“Haley Mlotek of The New York Times coined the phrase “emotional speculative fiction” to talk about Gilmore Girls, and that is still the best description of the show to date. As someone who doesn’t have a hometown, Stars Hollow has always offered me a special kind of comfort in imagining what it would be like to live and grow up in one place.” For Wear Your Voice Mag, November 2016.
“These (white) individuals believe I owe them explanations of who I am so they will know where and how to file my brown presence with a suitable label, thereby establishing my validity as an American. These (white) individuals believe it’s their right to put their hands on me because I am different from. Ultimately, these these are questions of (white) entitlement over people of color’s bodies, because it’s never brown or black people who ask invasive questions or cross physical boundaries. They probably have it happen often enough to understand how degrading and humiliating it is to have someone treat you like a zoo or sideshow exhibit.” For Wear Your Voice Mag, November 2016.
“Piyali Bhattacharya’s Good Girls Marry Doctors: South Asian Daughters on Obedience and Rebellion was the book I had been waiting to read my entire life. Finally, a book about us. A book that represents us. Us South Asian American sisters who straddled multiple worlds and did our best to find a balance that most of the time was always going to be just out of reach.” For Wear Your Voice Mag, October 2016.
“My tattoos teach me how to own myself, to shape my figure into who I want to be, not the person anyone else expects. My new curves make me feel solid and present in my body like I’ve never felt before, fierce and strong. And now all I need is a sparkling plus-size sari to pour all this fabulousness into.” For Wear Your Voice Mag, August 2016.
“As an avid consumer of books and especially fiction, over the years I’ve developed a special shelf of particularly beautiful and inspiring works by women of color that help me not only walk around in another woman’s experiences, but also situate my own culturally and ethnically fluid self within a canon of women writers. Being a half American and half Sri Lankan Third Culture Kid — and a woman of color author myself — who has lived in 13 countries and 18 cities around the world in her 30-something years, I’m drawn to stories that negotiate race and culture in distinct and sensitive ways, and each of these books brings something unique to the cultural table.” For Wear Your Voice Magazine, July 2016.
