The news of devastating back to back Lunar New Year shootings in our communities comes on the heels of learning about the closure and demolition of the only Asian mall and cultural hub in my North Carolina hometown. As a child, I always felt nervous going there, as I sensed an inherent danger in being visibly lumped in with other Asians in a Southern community that was hostile towards us. But it was also the only place in town for Asian families to gather for dim sum or a wedding banquet, to buy karaoke DVDs in their mother tongue, or to purchase imported ingredients for familiar meals. My family went almost every weekend. It was the only place outside my family I saw people who looked like me for most of my formative years.
This last weekend, on Lunar New Year—usually its most bustling and alive time, the mall quietly closed its doors for the last time. It will be demolished and turned into mixed use luxury condos.
I think about the Chinatowns who have met similar fates across the country (at least two where I currently live in Santa Cruz). Who will remember us, if not us?
I made this incense as an offering of memory with materials found in the mall and its grocery store.
Some are scented with fish, seaweed and salt—the brine of tears and low tide. The smell of fish has been used to “otherize” Asian fishmongers and expel them from shorelines. A smell I was ashamed to be associated with, but that now makes me feel at home.
The others are scented with spices—star anise, clove, fennel, cinnamon, ginger, and Szechuan peppercorns. Rolled in dried ground red chilis, their smoke is designed to choke and burn the gentrifiers who are not accustomed to the heat, the last stand of ancestral vengeance at this site.
