ISA: The Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies Program would like to acknowledge that this podcast was recorded on the traditional, unceded, ancestral homelands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), and Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) First Nations. We hope that as we continue to facilitate these conversations about Asian diasporic communities, we also engage in critical dialogue about what it means to be uninvited guests and settlers on these lands.
Welcome to episode 11 of the Asian Canadian and Asian Migration studies (ACAM) podcast My name is Isa You. I’m the Multimedia Production Assistant at ACAM and I’ll be your host for this episode. We hope that this interview series can be a way to continue building connections between ACAM students, staff, faculty and community partners, while also providing our community members with a platform to share similar work they’ve been doing during this time.
Our guest this week on the podcast is Emi Sasagawa, author and Director of Communications at UBC Faculty of Arts. We sat down for a chat about her debut novel Atomweight, writing with empathy, and intersectionality within queer Asian womanhood. Let’s take a listen.
ISA: Thank you so much for joining me today. To start, do you mind introducing yourself to our listeners?
EMI: My name is Emi Sasagawa. I’m a settler writing, working and living on the ancestral and stolen lands of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh first nations, also known today as East Vancouver.
ISA: As the Asian Canadian and Asian migration studies program, we’re always interested in hearing about people’s own experiences of migration. So could you tell us a bit more about your and your family’s migration story?
EMI: Yeah, of course. That, in and of itself is a bit of a loaded question. I’m mixed. So on my mom’s side, Brazilian with some Lebanese heritage. And on my dad’s side, I’m Japanese. My parents met really young when my dad was doing an exchange program in Brazil. And they fell in love, got married and moved shortly after to Japan, where they lived for a few years before being transferred to Brazil. So I was born in Rio, and then lived in Brazil until about the age of 13. When, due to my dad’s job, we were moved to Panama City, lived there for a few years. That’s where I learned English and Spanish. And then we moved to Amsterdam in the Netherlands for a few years. I went to university and did my undergrad in London, in the UK. Once I was done, I returned to Brazil for two years to work as a journalist, and then I came to Canada. So I guess my migration story is a little bit complicated. My mom’s side of the family has lived in Brazil for multiple generations. My dad’s side of the family, as far as we know, has lived in Japan for multiple generations. On my dad’s side, actually, my sister and I are the first mix. So up until us it seems our family had strictly married into other Japanese families.
ISA: Thank you for sharing. In what ways do you think that history has influenced your work, both work in communications and journalism, but also your writing?
EMI: Yeah, I think when I was younger, it was really difficult to be uprooted every few years, especially being somewhat of an introvert, making connections and making friends, that didn’t come naturally to me. And so change was something that was difficult for me to deal with. But we humans are very adaptable. And I think these experiences have certainly pushed me outside of my comfort zone, and maybe sort of rethink how I see myself and how I see my place in the world. By virtue of being mixed as well, I think I’ve always interpreted my identity as being less relative to the people that surround me. And so when I’m around my Brazilian family, for example, I never quite feel Brazilian enough. And so sometimes I tend to lean in more on my dad’s heritage. When I am with a group of Japanese friends, for example, I don’t speak the language fluently. I certainly don’t look fully Japanese. And so I tend to lean in my Brazilian heritage. And so I think the experience and certainly my ethnic and cultural background, allow me to adapt to situations and understand things from a variety of perspectives, or at least I hope I do I attempt to anyway. And I think that’s been really valuable, both in terms of the way I approach journalism, the way I approach my day to day work in communications at UBC. But also the way that I write, I think I write from a place of curiosity and trying to answer questions as opposed to writing towards like a specific statement. I don’t start my work feeling like I already know the answer. It is very exploratory. And I do allow curiosity to sort of lead the way.
ISA: So as you are the Director of Arts Communications, and I heard that you’ve been very involved in the planning and development of ACRE, you tell me a little bit more about your work in that?
