East Side Voices: Essays Celebrating East and Southeast Asian Identity in Britain
Edited by Helena Lee
Sceptre: 2022
.
In one thought- and identity-provoking volume, Helena Lee has compiled a series of essays that reveals the complexities of being Asian in Britain. Noticing the lack of dignified representation of Southeast and East Asians onscreen, she also commented on their invisibility: “Our stories weren’t seen as valid enough to be told or reported on, and so we’ve long been excluded from the cultural canon.”
In February 2020, she launched East Side Voices, a cultural and literary salon to celebrate diasporic Asians and to change how Asian-ness has been portrayed. During the Covid-19 pandemic, a new battle emerged—dealing with racism associated with the spread of the virus from China. However, in the wake of Black Lives Matter, this led to an important response from the community, with public campaigning and more visibility thanks to the efforts of grassroots organisations and British Asian communities.
More from Mekong Review
-
Ducky Tse was an established photographer in Hong Kong when, at the age of fifty, he decided to uproot and relocate to Taiwan. He bought a van and refurbished it, driving it around the country. Through his photographs, he reflects on a new chapter of his life.
-
A poem in commemoration of Bleak House Books, an independent bookshop in Hong Kong, which ceased operations in October 2021. The store is set to reopen in upstate New York in the spring of 2023.
-
For those curious about Indonesian music, Padang Moonrise: The Birth of the Modern Indonesian Recording Industry (1955-69) is a fascinating portrait of a precarious young country trying to protect its cultural identity while opening itself to the world.