Disclaimer: This content is a work of non-fiction magic realism. The names of the characters and locations mentioned may have been altered to protect the identity and security of all those involved. Consumer discretion is advised.
I went out with my coworkers one evening in February of 2022 hoping to have a good time. I left my job two months later.
When I first met Aaron Broski, I liked him. I sympathized with him because he had told me about his relationship with his ex and how his mom died. It wasn’t until later that I found out that he was abusing on the job, constantly making up bullshit stories, and only telling people that his mom died so that he could get sympathy. It didn’t sit right with me when I discovered that. He constantly came to work late and was always drunk or high on coke. The first time I noticed his erratic behavior was one afternoon when I was doing inventory in the back. One of the coworkers came around the corner to tell me that Aaron had abruptly left, which concerned me. When he came back, I had a conversation with him. He told me that a girl was saying some man was following her and so he went and helped the girl. I was more concerned about his safety during this conversation. I told him that he couldn’t just leave the floor without letting me know. He felt bad that day and I reassured his feelings but said to not do it again.
Ever since then, he continued to abuse while he worked on the floor. There were times when he would get paranoid and didn’t want to do his job, so he would make up excuses that his hands were itchy or that he was experiencing an allergic reaction. All excuses to not do part of his work and his job while I was too busy getting my part of the work done. There was this time when he came to work and he just had an argument with his ex. His face was flushed and he kept rambling on and on and on about how terrible his ex was. I couldn’t work with someone who was abusing on the job because it was triggering and I couldn’t be productive. I told my manager about these incidents but because she barely worked with him, she empathized instead. She batted her eyes at me and said I needed to document the incidents, but I never got the chance to document them because I still felt sorry for Aaron. Every single time I would start a list of incidents, something stopped me and I couldn’t go through with it. He was a nuisance but I knew that if he lost his job it would put him in a terrible financial situation. So I gave him grace again and again and again while he continued to abuse.
<insert image, circa Feb 3, 2022>
On this day, we decided to go out. I had a good time up until the very end. I’m not sure if Aaron had slipped something into my drink that night or if it was just the alcohol but I remember Ashe and I got into his car to sober up before leaving. I said something to him that I did not remember because I was too drunk that night. He got upset and asked me to leave, which I did. The following week, I had a woman call about her missing drinks and proceeded to yell and call me a cunt and a dumb Asian bitch for not giving her free drinks. This was the first time in my work history that I was targeted in this way by a white woman, and I didn’t even know this woman. I felt lost. I was mad that a white woman had the audacity to call me terrible names when I was asserting store policies. When I told my boss about this, she couldn’t empathize with me. I questioned if I should report this. Her recommendation was no, but I didn’t feel right to not report the racism that had just occurred to me. I ended up reporting it and she was not happy. She then told every employee at Sundeers in The Valley NM that someone had called me a cunt. It felt humiliating to be ridiculed by my boss and coworkers when I was just doing my job and what I thought was right at that time. The Asian hate was spreading like wildfire and white people felt bold as they threw their hatred towards me because they couldn’t do it to Blacks anymore after George Floyd’s death.
It was after this incident that I realized that these people who I’ve been loyally working for the last 6 years were not my friends, nor were they supportive of me even when I was supportive of them. No one expressed their sympathy towards me anymore. When white people look at me, their ignorant and racist minds depict me as a “Chinese spy who brought COVID-19 to the States.” Clearly, the U.S. has been hiding The Secret War in America’s history textbooks because they didn’t want to admit that white people killed colored civilians for shits and giggles, and that the U.S. military’s destruction brought to South East Asia in the 50s still has an effect on the people who live there today.
After discussing racism in the workplace with Ashe, my boss yelled at me for the first time. This triggered something in me and I said I had to get out of this place. So I left. I put my two weeks in, did the bare minimum, went to Chicago, came back to MN only to discover that my dad needed to be hospitalized. I called this period of my life a blessing in disguise. It was like my father knew something was happening, and the ancestral spirits called me to go back home so I could spend the next two weeks sitting by his hospital bedside as he passed away. He passed at the end of April.
And that’s what happened two years ago.
Tamala Horsford’s story will pop up in my mind from time to time. If you don’t remember who she was, she was the black woman who went to her white coworker’s slumber party and she died during that slumber party. None of her white coworkers have any recollections of how Tamala passed, nor do they want to give up any self-incriminating information. There was missing footage from that night and the police officers did not care to investigate further. That’s how I feel like my life has been lately. White people in America wants to kill me and hurt me, just like how they did to the Hmongs back in the 60s in the jungles of Laos.
In my previous two jobs, I have been drugged with stimulants and opiates that were slipped into my coffee from my employers. They were the Witty, and Birds & Handsome. I feel broken these days and so sometimes the drugs take away the pain, the depression, the chatter in my skull and so I didn’t mind it. Sometimes it makes me feel happier to be in an altered state. I often wonder if this is just businesses in America. Everyone is always high on something, everyone is just trying to get by, and everyone is so fucked up in their heads but no one wants to admit it. How much further do I continue to climb and how much further will I continue this vicious cycle of destroying my body, my mentality, and my spirit? I’m not sure.
All I know is that I don’t sleep anymore. Suicidal ideation comes and goes, and I don’t find pleasure in most activities unless I’m lucid dreaming in my sleep. It’s difficult for me to find stability and a good habit to stick to. I remember Jay’s brother Dorthy Lorson-Feen who was an adopted Korean American. He was on Ninja Warriors and made it on national TV in the mid-2010s, which I thought was crazy amazing when I was dating Jay. I never got to meet Dorthy. He shot himself in his apartment because of the financial stress and his mental illness. I feel like that some days. Would I ever pull the trigger? Or am I just supposed to accept that the higher I climb, the more drugs I have to take to feel normal and I have to be okay with it and that I’m never going to be sober again.. That’s bleak.
This is what White Businesses and Corporations in America does to colored folks in the U.S. They get you hooked on a drug that either affects your psychosis to the point of mental breakdown or gets you so addicted that you have no choice but to comply with their sadistic rules. That’s how the White Whale captures you. Trauma mixed with drugs. It’s a beautiful combination filled with sadness, hurt, and numbness. And let’s not forget the flashing lights, they’re the best part.
As a colored American, you either become a slave to the system or resist and continue to dodge the bombs that are thrown your way by white supremacists. This is my experience so far as a first-generation Hmong American working for these businesses and corporations in Mini Apple List, New Mexico, USA.
06.28.2024
-LY Hmoob Xaivkhab
Trauma causes many manifestation of guilt, shame, and anger. Sometimes I don’t speak after experiencing a triggering external event because I don’t know how to express, identify, and process those feelings. It’s just there.
If you need help, speak with someone today. Dial 988 Suicide Crisis and Lifeline.
LYDESIGN 