Monday Matter: Barbie, the Bear and building roots

Your biweekly Foreign Bodies roundup

Every other Monday, I send subscribers and gift recipients of immigrant mental health and storytelling newsletter Foreign Bodies stories I recently inhaled and adored. This is also a chance to do some housekeeping and give shout-outs and all that jazz.

First things first

A little housekeeping

Putting my roots down 🌱

I talk a lot in both my personal and professional life about this lifelong search for place and community, how nearly every choice I make in adulthood — from the people I invite in to the coffeeshops I choose to call my second or third homes — this achey yearning for community leads the way. Moving around so much all my life, living across continents and states and counties within states, I’d never grasped the concept of a hometown or a childhood friend who’s known you from start to now. And I think I’ve always resented not having that base. I’d reinvent myself in every new space, unknowingly losing fragments along the way. Now that I can — and boy, does this come with privilege — I’m chasing every chance to put my roots down.

A musical start to your Mondays 🎧

One song to groove to, cry to, drive to and share

This funky tune, recommended by reader Jolene G., is from 1980s Indonesian fusion jazz group Bhaskara.

Resource(s) of the week

Something helpful and interesting and cool (*storytelling opportunity)

• *PEN America is accepting applications for the Bare Life Review Grant program, which supports literary works in progress by immigrant and refugee writers. Narrative nonfiction, poetry and fiction welcome. Winners receive $5,000 each. Deadline: July 21.

• Creating Space: A free guided community session on mental health centering Asian voices led by psychologist Dr. Jenny Tzu-Mei Wang, author of Permission to Come Home: Reclaiming Mental Health as Asian Americans. The Brooklyn Nets, a sponsor for the session, will be generously giving away 200 copies of Wang’s book to the first 200 attendees. Event is scheduled for 4-7pm at the Barclays Center. A livestream is in the works for non-NYC residents. Please RSVP to rsikar@31philliplom.com.