bed

Lit by a small red light

My eyes open wide

With surprise and fright

Hairy arms reaching

A monstrous thing penetrating

Dismembering pain

Exploding…

Again…

And again…

And again…

In the small red room

That is all bed

My pain is pulsing

I am a VIRGIN…again

And again…

And again…

I want the little light to no longer be red

I want the sun never to rise

Therefore never to set

In the small red room

That is all bed

© Hedy Tripp, 2006

Updated 2013, 2015

We do not hear the voices of child victims. Dedicated to Joy’s work with trafficking

Kumbing

Carved by Filipino lovers

Croon tantalizing images of what could be

Or shamans humming mesmerizing sounds

Calming mental chaos of sickness or loss

Somehow it makes me think of a hummingbird….

Does a hummingbird sing?

Or just the rush of her wings?

Where is her true voice?

Thrown by winds

Silenced by thunder

To be seen but not heard

Was the advice of the Fathers

Ah… it was more of a warning

To women daring

To use their true voice

So we whispered

In dark corridors

Or kept our secrets deep

Never to be let out

Does a hummingbird sing?

We do hear the whirring of her wings

As she sucks into the heart of sweet flowers

Sharing life-giving nectar to her little things

My mother gave what she could

Never asking for more

Even when it was due

That ultimate sacrifice

In bits and pieces her stories came

Enigmas and mysteries

That had never been revealed before

Those brown withered skeletons

Shaking in the armoires

Of my mother’s memoirs

© Hedy Tripp, 2018

After the Tribal Tour to Southern Philippines

“Kumbing” (Tagalog) or a kulimba or thumb piano has a bamboo tongue (lamella resonator) attached to a frame – since trances are facilitated by droning sounds it is a common instrument in a shaman’s rituals/associated with magic.

There are no Asians in Asia

We are from specific countries

We have specific nationalities

Vietnamese

Bangladeshi

Pakistani

Hmong

Chinese

Singaporean

America calls us Asian American

Lumping us in that census category

And we become the model minority

We do not need social services

There are no racial disparities

We excel in education

We are good at math

We are even wealthier than Whites

You do not see

The Southeast Asian refugee

You do not see

The disparity

© Hedy Tripp, undated

She is a Warrior!

Words swing swords

Pens the arrows

In Vietnam…

She is a Warrior!

Her world torn twice

Imaginary lines

Her heart sliced

Fleeing Vietnam…

She is a Warrior!

Fighting for space

Horrifyng her face

Pirates attack

Rape the women

In Laos…

She is a Warrior!

Crossing the Mekong

Swirling grey waters

A child floats by

She is a Warrior!

Leaving bamboo forests

Stinking refugee camps

Await her

In Cambodia…

She is a Warrior!

Crossing killing fields

Skulls & bones

Were her lovers

In the U.S…

She is a Warrior!

Breast cancer strikes

Stigma of shame

She is a Warrior!

Imprisoned at home

Mis-understood

Spirit dies

Fears arise

To her grandchildren…..

You will be a Warrior!

Nestled & folded

Safe in the womb

Or crying out loud

You will be a Warrior!

Surrounded by Sheroes

Fierce women

Speaking out

And you….

She is a Warrior!

All around you

Breathe in the Power

© Hedy Tripp, 2014

dedicated to Mary Thi Nguyen

The superwoman syndrome is doing all you can do and more

Add the model minority myth and your brilliance is blinding…

The superwoman syndrome is keeping to yourself

the hardships and sacrifices you have to make binding

The superwoman syndrome can head you straight

to burn-out, brain drain, bitterness, frustration and despair

So, who goes there?

I have, you have, AAPI women have

How can you stop hurtling to that place?

There is so much that critically, urgently, absolutely needs to be done

There is so little time to get those burning objectives met

And you are the best and sometimes the only person, it seems, who can do all that

But, You are a single mother,

You are a daughter,

You are a parent,

You are a lover,

You are a breast cancer survivor,

You are an elder,

You are a full-time career woman

Stop, Drop, Reconnoiter…

Your sanity depends on it

Your anxiety relates to it

Your children and family need you too

You are the one around which their world is bent

Can you afford to lose that precious time?