EMI: Yeah, so I have been working at UBC for I guess, close to eight years now. Shortly after I graduated from my Master’s of journalism. I’ve had a number of different communications related roles. And recently, as of November 2022, I took on the role of Director of Communications for the Faculty of Arts. One of the more interesting aspects of the job and one of the things that actually attracted me to apply for the role in the first place was the faculty’s commitment to anti-racism, justice, equity, and inclusion. And I felt like in my role, I would have plenty of opportunities to make contributions in those areas. And these are areas that are very important to me, because of my lived experience, but also because of my values, and how I hope to leave my to live my life. The work with ACRE has been incredibly rewarding, I was first involved with the work being done by ACAM and INSTRCC, and folks related to these programs and initiatives, with the National Forum on anti-Asian racism, which was hosted by UBC, back in 2021. I was brought in as a communications consultant and then later asked to co-moderate a panel. And it was just such a rewarding experience. I’ve always felt really welcomed by the Asian Canadian community, even though the term Asian Canadian for me is so complex. I’m technically not, you know, fully Asian. I’m technically also not Canadian, I am permanent resident. And so I just felt embraced by this generosity, and it extended beyond the national forum. And I was invited to take part in a number of other projects and initiatives and eventually to be part of the ACRE advisory group. So I just feel really thankful to have a voice of somebody who has a very complex as you put it, migration story, to still be able to be involved and to share my perspectives as somebody, who, a lot of the times feels like they’re sitting on the outside. So yeah, my experience working with ACRE has been amazing and informative of also the work that I do within the Faculty of Arts, but also the work that I do writing. So I think it’s been a great opportunity for me.
ISA: I realized it might be helpful if we explain what ACRE is. So do you want to do that?
EMI: Okay, so ACRE stands for the Center for Asian Canadian research and engagement. It is a center that exists within the University of British Columbia. And the mandate of the center is to address historical and ongoing anti-Asian racism and its intersectional manifestations. The center is focused and upholds the principle of for our communities by our communities. And it views Asian Canadian and Asian diasporic bodies of knowledge as key actors in knowledge production and mobilization on issues of importance to our communities.
ISA: You also have a new book coming out for readers. Can you give us a synopsis of your new release, Atomweight.
EMI: Yes. So I guess you can’t really see this. [Holds up book.] But Atomweight is my debut novel. It’s been five years in the making. And it tells the story of Aki, an Asian Canadian woman, who is by all accounts described as a good girl, good student and good daughter. She’s always done what her family expects. And once she goes off to university in the UK, and she’s far away from her writing overhaul, she begins to figure out what her identity through truly is and adjust to life in London. She studies, she makes friends and then she begins a relationship with a closeted Asian woman. Though life is demanding, Aki is doing her best to cope until a violent incident triggers an expected response in her. And when she discovers that brutal bar fighting relieves stress, she begins a dangerous dual existence, obedient and accommodating by day, and brawling by night. So really, what I hope to do with this novel is to explore the need to reconcile competing cultures, traditions and values and think through sexual identity, gender and violence, through a lens of oppression and privilege. And really answer… well attempt to answer some big questions about the space that we take up in the world and what that means.
ISA: When you say, in your approach, you like to write towards questions. What question did you have? Or What questions did you have in mind when you were writing this novel?
EMI: I think the key question that I had was, when you are queer, and you go through the experience of coming out, you often feel like you’re dealing with two separate identities of yourself. One, that is how people have known you, and the expectation that they’ve made around who you are. And then the second identity, which you’re discovering yourself, which at times feels a lot more authentic, but it’s also new and young and in the making.
What I wanted to do with this novel was try to understand why we think of these two identities as competing, and this transformation as a very clear cut process. I used to be this person, now I’m this other person. And I wanted to explore the intense emotions that we have as queer people when we are coming out and a lot of it is frustration, sadness, but also anger. As a woman, especially an Asian woman, the expectation is that we’re very, like we’re demure. We don’t express anger in a very external, like, tangible way. And so I really wanted to think back on how I could challenge some stereotypes while asking the question of what does it mean to be mixed? What does it mean to be queer? What does it mean to, to, amongst all of those things to still have socio-economic privilege maybe, or to be able to speak English without an accent, or to be educated. And so, I think a lot of the times folks of a racialized background are put into these boxes, and especially being a mixed person, it’s always felt to me, like I had to pick between being one thing or another. So I get to pick between being Brazilian which is the assumption that I’m going extroverted. I, you know, might be really comfortable with my body, etc. And then the expectation that maybe I lean toward more towards my dad’s side of the family, Japanese, I’m really good at math, or I’m very intellectual or rational, etc. And I feel that I’m not allowing people to be all of the things that they truly are, and splitting their existence, whether that be through the queer experience, or through the experience of being racialized. It’s also a way of like controlling anybody that doesn’t fit the norm.
