Monday, May 08, 2023

Acceptance Speech for APEX for Youth Inspiration Award

Nations will rise and fall as they have done in our species. The Romes and the empires will come and go. But the only nation that I truly believe in, the only nation that will be here long before any country that we understand, is the imagination. It is the one that I have absolute allegiance to. And it's the only one, it's the only nation on this planet that will remain unstoppable. 

To the young Asian American makers and dreamers, I want to say this to you: You don't have anything to prove. We are already proud of you. That even if you do nothing, make nothing, surviving itself is a creative act. That if you can survive, and you can survive together, then you have innovated. That by surviving itself, you have won and deserved the breath that you take. 

Ocean Vuong 

From Nothing Personal

The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love — whether we call it friendship or family or romance — is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other's light. Gentle work. Steadfast work. Life-saving work in those moments when life and shame and sorrow occlude our own light from our view, but there is still a clear-eyed loving person to beam it back. In our best moments, we are that person for another.

James Baldwin