Here we are again.
Honestly, with everything going on these days, I almost forgot. But on this day in 2001, I started this website. I hit the upload button on the very first rickety-ass HTML iteration of what I would eventually learn was called a blog. I've been doing this damn thing for 21 years. Angry Asian Man is allowed in the bar.
Every year I write this post, I am more bewildered about this journey and how I got here. I know I say this pretty regularly, but when I started this blog, I had no idea I was starting something. And certainly not the "something" that would go on to define my personal and professional identity for the next two decades and beyond.
Other things have become clearer. Raising the issues, fighting for visibility and engaging in hard conversations about our Asian American identities and communities are not more relevant and vital right now -- they've always been relevant and vital. I'm tired, and I'm twenty-one years older, but my work is not done. Our work's not done.
That said, I have to acknowledge that, in terms of output, I'm not the blogger I once was. My attention, time and resources have been diverted in a lot of different directions that pull me away from posting here -- fun stuff, like podcasts and writing a book, but also general adult life concerns like the safety and well-being of loved ones, paying the billz, my own mental health, and the goddamn COVID-19.
Truthfully, there are just days that I feel overloaded and paralyzed.
But other thing I know for sure after twenty-one years, none of this would be possible without my community. The hands-down best thing about this whole endeavor are the people that it has put in my path. The partners, the collaborators, the challengers, the teachers, the listeners, the readers. On the most difficult days, you've had my back, and in our most joyous moments, the celebrations are sweeter because we got there together.
Thank you being on this journey with me. Twenty-one years. I'll take that drink.
Stay Angry.