On Resilience

Like many children of immigrants and BIPOC families, I had always been taught to silently endure pain and difficult situations. I used to beam with pride when former employers praised how calm and flexible I remained under extreme stress, even when I knew these were toxic working conditions. And even though I knew better, I still trudged through last year thinking I could bear it all, that I’d come out stronger at the end just like my father had always insisted — until it almost broke me.

I do not exaggerate when I say I spent much of 2023 crying. My almost-decade-long relationship was on the rocks, as was my general mental health while I dealt with grief from the death of my grandfather, severe depression in the aftermath of a physical assault, and burnout to the point of constant work nightmares and inflamed joints and muscles. There seemed to be no joy left in the world, with unimaginable acts of hate, mass violence, and death on full display everywhere we turned, and I began to lose faith that any of us could do anything at all to stop it.

 “Have you heard of the sunk cost fallacy?” my therapist asked over Zoom one day. “At some point, it’s not worth enduring anymore just because it’s always been that way. Something needs to change.” I began to realize this wasn’t strength at all. I was simply in pain.

Around that time, stories of hope began to surface on the news: Palestinian resistance movements, fundraisers, moments of racial solidarity. And on the other hand, social justice activists were calling for people to stop praising them for their “resilience.” It made sense. In our toxic positivity culture, the media romanticizes the “courage” and “strength” of people who shouldn’t have to endure or adapt to genocide and oppression in the first place, and society has now even come to expect unrealistic resilience from people of color, which in turn deflects people from speaking out at all.

Dr. Malaka Shwaikh says in her essay “Against Resilience,” “I fear that the expectation of Palestinian ‘resilience’ normalizes and enables more Israeli violence. It risks freeing the international community from its ethical responsibility to do more in order to put an end to injustice. And if violence is hardly protested, it will continue with impunity.”

But what exactly is resilience? The American Psychological Association defines resilience as “the process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences, especially through mental, emotional, and behavioral flexibility and adjustment to external and internal demands.” While resilience is necessary for survival, we should not expect it in the face of oppression. Black and Latine Americans should not have to maintain a smile and tolerate or adapt to systematic racism and police brutality. Asian Americans should not have to be the submissive “model minority” in the face of hate crimes and microaggressions.

I had always been taught to view resilience as silent endurance, but from listening to these activists, I began to realize being in pain is not a compliment at all. Instead, resilience could mean finding agency in adversity and fighting for radical change.

So when we talk about resilience, we do so mindfully, acknowledging the complexity and controversy of the term. In our Fall 2024 issue, we highlight the strength of individuals and communities and the actions they take to dismantle these systems of injustice, such as an adoptee-led organization that advocates for citizenship rights, the first woman Hmong judge, a Cambodian-owned independent bookstore in Seattle, and more.

I did not give up on myself last year, as many times as I thought about it, but what I learned from my resilience was that I was ultimately going to be OK even in the face of change. I ended my nine-year relationship. After saving enough money (which I recognize is a privilege in and of itself), I quit my job and purchased tickets to Korea for my mother and myself for a three-month trip to heal and write. I currently write this letter from Busan, where my recently late maternal grandparents, like thousands of fellow North Korean refugees, were forced to flee during the Korean War, where these refugees created a vibrant community, but still face poverty and intergenerational trauma to this day.

Our hope is that as you read these articles, you feel the strength pulsing through these stories, but that you are also inspired to pair resilience with actions that implement real, necessary, and revolutionary change. We are here, and we will be heard.

Cover: Photo by Ayeon Lee