I may or may not have almost thrown up at work given my ability to relate to a lot of it, but it was comforting to have—for a moment . . .
Almost every message I received opened with someone telling me the location of where they were crying. They were enraged and then devastated, and then they said thank you, said everyone must read it. It was a reaction too complex to categorize, but it sounded like, by the end of reading, they’d emerged in a clearer space. I was taken aback by this collective murmuring, a little worried I’d made them cry.
I watched the numbers rise. A few hours later, when it hit eight hundred thousand views, I called my dad, telling him to go online. Buzz bee? How can I find—can you send me the link? Lucas was on a bike trip through the forest. When he texted me a picture of him in a helmet, I replied, Something is happening. Tiffany was studying for her final exams. I didn’t want this to distract her, Keep studying, get offline!
At one million, I texted my mom, who was at the grocery store. My story went viral. She responded, Mama bought 4 different kinds of ice cream for you! Three firework emojis. I don’t think any of us had grasped what it meant. The emails were steadily streaming in. I was nervous to look at the comment section of the article, expecting the same minimization I’d heard from the judge. But when I looked, I found heartening words. She looked straight into the sun and laid it all out for us. You mean something to this world. PREACH IT. Detective Kim texted me, You are a superstar. A text from Tiffany: All it took for any ambiguous or mean or victim-blaming comments to disappear was your voice.
When my dad got home, he began printing out some of the comments; he liked to underline them and sit with them. I, too, was fascinated by the words people were using. Eloquent. Searing. Gut-wrenching. Visceral. Courageous. Cogent. A newly minted hero. Emily was a hero. Courageous and clearheaded, defiant and unapologetic, a figure of truth and power. In this person, I did not yet see myself.
I think if I read this years ago, I would have felt less guilty, less stupid, more empowered, more validated, and simply worth more as a human being.
As Friday came to a close, I stared at my glowing screen. My dad came in to say goodnight, smiling, Maybe the White House will call next! This was the very thing a dad would say, reaching for the moon. Saturday morning, the count kept climbing. My household was tingling and sweet, ripening with affirmation. Katie was forwarding me emails by the hundreds. My mom came in with a bowl of rice congee. She told me to stop leaning so close to the computer screen, bad for your eyes. But I was addicted to the unending streams of messages, felt the need to fill up on them before the moment passed. In the last year and a half, every time my case came up in the news, I’d watch it give way to bigger news. By Sunday evening, I assumed my celebration would be ending. The new week would begin, the world would redirect its attention. When I fell asleep, I wrote down the count:
Sunday June 5 11:00 P.M. 4,432,947
Soon, the statement was published in The Guardian, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times. It was trending on Twitter, columns of red rectangles in my feed. Michele told me Ashleigh Banfield would be reading my letter on CNN. My first instinct was to tell her she didn’t have to read the whole thing. But she filled the entire segment. The statement was shoving its way through the world, clearing its own path. I began texting myself numbers as if I’d be able to map the trajectory.
Monday June 6 8:50 P.M. 6,845,577
Tuesday June 7 8:40 P.M. 10,163,254
Wednesday June 8 5:04 P.M. 12,253,134
Thursday June 9 11:30 P.M. 14,523,874
Friday June 10 12:40 P.M. 15,250,000
Video compilations emerged of people reading the entire statement aloud. Rape hotlines were ringing, calls and volunteers increasing. New York mayor Bill de Blasio hosted a reading with his wife, Chirlane McCray. California congresswoman Jackie Speier led a one-hour reading on the House floor. Congressman Ted Poe of Texas said, She wrote the Bible on what happens to sexual assault victims. The cast of Girls dedicated a video, She Is Someone. My Favorite Murder podcast covered it. Glamour would later honor Emily Doe as one of the 2016 Women of the Year. The statement was translated into French, German, Portuguese, Spanish, and Japanese. An undergraduate in Korea, named Youngki Kim, asked for permission to translate it into Korean. The statement was performed in sign language, in a video produced by Crystine, who was unaware we went to high school together. A feminist group in China posted photos of women holding signs: Nobody earns the right to rape. It is still rape when he is a good swimmer. I received emails from around the world. Though very much across the Pacific, I am so very near to her and her pain and so very grateful for all those who did come to her aid. Another note: You have reached out to someone in a sleepy town here in India with your agony, your perseverance, your will. A man from Australia told me he was weeping on his porch at three in the morning. For days I was sitting in my room with my laptop next to a crusty bowl of conjee, in tears. Every message was pushing me closer to a space in which I was beginning to see myself more clearly.
