On May 25, 2020 the murder of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man in Minneapolis, Minnesota at the hands of police officer Derek Chauvin lit the nation ablaze.

On May 25, 2020, the murder of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man in Minneapolis, Minnesota at the hands of police officer Derek Chauvin lit the nation ablaze.

I remember the way that he called me beautiful, made me feel that I wasn’t. Rather, I was a picture in his mind, fixed in a gallery somewhere behind glass that was never smudged. Distantly pristine.

Growing up in Moscow, as a child of a white Russian mother and a black Nigerian father, was confusing, to say the least.

One day, I’ll get myself another baro’t saya. Or maybe I’ll upgrade to a mestiza dress, and I’ll feel as Filipina as I did when I was young. I want to believe that day is not so far away, but it is.