Because in a blink of an eye that time is spent

Reconnoiter…..Balance…….The Ying and Yang of life

To do what needs to be done in the time and capacity you can realistically manage[3]

Without compromising those you love and who love you.

I know, I have been there…..

In sociology, a superwoman is a Western woman who works hard to manage multiple roles of a worker, a homemaker, a volunteer, a student, or other such time-intensive occupations. It was first used by Marjorie Hansen Shaevitz, in her book The Superwoman Syndrome. The notion was first recognized in the post second-wave feminism American society of 1970s-1980s, with the shift of the woman's traditional role of a housewife towards more career-oriented way of life. This life involved the pursuit of both traditional female roles in the home and with children, as well as the pursuit of traditionally masculine goals in the form of jobs and public social status. The notion of "superwoman" differs from that of "career woman" in that the latter one commonly includes sacrifice of the family life in favor of career, while a superwoman strives to excel in both

American feminist Betty Friedan in her book The Second Stage argues that "superwomanhood" of 1980s have led to double enslavement of women, both at home and at work. Her advice for feminists was to step up to the "second stage" of the feminist movement and to struggle for reshaping both gender roles and redefining social values, styles, and institutional structures, for the fulfillment to be achievable in both public and private lives without the necessity to sacrifice one for another.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superwoman_syndrome retrieved 1/19/2014

© Hedy Tripp, 2014

Published in “Empowerment”

Chai Vang:...Bang Bang

Hey, don’t mess with me

Or you’re dead

She lay sprawled on the crinkled leaves

Hair matted in the blood soaked earth

But it was the man in jungle fatigues

Gun in hand

Standing among the trees

A flashback of memories

Warm wet smells

Bamboo forests

After a December rain

A wavering leaf flickering

Does it hide another communist soldier

But the attacker is White

The attacker is American

The CIA were his heroes

He would do anything for them

“Kill men, women and children for Freedom”

For the enemy was communist

Such evil has to be wiped off

The face of the earth

Back in his country he was King

A recognized leader

A Shaman, a Keeper of sacred knowledge

A fighter

A Man

Protecting and providing for his family

And his cultural way of life

Here in America

He is nothing

He cooks

Woman’s work

He gardens

An old woman’s work

He sits and stares at the shimmering lights of a large TeeVee

Pulsating with strange cadenced words

That he cannot understand

Even his wife talks english

His wife, beautiful and loving

The mother of healthy sons and lovely daughters

But it is she…

Who brings in the money

To keep the house warm

The food delicious

His children go to her

For help in their homework

Not to him - he knows nothing

So he hits her

One way to stay in power

For he is still a Man

To keep his dignity

Even White men do it

To keep their women in control

And on that wooded Wisconsin land…

They called him gook, chink, china man

He does not understand

He is not a Chinaman

They are thee ones that own Dragon restaurant downtown

Their language in unintelligible

Their kids go to private school

But his ancestors came from China many centuries ago

Who fought their way through mountain passes

To finally settle on the mountain tops of Laos

Far from the lowland Lao people

And he is Vietnamese

Those communist “Gooks” who won that shameful war

From their deep tunnels beneath bamboo forests

Fighting to keep their land

But he is a skilled soldier

A marksman

Even in the California national guard

He is always proud to fight for America

And on that wooded Wisconsin land…

Private Property, No Trespassing

Meaningless letters stuck in the ground

There’s nobody around

So let’s climb a tree

And see what abounds

I see an angry man

A violently angry man

I’ll climb down

Gook, Chink, Chinaman

He senses the hatred

The words in the woods

Are not of welcome

Gook, Chink, Chinaman

GET OUT OF MY LAND

Save a Deer, Kill a Mong(sic)

Bullets fly from all around

Save a deer,..and the Hmong

Kills, and kills, and kills, and kills, and kills, and kills

6 lay dead

2 more writhing on the ground

And the “Mong” walks away

© Hedy Tripp, 2005

Updated 2020

My support is like a true breast

Friends fill in the spaces

Where my family softly surrounds

Me in the middle

Like a pert nipple

© Hedy Tripp, 2012

Asian American woman, don’t you know?

Coming to America

You are 6 times

More likely to get cancer

Than your second generation sisters

You ask me why?

I do not know

Fast food, greasy fries?

Stress, trauma, the terrors of war?

Discrimination, xenophobia, bigotry?

Japanese women to America top the list

Philipinas are dying

Late diagnosis

Its too late

Immigrant woman, please don’t delay

A mammogram could keep the cancer at bay

© Hedy Tripp, 2014

(updated 2020)

What lurks within My Breast?

My breast that nursed three babies…

Their sweet succulent lips suckling

Their very first drink of human life.

What lurks within My Breast?

My heart that thumps like PowWow drums

& Screams!...at the injustices of this society.

What lurks within My Breast?

A Cancer growing?

Is it gone?

Or like society’s isms will keep on recurring?

A Woman’s Breast

Source of infinite pleasure…

Yet conjured into sexual fantasies…

Swollen in pornographic ecstasies…

My Breast

Cut and Assaulted;

Mammographed and Mastectomized;

Radiated & Poisoned…

But…My Essence is not just Breast,

My essence is the Strength of My Love.

(2019)

But my breasts do not define me

I am centered in my family and my whole-ness of my self

(2020)

My breasts do not define me

I am beautiful, and whole

© Hedy Tripp, January 1996

(written after my mastectomy)

I am but an immigrant woman

I am Asian American like you

Six times more likely to get breast cancer

Having come to this country years ago

© Hedy Tripp, 2014

No…It’s not true

Why me?

It can’t be happenning..

My Husband holds my hand

Why, why cancer?

What did I do?

There was no lump, no pain…

Are you sure?

My Husband holds my hand

Would I lose my breast?

Would I be radiated?

Chemotherapeed? Poisoned?

Would I die?

My Life Partner holds my hand

I see death passing by

She stops at the bed’s edge

And shakes her head

It is not yet time…

My Lover holds my hand

Has the cancer invaded?

Its killer cells exploiting

Other soft body tissues…?

…Or just those few clusters

In my left breast?

My Closest Friend holds my hand

My breast that nursed three babies

Their sweet succulent lips suckling

Their very first drink of human life

A woman’s breast

Source of infinite pleasure

Yet conjured into sexual fantasies

Swollen in pornographic ectasies

My breast…

Cut away from my body

Lymph nodes excised

Nothing left

To be Radiated or Chemicalized

My Black husband still….holds my hand

© Hedy Tripp 2012

updated 2013

Biology fascinated me

Microscope opening

Into incredible new worlds

Delving deeper into cellular, subcellular galaxies

Infinite undiscovered realms

Of the human body

The balanced dependence of each living entity

A magnificent organism

A complex network

Intricate neuronal architectures

Each moving part

Each pulsing organ

Specialized

To complement

To keep the body alive

Unique

Vibrant

Then an apparition

A single cell quivers and shakes

Starts dividing

All on its own-some lonesome self

To remove it now does guarantee that another cell

Will not take its place

Ad infinitum till orgasmic death

Or like Henrietta Lack’s macabre cells

Still growing, multiplying, travelling

The world over

Many times

Potent chemicals sicken the human body

Destructive radiation can kill

Cancer cells and “good” cells

And human bodies can survive these catastrophes

Rally back into magnificent normalcy

To call it again a human body

© Hedy Tripp, undated

Updated 2020

It had to be a gender thing

It had to be a man

Who invented this way

Of total discomfort

Surely with all our modern advancement in science

(Surely science in its modernity)

(Can find another way to do a mammogram)

There must be another way to do a mammogram

My Breast

Flattened like a chapati, (or pita bread or taco)

I hold my breath

The X-Ray machines

Strobe down invisible tentacle rays

To capture cellular pictures

Below the soft elastic skin

The first picture should be enough

The nurses nod and you go on your way

Keeping fingers crossed

That it should be okay

The fear of the unknowable

Tears at your heart

What if…..?

