Huab Xiong

Title: To Love is My Kind

To hold hands with a man is to hold hands with a man who looks like my people.

To date a man is to date a man who looks like my people. To kiss a man is to kiss a man who looks like my people.

To have a family with a man is to have a family with a man who looks like my people.

To love a man is to love someone who should look like my people, Asian.

Is this love I am searching for or just a skin color or language to match mine because I am told to do so?

The more I try to find a man to match with what I was born with and into, the more frustrated I become.

To them, to be in love with someone not Asian is “rebellious”.

To me, to love is courageous in this world of chaos.

There will be people who tell me: “Just do whatever you want, who cares.”

Sometimes those people sound more disturbing to my soul than those who judge me.

I’m trying to understand love still. As an Asian woman,

To love a Black man -

To love a Native, Indigenous man -

To love a Latino, Hispanic man

To love a White man -

To love a Biracial man -

To love a man Is to love a man who looks like my people.

To love is to act and receive on both ends.

I look at you and I then stumble with my thoughts of the gossip and judgments that float in my mind.

Why must I feel like I am betraying my own kind when I know that is not the case?

Love is love.

Loving a man of my choice is to love someone who makes challenges and opposites feel like they are in sync.

Love is my kind.

To that, I say:

Love me for my beautiful soul that creates music at night when nobody is listening when I am alone in my room. Love me for the sound of my voice that sings the harmonies to my melodies, softly near your ears as it gently puts you to a sweet dream.

Love me for my skin color that burns from the hot sun from the summers in California.

Love me for the food I make that keeps my parents feel at home and alive in this westernized world.

Love me for the clothes that I wear to feel connected to my ancestors and homeland.

Love me for my religion that keeps me near and close to my loved ones.

Love me for the baggage that has been on me since the day I was born.

Love me for the barriers that I continue to fight everyday. Love me for every second because I am trying.

I am Hmong Southeast Asian American.

To love is to love, and that is my kind.