Panel One
Dear Brother,
Panel Two
On the occasions that I dream about you, you are still a little 8-year-old boy.
The playful boy who begs me to play video games with him. The boy who poses for me wearing grandpa’s oversized glasses when I ask him to.
Person 1: Don’t move.
Panel Three
This boy jumped in the photo when my friends and I are taking a group picture. This boy was willing to play “chicken” and “cheong fun” with me. Do you remember?
Panel Four
Ha! Ha! No! No! Ha! Ha!
Panel Five
“Chicken” is the game where you are the chicken and I am the cook. I “cut” under your arms to get your chicken wings, cut under your chin for your chicken neck, and cut the bottoms of your feet for your chicken feet.
Person 1: Yummy chicken wings!
Person 2: Ha! Ha! Ha!
Panel Six
“Cheong fun” is where you are the meat thing and the blanket is the rice noodle sheet. I roll you up in a blanket, then cut you into pieces with my hands.
Person 1: The cheong fun is hard to cut!
Person 2: Haha! Hahaha!
Panel Seven
Person 2: Stop! Haha! Ha! Ha! Ha! It tickles.
Panel Eight
Things were simple back then. Just a playful older sister and her adorable little brother inventing games to keep boredom at bay.
Panel Nine
Play helped distract us from other things too. Our parents working 10-hour days for less than minimum wage. Living in a Chinatown apartment with rats and broken floor tiles. Our father.
Panel Ten
When you were eight and I was eighteen, I left for college with excitement and joy. My newfound freedom. I never looked back. But I never stopped feeling guilty.
Panel Eleven
When I came home during breaks, I noticed you stopped asking me to play video games with you.
Screen: Bratata! Tatata! Boom! Bratata!!
Panel Twelve
And the yelling no longer came from our father alone.
Panel Thirteen
Person 1: I’m moving to California.
Panel Fourteen
After our sister and I left home, it was your turn to deal with our father by yourself.
Person 1: Just remember that you’re going to college soon.
Panel Fifteen
When you told me you had joined ROTC and was thinking of enlisting, I got worried. I realized we had become very different people.
Person 1: Look, why don’ t you at least talk to a veteran…
Panel Sixteen
Where did you learn that violence and aggression could solve anything? When did you start to believe that men abroad are bigger threats to us than the powerful of this country who dictate our fates?
Person 1: I found a vet we can talk to…
Panel Seventeen
I blamed myself for not being there to guide you. I didn’t want to my persistence to push you away.
Person 2: It won’t matter. I don’t want to meet him.
Panel Eighteen
But my stubbornness paid off. Through these struggles our relationship was allowed to grow and transform, despite my absence during your teenage years.
Person 1: You want to do what after college?
Panel Nineteen
But I think our relationship might change again.
Person 1: Even after Michael Brown and Eric Garner and Akai Gurley?
Panel Twenty
Radio: “Tsshg rrrerrk… An unarmed 17-year-old black transgender youth was killed in the Bronx today. Esperanza Jackson was walking home when a NYPD police officer allegedly…”
Panel Twenty-One
GOD. Another one.
Panel Twenty-Two
Radio: “Shot her five times. The officer who allegedly claims that he thought she was pulling out a gun when she reached into her purse for her ID card.”
Panel Twenty-Three
It’s only January, and this is the third time I’ve heard so far. Innocent people killed and racist cops going off scot-free. It’s no longer news.
Panel Twenty-Four
Please don’t let it be an Asian cop, please don’t let it be an Asian cop. Black and Asian relations don’t need this.
Panel Twenty-Five
Radio: “The officer who fired the shots, Chim-Wai Cheung, is a 25-year-old Chinese American and a Native of Queens, New York. He claims that he fired out of fear, out of self-defense. She… is so tall, you know. I really feared for my life.”
Wait… What…
Panel Twenty-Six
That’s my brother.
Person 1: No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.
Panel Twenty-Seven
Why does it have to be my brother?
Panel Twenty-Eight
Everything will be okay, right?
Person 2: Ha Ha Ha! Stop tickling! Hahaha!
Panel Twenty-Nine
We shattered the hearts of… two mothers with five bullets. One lost her daughter forever.
Panel Thirty
Person 3: Waaaaa
Person 1: I know, honey. I’m so sorry. I promise I’ll make things right. I promise to make a better world for you.
Panel Thirty-One
I want a different future for my brother.
Panel Thirty-Two
As Asian Americans, we enjoy rights that we didn’t have before. These rights were fought for with the blood and bodies of those who came before us – those in the civil rights and black power movements.
Panel Thirty-Three
Our liberation and freedom are tied to those of black folks and other oppressed peoples.
Which side of history will you choose to be on?
February 21, 1965 Audubon Ballroom, NYC.
Panel Thirty-Four
I watched a fun-loving boy grow up. I want him to become a happy man who is defined by the size of his heart, and not by his rank and uniform. A man whose strength comes from his character and not from his fist.
Panel Thirty-Five
I want him to find joy in serving people, the marginalized and the oppressed, because he loves them despite their flaws, and sees their potential and light. Just like I haven’t given up on you.
Love, your sister.