I know my daughters know

What they have to do

They do not talk about it to me.

© Hedy Tripp, 2014

Updated 2020

Flattened like a chapati

I hold my breath

X-rays strobe invisible lights

To capture cellular images

Who invented this

most uncomfortable method?

Surely there must be another way

to have a mammogram?

© Hedy Tripp, 2014

My “chi” –

The center of my gravity

Shifted perceptibly

When I became a one-breasted woman

I did not think to have a double mastectomy

I was too fond of my remaining breast

I still fantasize about breast surgery

- Include a tummy tuck

The “spare tire” transformed

Into curvaceous breast tissue

And a slender waist!

© Hedy Tripp, 2012

My first prosthesis was quite pink!

Still, it gave the illusion of normality

As I patiently waited for a “skin colored” breast of brown

It was flesh-like

Even seeming to softly vibrate

In tune with my body

Comforting to the touch

It keeps warm

Taking the heat of my body and becoming one with it

Next to my heart all day

Beating the rhythm as if it is its own

Silicone in a bag

Shaped just so it could snugly fit

Into a soft pocket

To give that magical deception

Of symmetry

One can even choose a size

Does size matter?

Does size define a woman’s identity?

Part of society’s unwritten rules

Of Femi-ni-nity

Young two-breasted college women

Conscious of their beauty

Showing frontal clefts to tease

Young college men

(Update from True Breast poem)

Unlike the illusion of my prosthesis

My family supports me like a true breast

Friends fill in the spaces

Where my family softly surrounds

Me in the middle

Like a pert nipple

© Hedy Tripp, 2012

Updated 2013, 2020

Health disparities are like 2 trains a’rumbling

Fast forward, hard metal grinding,

Reverberating deep into the ground.

But they start at different places,

One more forward than the other,

One on tracks that are still challenged

By racism’s deep rutted history.

Trains filled with scientists, biochemists, geneticists,

Millions in research and surveys to cure breast cancer.

And “the disparities between Black and White women have continued to increase every year since 1981”

The disparities within and without - communities of color

Keeping that one train from ever catching up.

If all was truly equal, then these two trains would be neck and neck

BUT…..

Even though White women have the highest rates of breast cancer in the United States,

Breast cancer is killing more women of color today.

African American women

Filipina Americans

Latinas

Native Hawaiian women

This is the Disparity Train….

The other train must continue its course in searching for cures

But the Disparity Train must close the GAP

It must accelerate even faster

So that the search for cures and prevention of cancer and the mortality rate

become equitable!

So that we are all in the same train

Racing towards …

A breast cancer free community

African American women are“more likely to die from breast cancer” than White women

Breast cancer is the leading cause of death in Filipinas compared to other Asian American ethnic groups

Latinas are more likely to be diagnosed with larger tumors and late stage breast cancer and therfore more likely to die from breast cancer than white women

Native Hawaiian women have the second highest rate of breast cancer of all ethnicities and the third highest rate of dying from breast cancer, and it is increasing. In Minnesota: Native American women are 13% more likely to be diagnosed with cancer than white Minnesota women, but 49% more likely to die from it (American Cancer Society)

© Hedy Tripp, 2012

dedicated to Dr. Mary T. Howard

Updated 2013

The scars are bright red at first

A fresh welt on golden brown skin

Running across the side of my chest

Where my heart beats

Scars like those Black slaves carried

To show their Master’s inhuman power

Over their flesh and bones

….but not their spirits.

My small child is puzzled

His dark hand placed over

The soft scalloped ridges

Imagining that this was where

He first sipped the milk of life.