One of Brock’s former high school classmates, AJ, wrote a post: Finally, I just want to make a statement for myself. Before all of this, I knew I’d never forget you. Over 8 years ago, you called me a fag and formulated opinions about me before knowing who I was. Look where we are now. The “fag” I am knows how to treat humans, wherever they may fall on the gender spectrum, with dignity and respect, and you are the face of sexual assault in the United States of America.
I drove to meet Alaleh at the courthouse. She had a sign taped to her door: #BeTheSwede. This tiny courthouse had been flooded with colorful rectangular envelopes, clogging the mail slots. She handed me a heavy bag that I cradled with both arms. We were both still in shock, didn’t know what to make of this new ending we’d been given. As I carried my loot to my car, it rattled, full of small treasures: a Ganesha necklace to offer me protection. Dangling bicycle earrings. Letters from a teacher in New Zealand, a softball team in Arizona. A woman had taken stunning photographs of pine trees to replace the triggering memory with beauty. A watercolor painting of a lighthouse. Two purple chocolate bars from a woman in Ireland, to replenish the supply that Grandma Ann had given me.
If you had told me that morning on the gurney that in a year and a half, a woman would be licking a stamp in Ireland to send me a package full of candy, I would have laughed. My mom was right: You have to wait and see how your life unfolds.
One day I heard from the White House. Joe Biden wrote me a letter. I was in disbelief. I still had blockades up to protect me internally, scared to fully open up to all that was happening. I told myself to move my internal obstructions aside for a moment, to truly listen.
In his letter, he wrote, I see you. What did it mean that the vice president of the United States of America had stopped every important thing he was doing, to write I see you.
Assault buries the self. We lose sight of how and when we are allowed to occupy space. We are made to doubt our abilities, disparaged when we speak. My statement had blazed, erupted, was indomitable. But I was holding a secret fear, that there must be a cap, an end to this road, where they’d say, you have achieved enough, exit this way. I was waiting to be knocked back down to size, to the small place I imagined I belonged. I had grown up in the margins; in the media Asian Americans were assigned side roles, submissive, soft-spoken secondary characters. I had grown used to being unseen, to never being fully known. It did not feel possible that I could be the protagonist. The more recognition I gained, the more I felt I was not supposed to be on the receiving end of so much generosity. Yet people kept pulling me up and up, until I heard from the highest house in our nation. The vice president was not lowering down to my level, he was lifting me up to bow with gratitude.
What did it mean that he stopped to read my statement? That millions of people had paused what they were doing to take it in? I see the limitless potential of an
incredibly talented young woman—full of possibility. I see the shoulders on which our dreams for the future rest. For the first time, I was beginning to understand what my dad meant when he said he was proud of me. I believe, out of the millions who knew I was brave and important, I was the last to know it.
Biden said, You have given them the strength they need to fight. And so, I believe, you will save lives. I thought of the man in the thick black jacket, sitting by the tracks in the foldout chair, hired to save lives. I realized, since I was seventeen, that was the job I wanted. The only difference was that I sat on a chair at home, writing the words that would get you to stay here, to see the value of you, the beauty of your life. So if you come on the worst day of your life, my hope is to catch you, to gently guide you back.
