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Later, as the fireworks cracked green and gold over the creek, Honey sat alone for a moment. The gold chain at her neck felt warm, like it remembered being placed there by unseen hands.
But being just anything was impossible when you were Blasian in the Black Valley. The older women would cup her face and say, “Pretty, but she got that look—not quite ours.” The Vietnamese aunties at the nail salon would whisper in rapid-fire Cantonese: Too tall, too loud, too Black. Honey learned early that belonging was a language she’d have to invent herself.
The night of the Gold Rush, the air was so thick you could chew it. Honey stepped onto the plywood stage in a yellow sundress and combat boots. The crowd—a sea of Black and brown faces, of Vietnamese aunties fanning themselves, of kids with braids and bowl cuts—settled into a curious quiet. -BlackValleyGirls- Honey Gold - Blasians Like I...
“ Blasians Like I .”
Her voice was raw, honey-slow, then sharp as fish sauce. Jade and Marisol stepped up beside her, singing harmony. By the second verse, the aunties were swaying. By the bridge, a Vietnamese grandmother was crying, and a Black deacon was shouting, “That’s my girl!” Later, as the fireworks cracked green and gold
Blasians like I. We don’t fit in boxes. We build our own houses.
“What’s it called, baby?”
She thought of her father’s stories of Mississippi, of her mother’s escape from Saigon. She thought of how neither of those places would claim her fully—and how she didn’t need them to. The Black Valley was a patchwork. And she, Honey Gold, was the thread that held it together.
That summer, the cicadas screamed like they were dying of love. Honey and her two best friends—Jade, whose father was Nigerian and mother was Korean, and Marisol, a Dominican girl who’d been adopted by a Black family so deep in the Valley her Spanish came out with a Tidewater drawl—formed a pact. They called themselves the BlackValleyGirls . Not a club. A declaration. The older women would cup her face and
Then came the festival.