“Elsewhere, a new history
—George Abraham
Of touch, not pitted against the land. Elsewhere, our teeth
Sinking into the soft flesh of a fruit, without mourning.”
For over thirty years, the Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) has strived to inhabit the intersections of literary arts and activism, serving as a vital landing for movers and makers alike. Formed by a collective as a space where organizers, writers, and readers could come together to build and encourage critical dialogue between literature and social justice, we hold close the robust history of Asian American and Asian diasporic solidarity. We follow the legacy of giants like Grace Lee Boggs, Sarah Hegazy, and Yuri Kochiyama who were unequivocal and unwavering in the belief that movement work remains a hollow exercise without building and sustaining cross-cultural solidarity.
The board and staff of AAWW reaffirm our denouncement of the egregious and violent targeting of all civilians and the ongoing genocide, dehumanization, and occupation of Palestinian people and place. We condemn the horrors of war, including the resulting increase in dangerous acts of Islamophobia and anti-Semitism in our communities near and far. Through our programming, publications, and partnerships, we reach every day for more ways we can tangibly support organizing efforts that demand true and lasting dignity and sovereignty for Palestine and for Palestinians across the globe.
It is our institutional imperative and moral obligation to ask, to entreat: what is literature’s role in liberation? We are a vast network of writers, readers, and artists, and it is the power of our community that unfailingly moves us toward the possibilities of education, conversation, and grounding. AAWW maintains its dedication to uplifting Palestinian voices, stories, and magic, and to serving as a space for collective grief, resilience, and imagination of a more just future.
We loudly call for ceasefire, for safety, for liberation, for home.
__
The epigraph is from George Abraham’s poem “Love Letter to the Eve of the End of the World” published in The Margins on March 30, 2023.