* * *
• • •
Even when 99 percent was positive, the 1 percent still invoked my worst fears. When my house phone rang, the illusion of safety was broken. It was a news anchor from a major morning talk show. She said, I’m half Asian too so we can be friends. This is like me saying, You look pretty when you’re sleeping. How could she see me? Lucas’s phone wouldn’t stop ringing, Tiffany’s LinkedIn views were up by the hundreds. A reporter had contacted Julia’s grandparents, to get to Julia, to get to me. The media offering to blur my face and warp my voice, to protect me, they said. Disturbing letters from strangers started showing up at my house. I submitted them to the lab for fingerprinting. Reporters came knocking, my dad saying, I don’t know who you’re talking about, shutting the door while I hid under the covers.
The statement would be read eighteen million times on BuzzFeed alone. You can find virtually anything online, but I remained unknown. I see this as a testament to the world’s grace; they did not push me into the glaring light, to a microphone, saying we want more. They did not ask for credentials, did not say, Well, who are you really.
One woman signed her letter Sincerely, Past Emily Doe. Many wrote to me saying they had been in my position before, wanted to show me who survivors become, told me about their careers, their kids, caring partners. This is what your life can look like in ten, twenty years. They gave me one thousand futures to grow into. In my anonymity, I tried on their lives and watched as they tried on mine. They became young again, finally declaring what they deserved, reclaiming all that had been taken. Healing was possible in that empty space.
The statement had created a room, a place for survivors to step into and speak aloud their heaviest truths, to revisit the untouched parts of their past. If I had come out with my identity the room would have collapsed, its roof weighted by distractions; my history, ethnicity, family. The few that had discovered my identity had taken screenshots of my old spoken word videos, leaked with the caption, Brock Turner has yellow fever. Wouldn’t put my nuts in her chink chute. Crazy gook. Asian women can’t handle their alcohol. Asian glow, red faced, lightweight, slut.
Instead, I became the lady with blue hair, the one with the nose ring, I was sixty-two, I was Latina, I was a man with a beard. How do you come after me, when it is all of us? One of the greatest dangers of victimhood is the singling out; all of your attributes and anecdotes assigned blame. In court they’ll try to make you believe you are unlike the others, you are different, an exception. You are dirtier, more stupid, more promiscuous. But it’s a trick. The assault is never personal, the blaming is.
Since no photos of me were published, I was curious about what photos would accompany the articles; a silhouette of a girl looking out a window, a teardrop on a cheek, duct tape over her mouth. All of this was accurate, in terms of the solitude, the silencing. But the incredible thing is that a victim is also the smiling girl in a green apron making your coffee, she just handed you your change. She just taught a class of first-graders. She has her headphones in, tapping her foot on the subway. Victims are all around you.
Looking back on this summer, I remember it in scenes, given to me through thousands of letters in grocery bags, handed over from my DA. A woman who said she was sitting on the couch with her daughter, surrounded by boxes, preparing to flee her abusive ex-husband, telling me she knew they were no longer alone. A mother who plucked the holiday card of her toddler from the inside of her cubicle, scribbling on the back, This is who you’re saving. A wife who woke up her husband, turning on the side light, to tell him her story. I received an email from a sixteen-year-old who said that for the first time in two years she could finally get out of bed in the morning. That’s the image I am left with, the now-empty bed.
Can I tell you, throughout the year before the trial, I spent nights secretly peeling back a curtain that concealed a life parallel to the one I was living, a life in which none of this ever happened. I imagined what I would be doing, who I would be; my nine-to-five, sunny days, a healthy body, holiday parties. Then I’d close the curtain, sitting back in my reality. Now, I see her vacant bed, and I understand why I went on this journey: It was the only way to get to her. Finally, I accepted what happened, aware of what it led to. I never touched the curtain again, knowing that one morning, a sixteen-year-old swung her legs out of bed and gently stepped back into her life.
My twenty-fourth birthday coincided with Stanford’s graduation ceremony. Some students in black caps held up signs, sunlight shining through the paper covered in bold, red-painted letters: STANFORD PROTECTS RAPISTS. BROCK TURNER IS NOT AN EXCEPTION. YOU ARE A WARRIOR. Their courage felt like a birthday gift. I could imagine a mother holding a camera with one hand, making swatting motions with the other, Jason put the sign down for one minute, just smile, and Jason saying, Mom! This is important! It meant something to me that they had brought hard truths to a cheery celebration. I hoped Stanford would soon find you can only sweep so many humans under the rug, before your rug becomes mountainous and lumpy. Commencement speaker and documentary filmmaker Ken Burns said, If someone tells you they have been sexually assaulted, take it effing seriously and listen to them. Maybe someday we’ll make the survivor’s eloquent statement as important as Dr. [Martin Luther] King’s letter from the Birmingham jail. A generous comparison.