The scars are part of me now

The welts turned brown

Matching the warm silicone prostheses

Pressed against my heart

And my spirit of survival

© Hedy Tripp, January 2012

updated 2013

I don’t know the emotions running through

My Black husband’s mind

His wife was not dead or dying

Just a loss of one breast….for now

He suggested beautiful scarves

Should I lose my hair

Long and black and beautiful

Scarves that I continue to collect

Winding scintillating fabrics

That flow through the experiences of this loss

I then dedicated myself to healing

As fast and furiously as possible

We loved with the same tempo

© Hedy Tripp, 2012

updated 2013

I am from the other side of your world

I am where the ocean breezes always blow

I am the fish fresh from the sea

I am the strange birds and fruits high up in tropical air

I am rice harvested from dry and wet fields

White rice, black, red and brown

I am an immigrant mother

I am Asian and I am American

I am a smile that illuminates a room

I am the light shadow in the dark night

I am love

I am hate

I am icing on the cake

I am birthdays

Three score and five more

I am the breast that is not there

I am the breast that remains

© Hedy Tripp, 2013

updated 2014

My left side

Bereft of breast

And its accompanying musculature

The symbol of femininity

A victim of mastectomy

My lymph nodes gone

Vessels of immunity

My arm aches to lift my child

He is but 3 years old

And my young daughter 5

We get a small red wagon

So my right arm can do the work of two

The children are thrilled

To sit

And be pulled

In the little red wagon

© Hedy Tripp, 2012

I will not have a Mammogram

Asian women don’t get Breast Cancer

So I will not know

If I will die

I will not have a Mammogram

So I will not bear

The stigma

To lose face in my community

To face my husband’s hatred

The deformity

The shame

Evil whispering

Finger-pointing

I will not have a Mammogram

Asian women don’t get Breast Cancer

© Hedy Tripp, 2014

I still grieve for the loss of my beautiful breast

It still affects me

Am I fully a woman with but one breast?

I no longer enjoy its cleavage

Or the perfect balance of my body

As it sways to the rhythms of many drums

But my breast does not define me

Who or What I am

I am still loved

And I love

Who I am

The body I am in

Ravaged by scars

Yet strong supple beautiful

That essence of my woman power

© Hedy Tripp, Undated

Why is it everywhere

That beauty is to be fair?

“Fair maiden with rose red lips, snow white skin and yellow hair”

The fairy tale princesses of my childhood stories’’

Why be surprised then

That the dark dark Eurasian

Suffers discrimination

By those fairer than her

But what sense is this?

From whence did this bigotry come?

Perhaps from working hands

Of their ancestors

Blistered brown by tropical suns

Bent backs bowed

Burdened by planting rice and corn

Of swaying bodies

Rhythmic changkoling of grass-clenched ground

Of farmers, laborers, lowest of the low

Eking life from dry and hot dusty stones

Did their very essence

Evolve from the darkness of their modality?

Did the powerful speak in derisive tones

To those that toiled so they could comfortably live?

Looking down from ivory-skinned towers

Pointing the long manicured talons of their scorn?

Changkol: Farming tool/hoe

© Hedy Tripp, 1997

Updated 2020

Why is it everywhere

That beauty is to be fair?

Fair maiden with snow white skin

Blue eyes, long golden hair

The English fairy tale loveliness of my childhood stories.

What senseless-ness is this?

To discriminate simply by the color of one’s skin?

From whence did this bigotry arise?

Perhaps from working hands blistered brown by the hot unrelenting sun,

Swaying bodies rhythmically hoeing the resisting earth,

Bent black backs bowed and burdened with planting and harvesting,

Of farmers and laborers, lowest of the low?

Did their very essence then evolve

Into the darkness of their meniality?

And then did not the upper class

Look down on them from ivory plated towers,

With long manicured fingers,

Untouched by that black, dark dirt,

And kept their beauty fair?

© Hedy Tripp, 2006

Reworded from “My Fair Lady”

“Beauty is Fair & Black is a Burden”

Updated 2013

She has passed too many times as White

Yet she holds her head high in pride

Of all the multi-ethnicities and cultures that flow in her veins

She is proud of who she is

She does not care who or what others think she is

Yet her pride is seen as White

© Hedy Tripp, 1996

Who am I to wear the rich embroidered dresses of Africa?

I who have not a hint of African blood?

