Anthony Veasna So was a gay, first-generation Cambodian-American writer and visual artist who was born and raised in Stockton, California. He attended Stanford and later became well-known for his writing, completing an MFA program in Syracuse. In December 2020, at the age of 28, he passed away suddenly. I feel like nothing I say about his life will be able to summarize it well, so I encourage you to read his words directly - through his essays online and collection of short stories, Afterparties. I stumbled upon a copy of Afterparties in a used bookstore, drawn in and immediately identifying with the cover's illustration of two people smoking out of the back of a truck in a strip mall. There was something so refreshing about his writing - I started reading one story and couldn't stop. His work is deeply personal - most stories are set in Stockton's Khmer community, illustrating small moments and interactions between people that felt genuine and like I had known them myself. As his parents and many others in his community were survivors of the Cambodian genocide under the Khmer Rouge, he communicates the intricacies of humor through immense trauma and grief in ways that struck me. It's hard for me to even describe why I felt such a strong connection to his work, but I think part of it is the way queerness was depicted. I didn't know Anthony was gay at first while starting to read the book, but as I got deeper and deeper into his writing, a wave of emotions hit me as I recognized the familiarity of queerness. It feels deeply present to me throughout each story, despite any character's sexuality. The book forced me back into some memories being a teenager living in the Central Valley that I don't often think about. In so many ways I had felt trapped at that time by the inescapable dry heat, seemingly endless fields in every direction, and, most of all, the relentless boredom. Friends made it better, even though I didn't have queer community or didn't even know that's what I needed at the time. I was closeted and don't often think of these memories - smoking the 9th joint of the day out of the back of my friend's car at 18, nothing to do but look at the clouds; being 15 and lying under a tree after badminton open gym ended, trying to pretend like the shade is making the sun beating down on us somewhat bearable - as being queer. Anthony's writing changed that, and made me have more love for this teenage version of myself that I hadn't even realized I'd needed someone to put voice to. With this new lens, I included these memories in my print, feeling gratitude for how Anthony's writing helped me. After his death, there seemed to be a rift between different people in his life who, it seemed, had come to know different sides of him. One of the people who wrote about his life was his partner of 7 years, Alex Torres. In one essay, Alex wrote: "Driving around Stockton was, aside from movies, one of the few things that could make Anthony cry. He’d choke back his tears, worrying that it’d be impossible to reconcile his Cambodian American identity with queerness in real life. That’s why he created art." I included this quote in the print because it sums up why Anthony's work moves me better than any way I could describe. Reading his stories, it's so clear how much love Anthony has for his community. But there's also tension between this love and not feeling like you can show all parts of yourself there. I don't know how to navigate that within my own life and communities, and I often think about all the people in my life know these different sides of me, based on what parts I can show or what they might understand. It's a complicated thing to navigate, and it can often be lonely. I thank Anthony for helping me have a better understanding of this within myself. I still haven't finished reading Afterparties completely, because a part of me doesn't want to accept that I'll never be able to read anything else Anthony wrote. I mourn Anthony, and I mourn the parts of ourselves that so many of us have to bury or avoid or hide in order to exist in the places we want to be. _________________ I'm Maya, an artist from California and Texas. Participating in QAP for the first time in 2019 was my introduction to visual art and launched a passion for printmaking, which has grown into a drive to find more ways to make printmaking and other art forms accessible to artists of all ages. Along with 5 of my friends, I took part in creating Colectiva Libre, a collective that offers free art workshops to the community and encourages people to create as a form of political and self-expression. In addition to queer ancestry, I also use art to explore my connection to queerness through my Mexican American culture and family’s homelands in the Chihuahuan desert border region. Aside from linocut printmaking, I've also explored risograph, spray paint, murals, photography, archival work, and wheat pasting. @lagrimaya