Mr. Rosen proposed a new mandatory prison sentence for those convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious or intoxicated person and expanded California’s definition of rape. Two bills were signed into law by California Governor Jerry Brown. Alaleh mailed me a copy of the signed document, like a certificate that granted me the right to sleep peacefully, knowing this botched sentencing would not be repeated. I began to believe again in justice.
Michele Dauber launched a campaign to recall Judge Persky. This was unheard of—no judge had been recalled in California since 1932. Michele wanted to include the recall on the ballot for the next election, which would be held in two years. Nicole became one of the cochairs and the codirector of field operations; she galvanized volunteers, spending hours writing newsletters, keeping spirits lifted. She explained they’d need to collect at least 58,634 signatures in Santa Clara County to get Persky’s name on the June ballot. Once on the ballot, they needed at least 50 percent of the vote for him to be recalled.
It was common to have people forward me the statement saying, You have to read this. I wanted to respond, I wrote it. Once a friend said, I heard it’s someone we know. I froze, searching her face to see if she was testing me, but there was nothing. I feigned indifference, shrugged, I haven’t heard anything. When my sister met a guy in her neighborhood with a dog named Broccoli, the owner explained, Well at first his name was Brock, but have you heard of the Brock Turner stuff? My sister nodded. It hurt my dog’s brand, so I changed it. I found a new therapist in San Francisco, but it took me months and multiple sessions before I told her I was Emily Doe. All I said was that I’d been sexually assaulted, and in response she said, Have you read the Stanford victim statement? She’d recommended me my own story, said something about thoughtfulness and power, turning the tables. I nodded, and moved on to another topic. I wanted to be known as Chanel, in
all my fumblings, my confusion, managing everyday life, before being seen as Emily, who was defiant and courageous, who seemed to have all the answers.
I began to see the world through a softer filter. If somebody honked at me in traffic, I looked in my rearview mirror and thought, Maybe you have cried for me. In crowded lines at the grocery store, I wondered if the woman in front of me had written a letter, if she’d shared with me her hidden grief.
When I left the courtroom that June day, after reading my statement, courage had been the furthest thing from my mind. Now I understood that in this life I’ve been given, I had done something good, created power from pain, provided solace while remaining honest about the hardships victims face. In turn, they showed me who I was. Now it was just a matter of figuring out how to say thank you.
Novelist Anne Lamott was connected to me through Katie. I asked her for guidance. She replied:
I believe you will get a tug on your sleeve, and something from deep deep inside will get back to you on what might make sense for you to pursue or try. . . . You know how you can dive under a wave that is going to crash on top of you? Writing can help me do that—to pull way back from turmoil and impending overwhelm, and find a bit of sanctuary in the process, the action of scribbling down memories, visions, musings . . .
After struggling for so long to move away from this case, it felt counterintuitive to immerse myself again. But I also understood that moving through was a way of moving on, that I needed to go backward before I could go forward again. I now had my instructions. The statement was the wave. It was time to submerge even deeper, return to the beginning.
11.
THAT SUMMER, I told myself the worst was over, normal life could resume. But what was normal now? At night my bad dreams intensified. The relief and elation felt temporary. I felt sure that if I was being blamed for Brock’s pain, someone would want to torment me to even out the score. These were the rules of Elliot Rodger’s universe: I desired girls, but girls never desired me back. . . . It is an injustice that cannot go unpunished. I kept a bag of letters by my bed, working through them slowly to preserve them for as long as I could. Every night I read two to three. They helped put me to sleep, a warm thought from a mother in Wisconsin, tucking me in.
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