I Heard We're Throwing It Back to 2016
Cindy J. Xie
After Matthew Wong & Julian Randall
First I remember / February / my forehead against the toilet / heaving porridge remains / as if my stomach, too / had given up on sustenance
July 2016 / when we last visited Bàba’s hometown / where hail and brownouts heralded the evenings / where card games traded hands on plastic chairs / where humidity swaddled you to sleep / reminded you, at the least, that you were alive
Summer 2016 / when Matthew Wong painted / Mulholland Drive, Los Angeles / what I remember most / the overlooks of “Solitare” / celebrated in his posthumous exhibition / eight years later / during a bitter Boston January / for I have driven those freeways, too / my body knows the disconnection / of viewing hometowns most clearly from a distance
Winter 2026 / I offer a return trip to Jiangxi / my mother asks me why I would want to go back / what would I do / (what she means is / where would you fit in / between the renovated roads / and dying dialect ) / and all I can tell her / is that I don’t remember / I don’t remember / I don’t remember / she stares at me / through cotton film / before changing the subject
Wong’s last painting / “See You on the Other Side ” (2019) / shows a canvas of white / as both expanse and erasure / sweeping green hillsides reminiscent of motherland / in the distance / a solitary cabin / promising return as shelter / lights migrating from ground to sky / at the time, Wong was ridiculed / now he is celebrated
2016 / I would tell that child / it is okay to not understand / even if you can’t yet look yourself in the eye / especially if
INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR
(1) What diasporas do you write into, and what diasporas do you write to create?
Many of my poems, (including this one), are grounded in my experiences as the daughter of Chinese immigrants growing up in the United States. In my work, I am most interested in the crevices where these identities break: in the details, contradictions, and buried histories that challenge dominant narratives around assimilation and complicity. I hope to write to create nuanced, globalized snapshots of the Sinophone diaspora through both contemporary and historical lenses.
(2) Where does this piece land within the greater history, body, and/or evolution of your work?
This poem has been brewing for a few years, since I saw Matthew Wong’s posthumous solo exhibition, The Realm of Appearances, at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. It was recently revived in my memory in the wake of “throwing it back to 2016” trends on social media. I was interested in weaving together that humorous, nostalgic element with themes of mental health. Though the poem reads like an elegy, it is also meant to be a commemoration: a testament to resilience and healing, and a nod to the work still to be done.
(3) How do "xenolithic edges” show up in your piece?
A concept that has influenced me strongly is David Eng and Shinee Han’s theory of “racial melancholia,” as elaborated in their 2000 article on suicide among Asian American students. What I appreciate about Eng & Han’s work is how it frames mental health not as a pathology, but as a manifestation of broader cultural and political crises, including but not limited to the “model minority” trope. This idea of “racial disassociation” is one that I try to capture in my poem, as a call to action for a broader collective shift in how we conceptualize and tackle mental health crises.
CINDY J. XIE IS AN ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH RESEARCHER AND STORYTELLER, BORN AND CURRENTLY BASED IN LOS ANGELES. SHE RECEIVED HER MASTER'S DEGREE FROM THE MIT DEPARTMENT OF URBAN STUDIES & PLANNING, WHERE SHE STUDIED THE IMPACTS OF GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE ON HUMAN HEALTH. HER POEMS HAVE BEEN PUBLISHED IN SINE THETA MAGAZINE, ANTHROPOSPHERE MAGAZINE, CLIMATE STORYTELLING 2075, AND MASSPOETRY, AS WELL AS DISPLAYED AT BOSTON CITY HALL AND THE QUEENS COUNCIL ON THE ARTS. YOU CAN FIND HER ONLINE AT CINDYJXIE.GITHUB.IO.