The original cloths that were cruelly torn

By the ravages of the true savages

Filled with greed as they dehumanized proud men and women

Breaking their backs and their hearts

Killing their culture and their intellect

Killing their skills and musical languages

Killing systems of governing

Far superior to their slave masters and mistresses.

This fabric holds more weight than its intricate iridescent golden threads

Sewn by African women’s hands

That were uprooted from the warm earth

Flung in shit covered holds of slave ships

Slimy with mucous spattered pain

Of thousands of human beings

Never again to be wholly man, woman or child

Never to speak again in the tongues of their mothers

Never to see again the vastness of desert plains

Turning orange, gold and brown

In the setting of the African sun.

And can I dare to ask…

What clothes do you wear now?

Are they not the trappings

Of the Western race

That raped your women

And lynched your men?

And yet I continue to ask…

May I not wear this mantle of your glory

When you were kings and queens

And princesses in a land

That only your dreams can try to touch?

Ah, be proud to wear these threads of your heritage

For you are truly sewn to your past

A history that must never be forgotten

Or rewritten

Or deleted

Forever remember black bodies torn apart

Red blood staining the lush green ground.

I humbly touch this symbol

Of an ancient power

That is married to my heart

And tell you that

In time…

These threads will pass to our children

Into whose minds

We teach their inheritance

And into hearts

We nurture freedom…AZANIA!

© Hedy Tripp, 1997

updated 2013

Clay pot with tomah-toes

Clay pot with potay-toes

Clay pot that held fish curry

Clay pot with dark muddy earth

Clay pot that holds a rare orchid

Clay pot with tiny worms

Clay pot that sucked the water dry

Clay pot that smashed on my little toe

Clay pot transformed into exotic colors

Clay pot with life renewed

Clay pot cracked and broken

Clay pot frozen solid in ice

Clay pot with mold

Clay pot standing still against a raging storm

Clay pot under my mother’s window

© Hedy Tripp, 2006

You lay in my womb

Cocooned in soft waters

Heart pulsing

Loved for every movement

Then you lay still, floating…

Why does your heart not beat?

No pulse…sonogram silent….

Dead within the folds of my body

We shared sweet dreams and big visions

We were close friends

Dream child

I close my eyes

And your smile floats by

That fleeting moment in time

That you were with us

That tiny wisp of a sweet smell

But your spirit is still strong

Passed on to another part of that great design

Embroidered in the depths of my heart

You will come again

In another womb

In another pair of beautiful brown eyes

You will come again

In the smiles of ebony-hued children

And upturned noses of pink peach-colored faces

You will come again in love and peace

© Hedy Tripp, June 1997

Updated 2005, 2013

You ask me what I am—Am I Hapa?

H—A—P—A

Hapa—meaning “half”

