Equity Lab: Sacramento resident is National Youth Poet Laureate + Climate crisis podcast
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Good afternoon, this is Alex Yoon-Hendricks, and today is Wednesday, May 26.
there are streetlights in the forest now;
the forest is a city
with wildfire for veins
& a steady churn of smog
vehicles spill onto highways
to escape the color of death, but
even the lucky ones
wake up to smudged sun
& sepia
That’s from a poem called “It Does Not Matter Any Longer Where You Live,” written by Sacramento resident and newly-appointed National Youth Poet Laureate Alexandra Huynh.
The 18-year-old’s poems have been haunting my brain since I watched the ceremony, but in a good way. Like a kind ghost hanging out in my head, gently folding and tidying up my thoughts which have gotten infinitely messier in the pandemic. Huynh’s words are sad and familiar, but also hopeful and determined. I highly recommend watching her read her poems aloud, as well as the other finalists’ performances.
I talked to her for a story on the announcement (you can find a link below) but I wanted to share some more detailed excerpts of our conversation. Here they are, edited for length and clarity:
I found your poems very beautiful, and they felt obviously very personal. I’m wondering how did you write out your poems in a way that felt true for you and the experiences of people around you?
I think that as a second generation Vietnamese American, I walk the line between constantly feeling like I have to assimilate into American culture, but at the end of the day, coming home to a very Vietnamese household. I don’t do anything in particular to try to make sure that my poems are authentic to me, because the way that they come out, are just who I am as a person.
A lot of the times I will leave in statements that seem contradictory. And I think that that is something that I’m not afraid of, because it does feel a lot of the times that to be a Vietnamese American is to live a contradictory truth. And what I mean by that is that I am constantly balancing two identities, and they can exist in parallel.
I think poetry, it’s a really wonderful space to try to explore, ‘What does this means to me?’ because we can answer questions non-linearly.
I love that. I was thinking after I read this feature recently about how for musicians and artists, it can be difficult to embody a fictionalized persona that both reflects their personality, but also isn’t necessarily fully personal and intimate. I guess what I mean is there’s sort of an obsession with ‘You have to write about your identity, be clear about your point, be linear about your history.’ There is something nice about poetry in the sense that you can sort of blend the fictional and the truth into a cohesive narrative.
I think that poetry is my favorite space to kind of explore ideas, because you can warp time, and you can build in silence, and not feel like you always have to be saying something as coherently as you would if you were to write it in essay form, for example. That’s what allows us to paint ourselves as human on a page as opposed to something that is supposed to be digestible product. Does that make sense?
Yeah, absolutely. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the first poem you read. It had elements of your parent’s home country, Vietnam, but it was also pretty explicit about the crisis of climate change. I was wondering when you wrote the poem, and what led you to write it?
I actually wrote this poem in August of 2020, when there was severe flooding in Vietnam. And simultaneously, we were having some of the worst wildfires ever in California, as I’m sure you know. And it just struck me as so tragic that we were having these tremendously devastating natural disasters happening on other opposite sides of the world, but they’re being caused by fundamentally the same thing — climate change.
We are not paying attention to the ways in which our planet is asking for help. And for me, it was really important to parallel these wildfires with the floods, because at the end of the day, there’s tremendous loss that comes from not acknowledging the human impact on the environment.
It was a way for me to come to terms with the fact that I don’t want to lose my home in any sense of the word. I don’t want to lose my motherland, I don’t want to lose the state that I was born in, California. And so for me, that first poem was sort of like a love letter. It was a way to acknowledge all the pain that is happening, that we cannot control, but then also to demand that we do better.
Totally. I got a sense from the second poem you performed, with the vignettes of the life of nail salon workers, how deeply you love your community, and how much your community loves you back. But I’m wondering do you feel a kind of pressure, or responsibility, now that you’ve got this big platform, of representing the Vietnamese community or Southeast Asian community?
I think there’s definitely a pressure that I feel to make sure that I’m doing my community justice, and that I’m telling the story in a way that is fair to their experiences. A lot of the time, it’s easy to write the easy story, to create a narrative that is acceptable and marketable. But for me, poetry is a way to present a more nuanced truth.
So I want to ensure that in whatever poetry I write, I am trying to portray the whole story, at least to what I can understand. Because I know that as a single person, I couldn’t possibly represent all of the perspectives in my community, let alone the nation.
One way that I’m combating that is to make sure that I uplift other youth voices while I’m here. And I want to emphasize that everyone’s story is important. You don’t have to be validated by any panel of judges or any readers or listeners to know that your words matter. The fact that they are unique to your perspective is what makes them so important.
Here’s what else you need to know this week:
Must-Read Stories
EQUITY IN CALIFORNIA’S CANNABIS INDUSTRY: California Department of Justice data shows that from 2006 to 2015, Black Californians were two times more likely to be arrested for cannabis misdemeanors and five times more likely to be arrested for cannabis felonies than white Californians. During the same period, Latino Californians were 35 percent more likely to be arrested for cannabis crimes than white Californians. Advocates say, despite legalization, a new drug war is plaguing cannabis business operators as businesses are not given what they were promised — an equitable opportunity to enter the marijuana industry.
HOW TO HELP DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SURVIVORS: Reports of domestic violence cases are increasing both nationally and locally. Experts believe the increasing demand to stay home and social isolation plays a major part in the rise in numbers and communities, businesses, and neighbors can play a critical role in a victim’s journey of escaping abuse.
SACRAMENTO TEEN NAMED NATIONAL YOUTH POET LAUREATE: Alexandra Huynh, an 18-year old poet from Sacramento, was named the new National Youth Poet Laureate on Thursday. The poetry of Huynh, a Mira Loma High School graduate and Sacramento native whose passions include youth empowerment, climate action and creative writing, was described by officials as “a tool of self-reclamation and social justice for marginalized communities.”
More Interesting Reads
See 47 sites across Sacramento being considered for homeless shelters, camps, tiny homes | The Sacramento Bee
Watch supporters of Palestine take to the streets of Sacramento | The Sacramento Bee
Is Newsom trying to be Robin Hood? What his budget means for wealth inequality in California | The Sacramento Bee
‘A war declaration’: Palestinians in Israel decry mass arrests | Al Jazeera
What we’re listening to (and you should, too!)
I think like a lot of people, I’ve been in a 14-month funk about the State of the World (understatement, obviously). I’ve recently been having unproductive spiraling sessions where I think, “Great, the pandemic is almost over*, now we can get back to worry about our impending climate apocalypse.”
Enter, “How to Save a Planet,” a podcast from Gimlet Media that sets out to explain how we can actually solve the climate crisis, rather than just mope about it.
Hosted by scientist and policy wonk Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and journalist Alex Blumberg, the show debunks myths, highlights solutions, and answers questions like, “Are electric cars really better for the environment?”
I think one of the best parts about the show is that it regularly offers calls to action that everyday humans can do to make the world a better place — and it’s not just, like, recycle more. And the show’s theme song is just so joyful!
*It’s not, please get vaccinated.
—Alex Yoon-Hendricks
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Thank you for reading, and we will see you again next week!
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This story was originally published May 26, 2021 at 2:11 PM.