Stand with Us (2021)
Here in Jersey City, there's a mural by the Holland Tunnel of three women gazing up into the sky with the slogan, "stand with us." Artist Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya is the Public Artist in Residence at the NYC Commission on Human Rights, and as an Asian American herself, is creating works to support the Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) community. Her "Stand with Us" piece is along my commute to Manhattan, where my family makes monthly trips to Chinatown to see my aunts, uncles and grandmother. For a day, my mother and her side of the family would show me where they grew up, including all the restaurants and food stands they loved and the places they spent their time. My mom showed me where she met her dad and where they would go after school to see each other. These trips have been something to look forward and a constant for all of my life, up until March 2020.
With the rise of COVID-19, going outside had been strongly restricted starting in the first half of the year. For me, that meant not being able to visit my grandma because I might get her sick, and knowing her history of respiratory disease, catching COVID would be life-threatening. It also meant that, with the entire world on lockdown, hate for Chinese people, and Asians in general, would increase dramatically. My mom asked me to quit my job in fear of me being attacked at work, and I feared the same for her. As conditions have somewhat relaxed in the past few months, with the help of vaccines and testing, I was able to visit my grandmother the last few months before she died December 16, 2021, and I remember on one of my last visits, passing by Phingbodhipakkiya's work on the Pulaski Skyway.
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