Photos by Canelle Vanderford  

Story Written by Katie Chandler

“Writing has always been an outlet for me to put things into words that I can't really say out loud.”

Kayla Curry is a junior sociology major, a copy editor for Sartorial Magazine, and our staff feature for Asian American Pacifc Islander Month. Originally, Kayla found herself writing news for the campus newspaper, The Standard, but eventually, she found her place at Sartorial Magazine her sophomore year. She now focuses on writing for our opinion section with articles such as Men- Feminism is not your enemy and political pieces like What Happens Now? For Kayla, speaking out doesn’t always mean speaking out loud.

“I feel like I think differently when I'm writing than when I'm just speaking,” Kayla said. 

In high school, she served as the editor of her high school newspaper and came to Missouri State as a journalism student. She knew she could write well and thought that was the natural progression, however as time went on, she found her real interest in social justice which led her to fall in love with sociology.

While at college, along with being involved in Sartorial, Kayla is also a co-hub coordinator for Sunrise Springfield serving as a leader for the Missouri State campus. 

“I started finding a purpose in these groups and, along with that I was connecting with people who had the same ideals as me and believed in the same things as me,” she said.

Kayla has organized for various causes such as achieving climate justice, ending the gender pay gap, and advocating for women’s right to bodily autonomy, but to Kayla, being an activist doesn’t have to look one way. She says changing the way we create and consume media can play a role in making changes. 

“Minari” is a movie that came out this year and tells the story of Korean-American immigrants as they start their lives on their Arkansas farm. For Kayla, it reminded her of some of her own experiences growing up and showed the Asian experience in a positive way.

“It's my favorite movie of the year. It made me cry happy tears and sad tears,” Kayla said. “I think Minari really told a story where there were multiple Asian protagonists, and it was about them and not about their role in someone else's story.”

Despite not being an immigrant herself, the story reminded Kayla of moments with her own family who are Laotian and Japanese, especially while being away from them at college. 

“I feel like I find myself cherishing even smaller moments...When I'm at home and my mom's like ‘I'm running to the Asian grocery store,’ I always want to go because that's not something that I usually do when I'm [at college],” she said. “It's not the same as going with my mom and walking around looking at everything and having her cook homemade meals at night.”

With her leadership positions and being away from her family, stress comes naturally, however, in times of dismay, she remembers her grandma's perspective on life. 

“I really love when my grandma calls me or gives me advice. She's a Buddhist, and she just has a really positive outlook on life and she's one of those people who does not let anything bother her for very long.”

That same positive outlook passed down from her grandma is how Kayla chooses to look at the importance of Asian American Pacific Islander Month. 

“I think Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month can do two things,” Kayla said.‘It can highlight that, yes, historically, and contemporarily, we as a people still struggle, and have been through a lot of traumatic experiences, but it should also be a month to celebrate what it means to be Asian.” 

Kayla hopes that as we look at the racism facing the Asian community, we shift our perspective and understand different groups experience it differently, but despite stereotypes like the ‘model minority,’ we should also realize that anti-Asian racism is still alive and well.

“I don’t experience the same racism and brutality that a lot of other people of color do, but this month it's a good time to ask yourself why is that? What caused some Asian Americans to become so successful while other marginalized groups have not been as relatively successful?” she said.  

“You can go back in history and look at immigration policies like the Chinese Exclusion Act and Immigration Act…They didn't want Asian people to immigrate here unless they had an education or skill set that they could provide… They picked and chose what people they let in.”

Despite the stereotypes that Asians are more successful than other marginalized groups, Kayla said this month is a perfect time to learn new things like how the wealth gap between the richest Asian Americans and the poorest is the widest of any racial group in America, and that racist policies have created the model minority myth.

While they're tough conversations to have Kayla believes by having them and each person putting in the work only then can we move forward. 

“We're more than what's happened to us, we're also the things that are happening now, what we're doing in contributing to the world.”

To find out what else Kayla is up to follow @SartorialMag to see her future pieces and her Instagram @kaylac.urry