ISA: I’m really struck by the complexity and the nuance within this book, and the ideas that you explore in terms of like intersectionality, within class and race and sexuality. And so how did you navigate the different kinds of dynamics between the different groups within the story?
EMI: There’s a certain level of compassion and empathy and humility that you need to have in order to write from a place that maybe isn’t, doesn’t completely align with your own experience of the world. And just an understanding that it is the expression or the experience of one person or one character going through this journey, but there’s a multitude of ways also of coming out, there’s a multitude of ways of dealing with being mixed raced. Certainly, I think as most people who write, even if they write fiction, there’s elements of it that I drew from my personal life. From people that I’ve met, and people that have changed the way that I view the world and experience things, what I think for the better. I tried to deal with these interactions and the conversations around these topics of class and race and socio-economic status and queerness with a lot of care. it’s for me it even if the characters themselves aren’t real people in the world, I treated as if they were, and I wanted to carry their stories with as much care and compassion as I possibly could. And it was never my intention to have any character be a bad person or a bad character. In the book, everybody has a reason why they’re acting in existing in a certain way, whether that’s because of your background, or the expectations that your family or society puts on you, I think it’s an understanding that our existence is much more ample that we allow it to be just by choosing to be good or bad, or, you know, passive or aggressive, et cetera.
ISA: Yeah, I think this kind of like framing and language around like, good or bad, is especially strict when it comes to people, or from I don’t necessarily love this term, but from marginalized groups, because there’s an expectation that you also want to represent the group in a good way. Were there pressures around that or considerations in that when you were navigating the writing?
EMI: For sure, yeah, for sure. I think, you know, if that’s a feeling that we as racialized people, and we, as people identifying with historically marginalized groups, go through on a regular basis. Certainly, these were things on my mind as I was writing the book. I wanted to ensure that, again, the book is being told from the perspective of a person, and allow as much as possible for the audience, the reader, to get a sense of what’s going through Aki’s head and Aki’s body, how she’s experiencing moments. You know, when we’re dealing with people day to day, we don’t get to see that we don’t get to have like a peek into how somebody might be feeling about a particular reaction. We can extrapolate, we can try to guess. But I think it does a lot to make to humanize the character and to humanize someone to be able to get into their head and to experiencing things from their perspective. I there’s always a worry that the way that you write a particular character will be used to sort of justify a stereotype or a preconceived notion that somebody has about an ethnic group, cultural background, a migrant population, a religious group, etc. And so I think that’s, in some way, a risk that you run by telling stories about or writing stories about marginalized communities. But I think that the intended audience for the work was always one that would see it beyond that. It’s not that any one of these characters are representative of a group, but they are their own individual person. And it’s not that Aki is representative of everybody who’s mixed or Asian and Latina. It’s really, this is Aki’s experience, and I hope the book gets that across.
ISA: For sure, what I found really refreshing was that AKI is very flawed and like, not in a bad way, but Aki is flawed. I guess, like making mistakes. Or, well, what could be described as mistakes. And it’s really refreshing, because it’s sort of… I imagine you would still have considered this when you were writing, but it sort of feels like the kind of expectations around good or bad representation are kind of thrown out the window when you really get to see Aki as a person and as a character instead of a kind of poster board for what good representation should be.
EMI: Yeah, for sure. And I you know, growing up even being mixed, I struggled a lot with a model minority myth. I was born in Brazil and in Brazil, like in the context of Brazil, I was always categorized as being Japanese, even though in Japan they would always consider me mixed or probably sometimes as confused as Southeast Asian on the count of being brown. But these expectations about what it means to sort of represent a whole community and how, you know, good you have to be when good is defined by someone other than yourself was something that I really wanted to explore here. And, Aki, I think what she struggles with the most is, she had done all of the things that would have made her a good girl, a good student, a good daughter, a good friend, by all accounts. And yet that was killing her inside a little bit, because she wasn’t being authentic to herself. And then when she finally comes out, that one little bit of question mark, for her family, is suddenly reason enough to sort of revisit, am I a good person? Like this idea that if you’re not 100%, perfect, that suddenly you’ve opened yourself up for all of this criticism and all of this negativity, and I think, in some ways, that is the experience of being a racialized person. You know, you do everything by the book, to sort of be the example of what a racialized person is, whether that’s in the workplace, in your personal life, and in your relationships with people. And then there might be that one thing that maybe doesn’t quite fit that stereotype and suddenly, like, you sort of go down this spiral of, Am I even like a good person at all right. And I think this this over criticism of who we are, is sort of ingrained in our experience of the world, because we’ve been trying to fit in, and we’ve been trying to sort of fly under the radar a lot of the time, specially as Asian people, and just be good and be as close to as close to whiteness as possible. So yeah.
ISA: Thinking about violence within this story. Can you tell us more about your considerations around that? I’m trying to figure out how I would word this, I think… I really… There are two quotes that I really, really liked. If I may read them out. I think it was like, “wondering, what would compel someone to want to hurt another person on purpose.” And then also, “I waited patiently” to reach the age of violence. And so what role does violence serve in this larger journey of Aki in this story?
EMI: Yeah, that’s a good question. I think as a, as a woman, you know, I’ve always been told whether by my family or people around me that violence was not something that was acceptable in my realm of existence. And even to stretched that further, that anger displayed in a very aggressive way, was not something that was available to me as an expression of my emotions. And so when I would get angry, as a child, I was always told, you know, like, you have to sort of deal with it yourself, like, bottle it, you know, shove it down, and just react to things in a way that is as calm as possible. While I saw, for example, my cousins who were male, have the opportunity to express that anger in a much more aggressive way and get away with it. And so, I was really interested with this book and exploring that. What it meant for a woman, an Asian woman, which sometimes has that added level of like, oh they’re very quiet, they’re very submissive, etc. For an Asian woman to really take that, take that anger and turn it into violence. I think anger can be productive. It can spur change. I’m not saying that I condone the way in which, you know, Aki turns that anger into violence. But I think for the purposes of this book, it was important for that anger and that frustration and all of those emotions that had been bottled up over, you know, close to two decades to be expressed in a tangible way. And the second quote that you mentioned, which is that I waited until I was old enough like to reach the age of violence. I think what I was hoping to speak to that is it was my experience, at least going to university that it was the really the first opportunity that I ever had to like, be my own self, away from my parents, expectations and away from my family. And I think in some ways, it allowed me to express the emotions that I felt in in with a lot more freedom than I had ever been able to before. Because the people that were closest to me, and that I was most scared about disappointing were far enough away, that I could basically get away with reinventing myself in some form. And so I wanted to express that through Aki as well. That while she had been the good girl, and good student and good daughter, there was also a darker part of her that she had never been able to surface, like to allow it to surface because of all of these expectations and rules that she had made for herself about following those expectations as well in meeting them.
ISA: The sort of explosion or descent into violence, at first is framed in an almost cathartic way. It’s, it’s satisfying. And but then as time goes on within the story, we also sort of get the feeling that this might be a self destructive behavior in some ways for Aki. Am I reading this correctly? What were…
EMI: Yeah, yeah, I think you are, you’re totally reading it correctly, I think anger. And a tangible expression of anger can be cathartic. Being angry all the time, though, is self destructive. And so I think there were certain moments throughout the first half of the book where that anger really allows Aki to feel like she’s in control, and to re-examine who she is. And it’s almost like, she got obsessed, or addicted to the anger. And it became a coping mechanism, she’s angry. And then to deal with that anger, to deal with that emotional frustration. She goes and takes it out on someone. And so it becomes self destructive. And I think that’s that’s sort of like finding that balance. Anger can be productive, and it can, you know, put a fire under our butts to rethink what space we take in the world. It can also put a fire under our butts to do something about how we’re perceived and the injustices and inequities that we see in the world. But yet, if anger is all we feel, it will destroy us. And it also is a way of being controlled, right, like Aki wanted to regain control, and yet she actually ended up being controlled by that anger. I think the word thinking about social movements. Anger can be good to sort of bring people together behind a cause. If you’re angry all the time, though. Your existence is tainted by how society perceives you and that anger is stops being something that feeds you to sort of move forward and become something that is that is just bogging you down.
