That Asian Lady in SINNERS
Thought Process: AANHPI Heritage Month 2025 (Volume 2, Issue 3)
In this Issue:
That Asian Lady in Sinners
Embodiment of a Dream: A Weekend With Liberated Together
A Memoir & A Teen Romance: Two Audiobooks I Loved
That Asian Lady in SINNERS
I saw Sinners. I must talk about the Asians.
Ever since Sinners was released in April, I’ve had friends telling me to see it because they know I would love the racial allegory and symbolism. The only problem is that I’m a total scaredy cat when it comes to horror films so I rarely watch them because I don’t like gore, disturbing images, or scary things in general. Usually I’m satisfied with looking up the plot of popular horror movies on Wikipedia so I can stay up to date with the culture. But people would not stop telling me to see Sinners.
I decided to give it a shot yesterday when I had a free morning while my kids were in school and there was a 9:20am matinee showing at my local theater. I wasn’t sure if seeing a vampire flick at 9 in the morning was the best idea, so I decided to arm myself with my audio earplugs (so scary sounds weren’t too loud), a scarf around my neck (to hold in front of my face and block out scary images), and I picked a seat in the last row of the theater (so the images were smaller and less in my face.) In short, it helped, and I loved the movie. What a masterpiece! And I’m really glad I had my scarf with me LOL.
Here are my thoughts on the Asians:
***MANY SPOILERS AHEAD! YOU HAVE BEEN FOREWARNED!!!***
I LOVED the representation of Chinese grocery store owners in the Deep South during Jim Crow.
It was interesting that they owned a grocery store on each side of the street, one that served a Black clientele and the other a white clientele. I read somewhere that this was based on an actual store that once existed. While the movie shows the familiarity and warmth they enjoy socially with their Black customers, it also shows them catering to both sides of the street financially.
They end up at the juke joint because Bo was asked to cater food and Grace was hired to paint signs. Shout out to the lettering artists! While Bo clearly enjoys gambling with others and Grace clearly enjoys the music and vibe of the joint, it is unknown if they would have been there if they were not being paid. Still, they are welcomed in even though the juke joint is meant to be specifically for Black folks.
Grace as Asian Mom is a fascinating study. After Bo is lost to the vampires outside, Grace is held safe within the juke joint with the remaining alive humans. Because the vampires must be invited in, the physical building of the juke joint is literally their only reliable defense against the vampires until morning when the vampires can be killed by the sunlight. Everyone seems to understand this except Grace, who in her fear begins making a Molotov cocktail. Molotov cocktails and fire do not kill vampires.
As Grace starts making the Molotov cocktail, she is approached by Annie (the only person who seems to know anything about vampires) and is calmly yet firmly reminded that they just need to wait for the morning because the sunlight will kill all the vampires. Annie’s thoughtful composure is in stark contrast to Grace’s reactive desperation. But Grace, terrified by the vampire’s threats (in Toisan!) and consumed with the need to protect her daughter Lisa, continues making the Molotov cocktail. It is not lost on me that Grace does all this in Annie’s face, a Black mother who has already lost a child of her own.
The flash of Lisa’s face right before Grace invites the vampires in made it clear that she sees the protection of her child as her justification for doing this. I found the tone in Grace’s voice as she invited them in fascinating. It was haughty, perhaps daring. Like she was being a confident, brave protector when really she was being impulsive and irresponsible. The panic she was having caused her to think fighting vampires hand to hand was a better option than simply listening to Black folks telling her to be patient for daybreak. Grasping for straws when you could just sit down and heed wise council? Sadly relatable, Grace!
What Grace doesn’t seem to get is that her Black counterparts aren’t waiting for daybreak because they are afraid to fight, but because they have a deeper understanding of how dangerous and formidable their opponent is. Why would they throw away the one sure power they have to protect each other - standing in solidarity by not inviting the vampires in - and throw it away because you feel panicked and stressed? Amateur move, Grace! Still they continue to fight with her, to protect her, until in her own rage and fear she destroys herself all the while putting everyone else at risk. While killing her vampire husband she is literally, cinematically, destroyed by her own flames. Their daughter’s fate is unknown.
