Click to Publish

I didn’t want to completely hijack my own “About” page, but I wanted to shed a bit more light on the creation of Languages here. The name itself was conceived during an exercise where I had to brainstorm an event for an AAPI non-profit organization, and I thought that it would be fun to do a karaoke event where everyone had to sing a song from their parents’ or grandparents’ generation native to their country of origin. The event would be called “Languages of Our Parents.” It’s a shame that this idea never came to fruition for it surely would have been a smashing success.

As far as the storytelling goes, I think the genesis of Languages really goes back much further than just the three years since I’ve interviewed my grandfather. For instance, my first post after will be a story that I wrote nearly 11 years ago now. Over the years I would revisit it and continue to make small tweaks here and there. I’ve always wanted to share it more broadly but ultimately was too self-conscious to do so. After all, you are (and always will be) your own worst critic.

And that’s because writing is perhaps the most personal thing in the world to me – as a kid, I wrote poems as an outlet for emotions that I couldn’t quite process at the time that likely stemmed from growing up without my father; in college, I wrote blogs about our deplorable social lives to amuse my friends… until my school found out and blacklisted me from internships (an incredibly traumatizing experience and a story for a different medium); during my analyst days in an investment fund, I wrote short stories parodying our lives as deal team indentured servants as a form of gallows humor to help me and my colleagues get through those sweaty 80 hour work weeks; and recently, I wrote my first poem in decades when my grandfather passed away to comfort myself and to capture the rawness of the grief I felt at the time in such a way that I would always remember.

Writing has served as a pillar of support for me one way or another for most of my life, and sharing it publicly is something I’ve been simultaneously longing and reluctant to do because it’s just plain fucking uncomfortable to put yourself out like that to the depthless domain of the internet. By clicking publish, I expose myself to all my deepest insecurities; your writing sucks, these stories are boring, nobody’s going to read this, so cringe bro . In my head, I think of all of these phantom criticisms and more.

But alas… it’s certainly no way to live life with regret, so after all these years I’ve decided it’s finally time to hit the dreaded Click to Publish button. I’m very excited to share not only my family’s stories, but those of others as well with you all.

• the unnamed author