A word drawn from the

Rich volcanic cultures of Hawaii

Hapa—Half not Whole

Hapa Haole—Half White

Insulting words describing

Mixed race children of

Pacific Islander women and

White Plantation owners

Hapa—Half not Whole

Hapa Haole—Half White

Half-breed, Half-caste

Half-Blood, Mixed blood,

Mulatto, Geragok, Serani,*

Mestizo, Mongrel, Mutt…Impure

Hapa—Half not Whole

Hapa Haole—Half White

The children of miscegenation

But, I am not Hawaiian

I come from a different island

Washed by a different ocean

I am from Singapore

A tiny island, opulent city-state

Where 3 score and 10 years ago

I was born

The British subject of King George VI

Great, great-grandfather of

Britain’s young George its future king

I am the product of colonialization

The names of my ancestral Asian mothers

Deleted from genealogical memory

And in Singapore my race is Eurasian

Second Voice: Half-breed, Half-caste

Geragok, Serani, Mutt…Impure

My father was Eurasian

My mother was Eurasian

Their parents, grandparents

And great-grandparents too

At least 10 generations of racial mixtures

Portuguese, Dutch, British, Irish…

Lines of colonialists who ripped

Rich resources of Asia for economic power

Who raped or took to wife

Indigenous women

To bear Eurasian children they left behind

Eurasian

Half-breed, Half-caste

Out-cast, Serani, Mutt…Impure

This ambiguity—neither one race nor another

Torn between two cultures, two worlds

The chasm folding and widening

Sometimes one loses one’s footing—and falling

Tumble into an unknown depth of darkness

And in that darkness

The color of your skin

Defines your place in the social universe

For if you are fair you could even pass for White

Your privileges surpasses the native masses

Yet—you are still Eurasian

Even one drop of Asian blood

Marked you below that color bar

That color line between White and non-White

Pure and…Impure

Oh, I made sure to soak up the sun’s rays

Till the generous melanin of my skin

Turned me brown, luminous and dark

Pink lipstick accentuating those glorious tones

My mother’s admonitions fell on deaf ears

“Use long sleeves, gloves,

A big hat, long skirts or pants and socks!”

Oh socks, I so hate socks

To keep my skin fair

For beauty is to be Snow White

And, growing up

In a land that knows no snow

I became aware of racism’s dark hatred

It made no sense

That my father could hate

The Malay indigenous people

Simply based on their race

I did not have a name then

For the evil that I recognized

For what is race?

A man-made lie

Socially constructed

By White colonialists

And America’s founding fathers

To divide the Whites from Non-Whites

Pure from…Impure

So, what am I in America?

I am an immigrant

Exotic stranger from a far-off land

But do you see my Asian-ness?

Do you see my Asian-ness?

Ah, I blend with First Nation people

I am at ease at Pow Wows

Eating fried bread

In small Mexican villages

They talk to me in Spanish

I love to wear the vivid colors

Of traditional dresses

And—in the streets of Honolulu

Ah, the streets of Honolulu

It was the only place

Where I found the greatest joy

In being one with hapa haoles!

But I do NOT pretend

To be what I am not

I do know who I am

I am Eurasian, Hapa, Mixed-Race …

Half-breed, Half-caste, Mutt…Impure?

Shhhh…

I do not comply with your definition of race

My racial identity cuts through the social construct of the color line

Instead—I sit right on that line

My feet firmly planted in a myriad of worlds

Going down to roots

Of centuries of rich his-stories and her-stories

Incredible sources of knowledge and wisdom

I am a builder of bridges between these worlds

Bridges of huge pillars of concrete and stone

Swaying bridges slung together

With ropes and heavy wood

Hewn from ancient tropical forests

Bridges of fine spider thread

Beautiful, fragile, intricate networks

Of social norms and rules

And I stand in the middle

My arms open wide

Drawing from the richness

Of my cultures and ethnicities

Reaching through the windows of my spirit

Gathering the tondi of my soul

For in the Pursuit of my Hapa-Ness

I am NOT… Impure

I am NOT… Half

I am Totally, Gloriously, Absolutely WHOLE!

*Geragok- “dried shrimp” in Malay to denote the dark skin of Portuguese Eurasian fishermen in Malacca, Malaysia, who were lowest on the colorism chart of Eurasians.

Serani-Eurasian in Malay, also used in a derogatory way

© Hedy Tripp 2013

updated 2020

As I climbed the hill

A fan of feathers at the summit topped,

Flashed for just a moment, then stopped,

then the drumming

reverberated down to my tingling feet.

I blinked

and they were gone.

Could they have been turkeys?

It was close to Thanksgiving!

Or were they, that I know now, Preble’s ruffed grouse?

Grouse’s feathers transform a living First Nation man

Brown skinned

Oiled in sweat

Bustles quivering

Arms flapping

Feet dancing

In traditional ancient steps,

pounding around powwow drums.

I am now transported back to Batak ritual dances,

in sacred Sumatran Indonesian Mountain villages

perched high above volcanic lakes.

With gondang drums and sarunae,

the Shaman calls

ancestral spirits

channeling their wisdom

to those below.

To crescendoed heart beats,

frenzied arms and feet

pounding the wooden floor,

pulsing house pillars to the core.

The drumming bodies drummed, through generations,

becoming one

with the people

through and through,

even before colonial times,

Challenging Christianity’s taboos.

And on America’s southern plantation lands,

drumming feet

pounded to another beat.

