The third annual ESEA Heritage Month has come to an end, but that doesn’t mean we’ve stopped celebrating our amazing East and Southeast Asian writers!
Enjoy this selection of posts by writers from across the ESEA diaspora.
“Perhaps members of the ESEA community will begin to realise that we can celebrate being a diasporic community […] without regurgitating the model minority stereotypes or having to rely on outside organisations for permission.”
Celebrating Ourselves: The First East and Southeast Asian Heritage Month
by Maisie Chan
“These years already mark a historic shift in the formation and perception of BESEA identities. With this in mind, can we extend our celebrations and our explorations outside of September?”
Imagining Us: Reflections on the 2nd ESEA Heritage Month
by Arianne Maki
“…cooking helps me, through sensory experience, cope with feelings of longing and isolation.”
Geographies of cooking (or how I learned to cook adobo in Scotland) by Katrina Macapagal
“While its utility lies in its speed, there remain (thankfully) a few nuances of human touch irreplaceable as yet by AI.”
AI and the Future of Freelancing by Josephine Jay
“I stood front and centre and deserved the attention. My story belonged in that space.”
Finding community and empowerment through the Readers of Colour group by Lesa Ng
“People were not allowed to dwell on their anger and sadness. They were rushed to move on, to straighten things for themselves and continue on as a functional cog in the big machine.”
The Pain of the Others by Jinling Wu
“There are an ever-increasing number of East and Southeast Asian creators making excellent comics and graphic novels. It’s not all tragic memoir, either – as this list will show.”
Graphic Novels by East and Southeast Asian Creators to Add to Your Reading List by Kelly Kanayama
“While lying silently on the floor of my room, sinking slowly into the darkness, letting it nibble my limbs and mental health, I realised: although writing was – and is – my favourite thing in the world, living with it had not been easy.”
Night Diver’s Ritual by N. T. Anh
“I find myself relating to some of her impulses: the desire for sleep, a cloudy numbness, the inability to focus, a protective yearn for hibernation, to sever ties from everything and anyone outside the home.”
Re-reading ‘My Year of Rest and Relaxation’ during a pandemic by Katie Goh
“Who said that a new place always reminds you of the ones you have been to, before it reveals itself to you?”
Tongues on Rock: Home-Making in Parallel Languages by Tim Tim Cheng
Learn More and Support
ESEA Heritage Month was founded in 2021 by Britain’s East and Southeast Asian Network, or besea.n. You can read about their work here, access their learning resources here, and donate to them on Ko-fi here,
