a special pandemic issue from the wave | may 1, 2021
 
 
 
 

Letter from the Editors

 
 

Dear Reader, 
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We are here to celebrate disruption and the act of disrupting: those moments when you are jerked off the path you were headed, violently thwarted, awoken — and the moments you pause and shake in response. Because with every crash of discord, there is an opportunity to feel the edges of yourself. This year, it has especially felt like the edges of ourselves were frayed with exhaustion and blurry with sheer emotion. Our AAPI communities endured tragic deaths and senseless COVID discrimination.
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As Asian Americans, we are taught to keep our heads down and work within the system, taught to fear disruptions instead of disrupting the narrative, the institutionalized racism that is reinforced across generations and normalized within our daily lives. This issue is a space for AAPI creators, authors, artists here and around the world to let out our inner thoughts, to process publicly, to exist loudly. We hope you will enjoy all four chapters of this special showcase in full screen. It is a collection that sings in the empty rooms of an ongoing pandemic, in the long mazes of familial and romantic love, and in the everyday act of discovering ourselves. Our passionate designers have crafted a physical zine as a companion to this virtual experience. Please fill out our zine address book to be mailed the free zine (international friends are welcome!). 
This issue celebrates the way in which we ourselves are the agents of disruption, and thus the agents who bring forth collective healing and change. Only through courage and boldness and curiosity do we make explicit our often unsaid, unnamed, unseen traumas that come with living outside of the mainstream — and only through bravery are we able to disrupt.
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So let it loose! To disrupt and to be disrupted is to be human. Take a moment and allow yourself to step out of your routine so that you can see something new. Let that stray thought be a disruption of your walk, and let the disruption of your walk be a disruption of your peace. Let learning be a disruption of your mind, and never stop learning. We continue to make art because there is something we want to say, because it is beautiful, because it turns our bodies inside out and bares our innermost selves to the world. 
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Enjoy, 

The Wave team