Mia Mingus and Stacey Milbern are two queer disabled diasporic Korean women of color in the process moving from the South to the Bay to create home and community with each other.
This tumblr documents their journey. For more info about Mia, visit her blog at free love
dear stacey,
i can’t believe you are moving here tomorrow! how did we get here??? i am so excited to see you and to make the last pieces of living together happen!
The lift and ramp are in the works; the careshift access shifts are organized and will be done by some pretty great folks in our community out here. In a day, you will be out here in a temporary home and in just under a month, you will move in to our house!!!!!
i still can’t believe it sometimes! i can remember pitching the idea to you last summer as some kind of outlandish idea: we should live together!
I love that we are not lovers and that we are doing this as family, as kin, to each other, building home in such a queer (disabled woman of color) way. I love that it is different than the traditional heteronormative narrative of two people in a romantic (and who share sexy-time) partnership moving in together. I love that we are making a commitment to, not just each other, but also community and legacy. I love that our love is so strong and bold and big that most people assume incorrectly that we are romantic partners, or lovers, or girlfriends; it makes me feel like our love is free of limits and we don’t shrink back thinking, “oh, were ‘just’ friends, we shouldn’t do that.” It makes me love the queer (crip) in us so much more, love cannot be bound into simple, violent and dangerous categories of “friend,” “lover” and ‘family” and assigned value accordingly; commitment and family is not just limited to blood and legal bonds, as defined by the state. It makes me love the women of color in us, not afraid to love another woman who reflects us, not afraid to love other women of color.
and in all of it, joining the deep legacy of our folks (queer, crip, women of color) in creating and defining powerful families and love outside of the privileged and policed norm, for ourselves and our communities.
I can’t wait to see you and be in the same city and time zone with you!! safe travels and get some sleep tonight, even though I know it will be hard. :)
love you!
mia
