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Month: July 2020

Can We Talk About Mental Health?girl struggling with mental health

Can We Talk About Mental Health?

Published by andrewleewrites on July 30, 2020

Asian Americans have always had a harder time talking about mental health. Perhaps it’s because many of us have parents who have stifled or never developed expressing the full range of emotion in a healthy way. Maybe there’s a stigma against it in a lot of Eastern cultures. Or maybe it’s less an Asian American issue so much as a generational one. Regardless, I think our mental health has a LOT to do with how we’re able to commune with God, so as a church, we had better be talking about it.

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How the Model Minority Myth Helps Me Respond to BLMperson holding a sign

How the Model Minority Myth Helps Me Respond to BLM

Published by andrewleewrites on July 23, 2020

I’ll admit it. I always hated history growing up. It was my least favorite subject. But I have come to realize that identity and history must go hand-in-hand. As a second-generation Chinese American, the Chinese part of my identity requires that I recognize and honor my family origin. At the same time, the American part of my identity stipulates that I take the time to understand the history and policies that have shaped the very society that I live in.

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Pandemic Routine and COVID-19alarm clock

Pandemic Routine and COVID-19

Published by andrewleewrites on July 20, 2020

I can’t believe we’re hitting around four months of life with COVID-19 now (at least, in the United States). Masks and public precautions seem commonplace and Zoom just seems part of life now. When the pandemic first hit the US back in March, the Bay Area was one of the first places to issue for a strict shelter in place policy. I remember joking with my friends at the time that life under quarantine would be “my time to shine” as an introvert. I constantly want and need more quiet, alone time to feel settled as a functioning human being.

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We Need a Systemic Solution for Racismhuman circulatory skeleton

We Need a Systemic Solution for Racism

Published by andrewleewrites on July 14, 2020

The human body is a complex system. Physical therapists do the work of helping you pinpoint not just the symptom but also the root cause. Because the body compensates for weakened or injured muscles by exerting more strain on other muscles around it, it is totally possible that the root symptom of back pain is from a muscle elsewhere in the body entirely. I’ve started to understand that systemic racism is the same way. There is a root problem nestled deep into the fibers of this nation that surfaces pain through the repeated and forceful impact of bone against unforgiving concrete.

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Fighting Racism is a Marathon, Not a Racepeople protesting at brooklyn bridge

Fighting Racism is a Marathon, Not a Race

Published by andrewleewrites on July 5, 2020

I have a rather pessimistic view on human nature as inherently selfish and sinful. Left to our own devices, I think humans tend to be self-absorbed. I wanted to take the opportunity to bring back two quotes, one from an article about performative allyship, and one from a conversation between Ryan Kwon, a Korean pastor, and Léonce Crump Jr., a Black pastor from Atlanta, Georgia about racial reconciliation. I’ll share both below and then give my own commentary and reflection.

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“I Love Myself” Chantwoman closes her eyes raising her right hand

“I Love Myself” Chant

Published by andrewleewrites on July 3, 2020

So much of the Christian narrative I was exposed to early on was also seeped in the assumption of a dominant or default whiteness. If you do a Google Image search for “Jesus,” it’s sad to see that 90% of the photos depict a light-skinned, European-looking guy with brown hair and blue eyes. The Jesus Christ of Nazareth I’m reading about in the bible was a Middle-Eastern Jew, probably with brown skin, black hair and darker-colored eyes.

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