It didn’t have to be this way, Grace! I can’t help but think of what could have been the alternative: Despite the terror that the vampires may hunt down her daughter, Grace listens to Annie and waits in the juke joint until daybreak. We know that the head vampire is not actually interested in Grace or her daughter, but in Sammie, so the likelihood that they would have actually gone after Lisa that night is slim. Also, there is also the fact that the vampires must always be invited in. Grace could have waited for daybreak, gone home, and taught her daughter how the vampires work, how to survive them. They could have lived a long life together, with others in their community, everyday making sure they never, ever invited the vampires in.
It is painful to watch Grace’s descent because prior to her very terrible choice, I want to be her. She’s beautiful, savvy, smart, artistic. The way she sways to the music tells you she can dance. At the juke joint, she fits in. She is surrounded by community. I just wish she would have put the Molotov cocktail down and listened to Annie.
It is extra painful to watch Grace because as Asian parents, we do shit like this all the time. In our fear and panic to protect our children and provide for their future, we make short-sighted choices that feel responsible and protective in the moment, but fail to hold up the long-term commitment of undoing unjust systems. We betray our relationships to Black communities as if Black parents aren’t also trying to protect and provide for their children just as much as we are. We say more cops when we know that they do not make communities safer. We enroll kids into richer, whiter schools in richer, whiter neighborhoods because we think it will somehow save them from exploitative rich, white systems. We think if we just try to reason with the white people in charge, they will listen to us as if we are some exception and no one has ever tried it before because eliminating affirmative action and suing the UC system when your kid doesn’t get into the college you want is a rational thing to do (sarcasm). We let the threats of white supremacy haunt us into picking impulsive, misguided options when Black folks have been trying to warn us all along.
My guess is that the character of Grace is a controversial one. I sadly think it holds a lot of truth. I think there are some Asians that will feel offended, hurt, as if we aren’t trying. Let it be a reminder. A warning. Put down the Molotov cocktail and listen to Black women.
I write about these Black-Asian racial dynamics, including the history of Chinese grocery store owners in the Jim Crow South, in my book Louder Than the Lies: Asian American Identity, Solidarity, and Self-Love!
For AANHPI Month, my publisher Heyday Books is offering 20% off during the month of May if you use the code LTHA20 at checkout and as a special gift you also get a free calligraphy print designed my me!
Embodiment of a Dream: A Weekend With Liberated Together
Last weekend I spent four days with Liberated Together for a retreat entitled “Return to the Sacred.” Liberated Together offers spiritual programming that serves women, non-binary, and trans people of color who come from Christian traditions in creating an expansive, embodied theology that embraces our indigenous lineages. They currently offer year-long cohorts and also have a Spiritual Direction School.
I’ve known the founder Erna Kim Hackett for several years (and she’s interviewed in Ch. 7 of Louder Than the Lies!) and I have been closely following the work of Liberated Together, but the timing to join a cohort never seemed to align with my book writing demands. So I was THRILLED when she announced that this 4-day retreat was open to people who were not currently partaking in Liberated Together programming and it was only 30 minutes from my house. I signed up immediately!
The weekend had two tracks. The first was for the people who had spent the past 9 months training with the Spiritual Direction School, who were finally meeting in person for the first time as the culmination of their program. The second track was for people like me, who didn’t know anyone and were just there for the weekend. The retreat ended up more incredible than I anticipated and provided the time and support I needed to process some things I didn’t have the space to sit with in my regular life.
Our track included time with facilitators from the Spiritual Direction School, who come from a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds, who would share an embodied practice from their heritage that they had reclaimed and what it meant to them. These were things that many of our people were told were superstitious or of the devil by white missionaries. Things like dance, listening to nature, creating altars, honoring ancestors. There was also time to process the grief and longing many of us felt from feeling cut off from our ancestors and the struggle to unlearn the “white missionary gaze” in how we practiced our spirituality and faith. It was such a gentle, fruitful time. I left the weekend feeling hopeful and creative about steps I wanted to take to practice a faith that felt truer to the whole of who I am.
