The Art of Never Letting Go

On March 12, Ke Huy Quan solidified his ongoing arc of inspiration and passion as he crossed the infamous Academy stage and received the award for Best Supporting Actor in his role as Waymond Wang. In the months leading to this groundbreaking feat, Quan received a plethora of awards and recognition for other namesakes, such as a SAG award and a Golden Globe award. In his moving, winning speech at the Oscars, Quan honored not only the people around him, but most importantly and inadvertently, himself as he tells us to “keep your dreams alive”. 

I know I am not the only person who felt viscerally and heartbreakingly emotional during my first blind movie theater watch of Everything Everywhere All at Once over a year ago last spring, and when I still see Tiktok edits of Quan’s iconic laundry and taxes line in my digital feed, I am certain that his Oscar win was undoubtedly felt. As Quan states in multitudes of interviews and speeches, it was not too long ago when he once felt that everything and all he wanted in his career had drifted away without him realizing. To watch him outwardly express the joy and jubilation in his heart for Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s project giving him another chance, we too are celebrating with him.

For the Asian-American-Pacific-Islander-Desi-Western-Asian community (AAPIDWA), recognition in the arts, let alone a standing career, is a nontraditional, grief-riddled, and immensely difficult journey with no guarantee of a final destination. Over the last few decades in the West, specifically in Hollywood, our people and role models have continuously cultivated an existing space for our faces, our voices, our languages and cultures, and our names against the structures put in place to hold us back. When Quan’s story as a Vietnamese-born Chinese refugee to American actor is told, I am brought back to the reality that so many in the AAPIDWA community have and will always face: letting go. We uphold tradition, the importance of building things (like family and (specific) careers) that last, and dreaming, for many of us is a privilege we cannot afford – but like many, I know that I could never stop myself from dreaming at all. It is a reprieve that fuels our passions, our motivation to do what our parents had given us the chance to. Whether you are 20-something or 50-something, there is beauty and necessity in holding on tightly, so tight that we hit the ground running and it becomes the oxygen we need to breathe. Without dreaming, what are we but hollow versions of ourselves, set to let the world at work continue its saga of churning out machine after machine, valuing pieces of the mechanisms that keep mindless structure in place. Where would we be without the ambition for something more, for the courage to take chances and leaps and bounds, unsure of where we would land but choosing to soar nonetheless? A bird that cannot fly is still in the air for even just a second. 

As the tears from my eyes fall and my throat gets tight every single time I watch Quan cry during his Oscar acceptance, I take his words to heart. To see someone who became the epitome of patience, who held on as tightly as they could, there is nothing more inspiring; not just because his story of enduring struggle is inherently inspiring, but because that night, I saw the same Goonies boy stand proudly on that stage too. 

Reference: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvAdahLczGk