The Disney film helped my anger as an Asian American woman feel seen.
Its probably because rage is not something that I associate with Disneys animated movies.
I was born quite similar to young Rayaan excitable, pert, and opinionated Asian-American feminist.
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I was also born nursing an ever-burning furnace of rage in my lungs.
It was bright and satisfying as it left my lips.
But my white community quickly disabused my taste for rage.
Stocksy
Ignore your bullies, my teachers said.
Ignore their words, dont give them a reaction.
But their words made my skin burn.
Stocksy
It was like the plague in Rayas world was within me, churning and pulsating like an exposed muscle.
Ignore what they say.
A traditional Asian principle is preserving harmonyeven at the cost of suppressing your emotions and invalidating your experiences.
Dont make things unpleasant for others.
Dont be loud, dont draw attention to yourself.
Dont make trouble for others or ask for help.
If youre quiet and work hard, nothing bad will happen to you.Dont get upset.
Just swallow your bitterness and move on.
Instead, it just punished me with a suffocating heat.
I am so angry that our stories and rage are not being acknowledged.
I hate waking up every morning and dreading what stories Ill find.
And thats howRaya and the Last Dragonsets me free.
It acknowledges this rage.
Her despair and horror is beyond words.
She was allowed to be angry.
In the end, Raya chooses to act as a hero.
And that is the message that I have always wanted to hear.
To have the broken world I live in acknowledged, and for my anger to go unjudged.
Because my anger is justified.
I was born with a furnace of rage in my chest.
I sat back, an unusual looseness in my limbs.