ISA: I wonder if it’s possible to even to draw connections in this context between Aki’s anger and explosion towards violence as well as the the ways in which she approaches relationships and how that changes throughout the story. That kind of intimacy that she explores with Ayesha compared to her other relationships with women, if It’s possible to draw parallels between that.
EMI: Yeah, I think so it’s the unraveling of Aki, right. And so I think she goes to London, and suddenly she feels like she has this freedom to explore herself. And at first, that freedom is exciting. And she’s just wrapped up in like being in love with this woman, with Aisha, she’s wrapped up in all of the new experiences that she’s having. Like being able to be part of the running team, and living in a city and getting to discover it with someone. And once she comes out, and things sort of don’t go as I guess, she might have hoped. It’s the feeling of her whole world falling apart. I think a lot of queer folks experienced that, especially when they come out to their families, and the reaction isn’t wholly positive. And so it’s, it’s the multifaceted expression of that frustration, and have that sort of isolation that she feels part of it is, you know, brought on by her and part of it feels like it’s imposed on her by external forces. And it becomes impossible for her to like, have a healthy life. It becomes impossible for her to… or at least that’s how she feels, to get angry and being able to, you know, take a breath and control that anger. It also becomes impossible for her to have a healthy relationship with another woman, it all becomes about control and being able to control what’s happening in her life, whether that is through the fighting, or through sleeping around. She wants to regain that sense of control, and not be vulnerable again, because being vulnerable has really hurt her. And it’s not until she’s able to realize that by doing this, she’d perpetually be isolated, that she’s able to break that cycle.
ISA: I also found it interesting that you chose to date the book at a specific moment in time, while addressing themes that feel very relevant. So why 2008 or around that time?
EMI: Yeah, that is kind of a nod to my own experiences. So I too, went to the London School of Economics. And I too, started studying international relations in 2008. And I find London in the UK to be an interesting place to explore race, it’s very diverse city. And one that sort of allowed me to weave in the story about race and gender and sexuality in the way that I wanted to. And, you know, from a research perspective, as well, if it felt much more accessible to me to be able to write about a time that I live through, so you know, I certainly feel like I’m somewhat somewhat disconnected from what it feels like to be 19 in 2023. I feel like I’m too old to write from that perspective right now. So it was also just a way to sort of get myself into that mind space and, and to evoke, as I’m writing the story, some of the emotions that I felt when I was that age, like, I did a lot of listening to music as I was writing and really listening to music that I would have listened to in 2008. And I found that that put me in sort of the right mindset to write from that space. So yeah, I think in by and large, it was kind of like a shortcut that I took in order to be able to occupy the space of Aki when I was writing it because the book is told in first person.
ISA: And I think I think that age when you’re 19 or so is also when you are… when these questions feel very present, and you’re really, really searching for home and belonging and that also feels very present within the book. Can you tell us a bit more about your thoughts on language, for example, you know, Aki notices and comments on people’s accents. And languages and accents, you know, have been and continue to be markers, both of difference and belonging.
EMI: Yeah, for sure. I think, as most young people when you’re placed in an unfamiliar environment, so Aki was raised in Vancouver, Canada, and then moved to the UK, that feeling of coming, as an outsider sort of peering in, I think as a young person, you tend to really hone into what makes you belong, and what makes you different, right. And so in some ways, like, the wealth is a means through which Aki feels like she belongs in her, like, close circle of friends. It also is a way in which there’s a certain level of feeling like, I don’t know if I would go as far as feeling superior, but a feeling that sense of belonging. I have the right to be here. At the same time. There’s certainly like differences in accent. And I guess, as most young people, she’s trying to figure out who belongs who doesn’t belong? And what does that mean? Like, what does that mean for me to say that somebody belongs and somebody doesn’t? And what does it mean for me also to belong? So it was really important for me in the novel for Aki, to have multiple layers of oppression, as well as privilege, because I think that’s how we occupy our space in the world. Like, we’re never just one thing. We’re never just a woman, or just a queer person, or just a person that’s educated, etc, we are all of those things at the same time. And the journey of the book, like one of the key journeys of the book is Aki realizing that she’s all of those things. And the people around her are also all of the things that they are, right. Like, the women, she dates, they’re not just queer women, they also have their own complicated histories, and they’re all complicated positionalities. And I think that’s a sign of maturity. I certainly feel like Aki got through that and was able to realize that a lot quicker than I was as a young person. And I mean, it works for the book, because otherwise, where would we be, but I do think that that is crucial to the journey of a young person, especially when they go off to university or they go off to have new experiences.