One of my favorite parts of the weekend was that we got to participate in the graduation ceremony for the Spiritual Direction School as their cohort completed their program. I felt like such a proud mom! Even though I had only met them a few days earlier, knowing that this new batch of spiritual directors would be unleashed into the world gave me a lot of hope.
Something Erna shared was that ten years ago, in 2015, to have a graduation ceremony like this and to lead an organization doing this kind of work, would have been nothing short of a dream. Like many of us, she was struggling in predominantly white faith institutions who did not recognize the value of who she was or what she had to offer. Ten years later, to be at this graduation ceremony with these people doing this type of work, was truly the embodiment of a dream.
Liberated Together currently runs its Spiritual Direction School as well as two cohorts: The Asian American & Pasifika Cohort and the Grown Ass Women Cohort (for ages 30+). They are opening up applications for next year very soon and you can go here find out more info:
The Spiritual Direction School was created after hearing stories from spiritual director friends, who had been trained through programs (mostly led by white men) that were harmful and not helpful with the types of clients they were serving. After they would burn themselves out completing these programs, they would then have to do more of their own learning just serve their own communities. The Liberated Together Spiritual Direction School aims to bypass this harmful cycle and give these spiritual directors education and training that actually helps prepare them in ways that honor who they are. If you or someone you know identifies as a woman, non-binary, or trans person of color and are looking to be trained as a spiritual director, I couldn’t recommend the work of Liberated Together more. It was made for us by us and it is the real deal.
A Memoir & A Teen Romance: Two Audiobooks I Loved
In my last newsletter I wrote about how I’m spending less time on social media and thus, listening to a lot more audiobooks. Here are two that I simply loved and would be very enjoyable if you need something for a summer road trip:
Comedian Youngmi Mayer’s I’m Laughing Because I’m Crying is the best audiobook I’ve listened to in awhile. I devoured it. As someone who only mildly enjoys Mayer’s comedy, I found this book brilliant and her audiobook reading of it is superb. With wry wit and unabashed honesty, Mayer recounts her tumultuous life story in this reflective, dark, hilarious, breathtaking memoir.
![The Sticky Note Manifesto of Aisha Agarwal [Book]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!HLz_!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb6755903-6ff2-41fa-8387-a2c5a5f97cd3_500x500.jpeg "The Sticky Note Manifesto of Aisha Agarwal [Book]")
I loved The Sticky Note Manifesto of Aisha Agarwal by Ambika Vohra and read by Nikhaar Kishnani! This book has been on my list for awhile because I met the author last year when she stopped by the TaiwaneseAmerican.org Book Fair booth at the Taiwanese American Cultural Festival. Both of us were anticipating the releases of our books later in the year and we commiserated over all our excitement and nerves. Sometimes it’s a little tricky meeting other authors because what if I don’t end up liking their book? Awkward! Thankfully, I absolutely loved Ambika’s debut!
Sticky Note Manifesto is about high school senior Aisha’s attempt to make her life more exciting as fodder for her college application essay, including navigating crushes, friendships, class, and culture. It is a fantastically written YA romance with a diverse Asian American cast, including multiple Asian male characters who serve as romantic interests if that’s a specific type of representation you’re paying attention to, which I am. I listened to the audiobook but I’m sure the printed version is equally fabulous. It’s rated for ages 14+ but I think it’s fine for middle schoolers as I have already suggested it to mine.
If you want to stay more up to date with my reading log, you can follow me on The StoryGraph @eeewhysee
Lastly, if you like jazz, something else I’ve been enjoying this month is the release of Kandace Springs’ newest album Lady in Satin, a tribute to Billie Holiday’s 1958 album with a full 60-piece orchestra! Luscious and simply divine! Happy Kandace Springs New Album Release, to all who celebrate!
Thanks for reading this issue of my quarterly newsletter Thought Process! It is the best way to stay updated with what I’m up to and I appreciate all the support.
Til next time!
Ellie
Ellie Yang Camp is the author of Louder Than the Lies: Asian American Identity, Solidarity, and Self-Love, a book that demystifies Asian American racial identity and the confusion of being stuck in the “middle” of the Black-white binary.