Through thickets underground,

“frantic runs in flight,”

cruel thorns flail face and hand,

to reach freedom land…

Where the drumming would stop,

even for a short while.

A brief stillness

to salve ragged soles

for hearts so full of holes.

But then the drumming feet would again begin.

For hateful oppressive racist laws still have the power

to silence these feet – forever.

Hedy Tripp (June 2022)

Sang Kanchil quietly hid

Out of sight she did

By the river rapid

Peeping out like a kid

Jackfruit flowers bloom

Sickly sweet perfume

Beckoning her to succumb

To cross to her doom

The stream that ran so deep

And along the slope so steep

Lay the nangka, langka, jackfruit heap

But the water was too wide to leap

Crocodiles grinned toothily at her

Shivers rippled through her fur

But she smiled back and said “Sir,

Who is the mightiest here?

“Line up beautiful crocodiles

Head to tail, I’ll measure you while

I straddle across, now don’t pile

You are oh, so virile.”

2

She lightly crossed each crocodile back

Green, shining and pearly black

They forgot to think her a snack

Until she reached the other side’s track.

Thank you so much, she said

Now I have a jackfruit spread

The crocodiles wished her dead

As they had all been misled.

A flash of color whooped

Crimson sunbirds swooped

In that low lying forest grouped

The red songbirds crooped

Allegory: Mouse deer(the smallest species of deer in the world) is the Malayan trickster character, the moral here is that even if you are small and seemingly weak you can use your wits to achieve success

bHedy Tripp (May, 2022)

Using the 17th Century Malay SYAIR poetic form

Such a worn out word

So tired it stretches out

Luxuriantly on a sofa

Curling its toes

Letting the world revolve around its folds

Love can be serious platonic probings

Or comfortable chats

Never deeper than that

Let the world revolve

Around loved ones

Formed from our genes

Or brought into the safety of homes

Nurtured for however long it takes

Till death takes our physical beings

© Hedy Tripp, 2021

2/14/2021: Valentine’s Day - Writing Love Poems!

My first love was intrigued

By my fascination for snakes

Such sensuous creatures

Of pure muscle

Undulating scales

Over flexible ribs

Smooth to the touch

Pulsating power

Tightening hold

Possessing spaces

The epitome of entwinement

Of sexual encounters

Giving and receiving

Begetting next generations

My next brief love was annoyed

With the tiniest snake

Blind, black and earthworm like

Nestled in the cup of my bra

Another lover’s eyes widen

As that tiny reptile

Slithers in delight

Around my wet finger

In the dark ocean depths

Black and yellow bands wave

Between multi-hued coral

The sea snake’s venom

Most toxic of all

My lover steps back

As I pick up the slack form

Of a sea snake left at edge of the water

After a sea storm

Churned mightily through the depths

I place her in a barrel

The next day she is dead

And tiny offspring sluggishly move

Then die

The captive python in a manmade cage

So cruelly imprisoned

My would-be lover is not impressed

The creature hits its head against the wire

Wearing itself out

Coils back in its corner

Eyeing the fear frozen mouse

Quivering and trembling

Waiting for deliverance

As an appetizer!

My lover is puzzled

By the rustling of leaves

In a glass tank

Iridescent green

Whiplashing through tiny branches

The grass green snake

Should not be captive

There is no where to swing

But around and around

The rectangular prison

The next night I don’t see her

But I know she is there

There is a faint whisper

In the dark dank air

Seven little tails

Bejeweled in green

I let them all go

Back to where they belong

My lover sighs

In relief

I now catch and release

Stinky garter snakes

That poop on your pants

In sheer fright

My lover prefers the warm inside

Of snakeless beds

© Hedy Tripp, 2021

Tropical heat

Makes the rain warm

Splashing your face

With full abandon

Clothes become second skin

Moulding your curves

Titillating the imagination

More exciting than skimpy lingerie

You stretch your golden limbs

To the tops of trees

Hair slicked back

Heavy and black

Flicking droplets

In rhythm with your hips

© Hedy Tripp, 2021