ISA: Yeah, there’s a real, there’s a sense of weight to all of the characters in terms of how fleshed out they are, and the gesturing towards their lives beyond what Aki sees. And there’s also a sense of kind of generational legacy within the story. You know, people, like when there’s discussion of what families people come from, or also even Aki’s conversation with her grandparents. What role do our relationships with the generations before us take in our understanding of our identities now?
EMI: Yeah, exactly. And we are individuals that exist within a much more complex ecosystem. And when you’re young, sometimes, it’s very easy to just focus in on your experience that feels like the most important thing that’s happening and it is, right. Like you are a young person trying to figure out who you are, figure out your identity, figure out how you fit within sort of the larger narrative of the world. And I think as you mature, you really begin to have this understanding of the connections and sort of that relative identity that you have in relation to the people around you. I think also as you know, child as a child of like a mixed couple, and immigrants, you are always so aware of the differences one between your parents, and then also between your family and any space that you inhabit. So, for us, like once, even when we lived in Brazil, you know, we were a mixed family, my dad spoke Portuguese with a bit of an accent. And so there was always like a sense of like who belongs who belong, right? Like, you’re this or you fall within this category. And then when we moved abroad, certainly like living in the Netherlands, for example, where everybody seems to be, you know, tall, white and blonde. Certainly, our family doesn’t necessarily fit the bill. And so I do think that you tend to really think about the people that are closest to you, and how you connect to them. And like what you’re drawing from them, it was very important to me to feel growing up that I was the daughter of my mother and my father, and there were aspects of their existence and their experiences that were also reflected in me and made me feel connected and rooted in something. And I think as you mature, you understand that connection doesn’t erase your ability to or doesn’t erase your ability to be yourself, and to also make new connections to people that are maybe related to you by blood or by heritage, we’re not. There’s so many ways to belong. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be just through bloodlines, and through like, racial and ethnic background.
ISA: What are your takeaways from the writing and publishing process?
EMI: Oh, it’s hard. So I started working on this when I was a student at the Writers Studio at SFU program about a year long. And we would have authors come in and say, you know, I worked on this book, and it was a really quick process, it took me three years. And I would think to myself, Wow, three years, that’s such a long time. Like, I can’t really envision myself spending that long on something, how am I going to stay focused? How am I going to stay interested? Well, it’s five years since I started working on this project. And it’s finally, you know, a thing, like a real tangible thing now. It was a slow process, both in terms of like, being able to showcase my creativity, but also emotionally, I think. There were certain elements of the book that really touched me. And that really made me think about my own experience coming out, and the interactions that I had with my family. And that was really difficult. It made me realize that a lot of the trauma, or whatever it is that you want to call it, that I had never really properly worked through it. And so I had to be generous and careful with myself, and really listen to when I needed to take a break. Yes, you know, it’s a 260 page book, you probably could write something of that length in a few months, but I don’t think I would have produced what it is today. I think I needed the five years to get there. And to understand what the story actually was.
ISA: You just heard an interview with Emi Sasagawa, author of the upcoming release, Atomweight. You can find out more information on her work and obtain a copy of the book through the links in the show notes.
Thank you for listening to this episode which was made possible by the Chan Family Foundation’s generous support. If you have an idea for an episode of the ACAM podcast, we’d love to hear from you. Send us your ideas by emailing us at acam.program@ubc.ca. To be notified when the next podcast episode is released and to stay up to date on all things ACAM, please follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @UBCACAM and like us on Facebook at Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies UBC.