Finding the WordsHow the Intersection of Asian American Studies and Women’s Studies Helps Me to Survive Kidney Cancer Jennifer A. Yee (bio) “Use your words.” How many parents of toddlers have resorted to this phrase when their barely verbal children scream, spit, hit, bite, wail, cry, and fling themselves onto the ground, beyond words? What is it like to feel deeply, have consciousness but not have the words to tell others how they can be of help, how they can love, support, keep one company, or, conversely, leave one alone? It is this type of silence that I have experienced as a person diagnosed and treated for kidney cancer (renal cell carcinoma). It is an inability to express myself because the experience is too deep for words. It is a combination of physical, emotional, and psychological pain, surprise, anger, self-imposed social constraint, and plain lack of vocabulary. This silence is insidious and oppressive, rendering me wordless at a time of incredible vulnerability. I used the idiom beyond words to try to convey my experience of cancer to loved ones, friends, colleagues, and medical care providers. But beyond words was insufficient. I needed a vocabulary to convey what I felt and knew, not just for the sake of sharing with others, but to make sense of things for myself. When I began to heal from the physical trauma and treatment, but then move into healing from the emotional and psychological trauma, I realized that existing words and metaphors about the cancer experience could not help me to make meaning because they were laden with assumptions that do not reflect my own values, beliefs, and perspectives. Where could I find these words? I was falling through air, flailing, desperately grasping to find words to help myself understand, make meaning. In academia, we make our trade with language. Words are the foundation for our learning; our exchange of them: the basis for our teaching. Though scholars may debate whether thought precedes language or vice versa, there is no question that having, creating, and expressing ideas with words is the currency of our profession. [End Page 96] What happens, then, when there are no words? The absence of language to describe and make meaning of a human experience creates a peculiar type of silence. Because I incorporate a critical Asian/Pacific Islander American (apia) feminist approach into my academic work, I found myself turning to the language of my disciplines—higher education, Asian American studies, and women’s studies—to discern what was happening to me and why. purpose My purpose in writing is to contribute to the language and understanding of all, particularly women and people of color, negotiating life-threatening situations while seeking the healing to save their lives. In this autoethnographic essay, I offer a window into my experience as a person diagnosed with and treated for renal cell carcinoma. These stories, woven with various concepts used in the fields of Asian American studies and women’s studies, come from the first two years following my diagnosis. Using these narratives and conceptual meaning-making as a foundation, I recommend expanding the notion of what healing and recovery entail by proposing an emerging four-part theory of holistic healing. At first, I hesitated to write because I know that each person’s experience of a health challenge, including cancer, is unique. I’ve chosen to keep the language informal and include my “cancer humor”—which I hope I’ve had enough skill to convey as a coping mechanism of irreverent observation, irony, and self-deprecation, without disrespecting the seriousness of this potentially deadly disease. I also hope the combination of these stories, concepts, and expanded conceptualization of healing will contribute to a critically aware, feminist vocabulary and epistemology that people dealing with a serious health condition, especially women and people of color, can use to make sense of their own health-related and healing experiences. situating my self and my lens as a feminist of color As a faculty member in ethnic studies I am interested in working with others to build a foundation of theory on Asian/Pacific Islander American (apia), Asian American & Pacific Islander (aapi), and North...