For the Life of the World / Yale Center for Faith & Culture

Beyond Invisible | American 한 (Han): An Artistic Response to Anti-Asian Violence / Sarah Shin & Shin Maeng

Episode Summary

"The tears were always there. / You just didn’t recognize my face." Author, artist, and theologian Sarah Shin reads her poem "Beyond Invisible"—a response to the March 2021 Atlanta shootings that left six Asian women dead—a crescendo of increasing anti-Asian violence.

Episode Notes

"The tears were always there. / You just didn’t recognize my face." Author, artist, and theologian Sarah Shin reads her poem "Beyond Invisible"—a response to the March 2021 Atlanta shootings that left six Asian women dead—a crescendo of increasing anti-Asian violence.

Sarah's poem and her husband Shin Maeng's accompanying illustration ask the pointed question, "Can you see me now?"—dealing with the recognition not just of grief over recent events, but the generational tears that have flowed unseen, unacknowledged, and unaddressed.

American 한 (Han)

Click here to view "American 한 (Han)," illustrated by Shin Maeng.

Beyond Invisible

by Sarah Shin

The tears were always there.
You just didn’t recognize my face.
Nor did you see behind the hunched back of the one doing your nails
The steel frame of a mother feeding her family with 14 hour work days.

Instead of seeing in our bodies and our face
The altar of the broken faithful awaiting resurrection
You make them instead into a graveyard for your sins.
But some habits just die hard, huh?

Inconvenient convenience it would be
To behold in a flattened story
The freedom-fighters who battled war, demagogues, oceans, and despair
And tore themselves from everything they knew to be home
The heartache of sacrificing family past to give family future a chance.

Anchors they have served to be as we strive to make this home
But cut into them and you’ve cut loose
Everything that told us to bear it
Everything that said hope was worth it
To swallow tears and keep our heads down.

No more now.

Our dams are broke and now they flood
All around you, all around me.

Do you see beyond just my face now?
Do you see beyond what you didn’t see in my eyes now?
Do you see me
Can you see me
Can you see me now?

To read more of Sarah's thoughts on the Atlanta shootings, read her piece, "Honoring the Lives of Women Who Refuse to Be Scrubbed Away" (MissioAlliance.org).

About Sarah Shin

Sarah Shin is author of Beyond Colorblind: Redeeming Our Ethnic Journey. She is currently studying at the Logos Institute for Analytic and Exegetical Theology at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Prior to that she served as Associate National Director of Evangelism for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. She regularly trains leaders and speaks at the intersection of evangelism, ethnic reconciliation, justice, beauty, and technology.

About Shin Maeng

Shin Maeng is an artist and illustrator. Make sure to check the show notes to examine his illustration, "American 한 (Han)" which was a direct response to Sarah's poem, "Beyond Invisible." Follow him @ShinHappens on Instagram.

Episode Transcription

Evan Rosa: For the Life of the World is a production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture. Visit us online at faith.Yale.edu.

This is For the Life of the World, a podcast about seeking and living a life worthy of our humanity. I'm Evan Rosa with the Yale Center for Faith & Culture. Hello friends, today on the show we're featuring a poem by author Sarah Shin, with an accompanying illustration by her husband, Shin Maeng, produced in the wake of the March Atlanta shootings that left six Asian women dead, a crescendo of increasing anti-Asian racial violence. Sarah's poem and Shin's illustration ask the pointed question, "Can you see me now?" Dealing with the recognition, not just of grief over recent events, but the generational tears that have flowed unseen, unacknowledged, and unaddressed.

Sarah Shin is author of Beyond Colorblind: Redeeming our Ethnic Journey. She is currently studying at the Logos Institute for Analytic and Exegetical Theology at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Prior to that, she served as Associate National Director of Evangelism for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. She regularly trains leaders and speaks at the intersection of evangelism, ethnic reconciliation, justice, beauty, and technology. Shin Maeng is an artist and illustrator. Make sure to check out the show notes to examine his illustration, American Han, which was a direct response to Sarah's poem, Beyond Invisible. Here's Sarah with a reading of her poem and an explanation of Shin's artwork. Thanks for listening today.

Sarah Shin: The tears were always there. /You just didn't recognize my face./ Nor did you see behind the hunched back of the one doing your nails/ the steel frame of a mother feeding her family with 14 hour work days.

Instead of seeing the altar of the broken faithful/ in our bodies and our face/ you make them instead into a graveyard for your sins./ But some habits just die hard, huh?

Inconvenient convenience it would be/ to behold in a flattened story/ the freedom-fighters who battled war, demagogues, oceans, and despair/ and tore themselves from everything they knew to be home/ the heartache of sacrificing family past to give family future a chance.

Anchors they have served to be as we strive to make this home/ but cut into them and you've cut loose/ everything that told us to bear it/ everything that said hope was worth it/ to swallow tears and keep our heads down.

No more now.

Our dams are broke and now they flood/ all around you, all around me.

Do you see beyond just my face now?

Do you see beyond what you didn't see in my eyes now?/ Do you see me/ can you see me?/ Can you see me now?

My husband, Shin, and I are both Korean American. We were talking about responding artistically to what is happening with anti-Asian racial violence in the States, and I wrote the poem anticipating that he would draw in response to it. I'll describe his art, titled American Han here.

Historically, cream white was the robe of mourning worn by Koreans at funerals. And that is what the woman at the top is wearing over Shin's take on the hanbok, a traditional Korean garment. There are lamenting faces woven into the collar of her robe. Her arms are outstretched around her mother, who bears the traditional hairstyle of Korean queens in days past.

Mama (마마) , which sounds like mama, ironically means "your majesty" in Korean. The halmeoni, or grandmother, wears the gold-embroidered red robes that were only reserved for Kings in days old. I knew when Shin showed it to me that he drew the King's robes on the queen on purpose, to honor her womanhood and authority and to protest against the invalidation, misogyny and oppression so many Korean and Asian women face from their own brothers, and fathers, and societies as a whole.

Shin and I grew up with Asian women pastors and leaders. We wrote and drew these pieces to honor them. And if you are an Asian or Asian-American woman leader listening, to honor you. The halmeoni has her arms outstretched around her granddaughter, who holds a cup full of the tears that flow down from her Eomma's face, down her halmeoni's face, and cascades out as they are poured onto the ground.

There are no tears on the little one's face, which looks up with hope, but the tears are an offering of prayer, pain, and love, the love of Eommas and mothers who sacrifice for the sake of their future families. It is a plea and prayer for help, of women of faith who have kept the family knit together, and their persevering, and too often suffering, love.

Evan Rosa: For the Life of the World is a production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School. This episode featured Sarah Shin and Shin Maeng. Production assistance by Martin Chan and Nathan Jowers. I'm Evan Rosa and I edited and produced the show. For more information, visit us online at faith.yale.edu. New episodes drop every Saturday with the occasional midweek.

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