At 19 years old, AsĂ©na Tahir Izgil feels wise beyond her years. She is Uyghur, an ethnic minority persecuted in China, and few of her people have escaped to bear witness. After narrowly securing refuge in the United States, AsĂ©naâs now tasked with adjusting to life in a new country and fitting in with her teenage peers.Â
This week on The Experiment, AsĂ©na shares her familyâs story of fleeing to the U.S., navigating newfound freedom, and raising her baby brother away from the shadows of a genocide.Â
This episodeâs guests include AsĂ©na Tahir Izgil and her father, Tahir Hamut Izgil, a Uyghur poet and author.
This episode of The Experiment originally ran on August 19, 2021.
A transcript of this episode is available.
Further reading: âOne by One, My Friends Were Sent to the Camps,â âSaving Uighur Culture From Genocide,â ââI Never Thought China Could Ever Be This Dark,ââ âChinaâs Xinjiang Policy: Less About Births, More About Controlâ
Be part of The Experiment. Use the hashtag #TheExperimentPodcast, or write to us at theexperiment@theatlantic.com.
This episode was produced by Julia Longoria, with help from Gabrielle Berbey and editing by Katherine Wells and Emily Botein. Fact-check by Yvonne Rolzhausen. Sound design by David Herman, with additional engineering by Joe Plourde. Translations by Joshua L. Freeman.
Music by Keyboard (âOver the Moon,â âMu,â âWater Decanter,â and âWorld Viewâ), Laundry (âLawn Feelingâ), Water Feature (âRichard III (Duke of Gloucester)â and âAncient Morselâ), Parish Council (âNew Apt.â), and H Hunt (âC U Soon), provided by Tasty Morsels.
A translation of Tahir Hamut Izgilâs poem âAsĂ©naâ is presented below.Â
Aséna
By Tahir Hamut Izgil
Translation by Joshua L. Freeman
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A piece of my flesh
torn away.
A piece of my bone
broken off.
A piece of my soul
remade.
A piece of my thought
set free.
Â
In her thin hands
the lines of time grow long.
In her black eyes
float the truths of stone tablets.
Round her slender neck
a dusky hair lies knotted.
On her dark skin
the map of fruit is drawn.
Â
She
is a raindrop on my cheek, translucent
as the future I canât see.
Â
She
is a knot that need not to be untied
like the formula my blood traced from the sky,
an omen trickling from history.
Â
She
kisses the stone on my grave
that holds down my corpse
and entrusts me to it.
Â
She
is a luckless spell
who made me a creator
and carried on my creation.
Â
She is my daughter.
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