Call for Submissions
Asian Im/migrant and Diasporic Embodiments
a decomp journal physical zine
Amid the rapid rise of violent and unlawful deportations and detentions of immigrants by ICE in the US, and Canada’s recent passage of the anti-migrant bill C-12, immigrants of color are constantly confronted with questions of citizenship and who gets to belong. Yet these anxieties are not new. Asian migration to Canada and the United States has long been shaped by exclusionary immigration policies, from the Chinese Head Tax to the displacement of people through wars across Asia. The War on Terror further intensified the racialization and surveillance of many Asian and Muslim communities. These histories and policies remind us of the complicated position of Asian diasporic communities within settler colonialism. While Asians have historically been subjected to racial exclusion, many have also been encouraged to perform as the model minority through assimilation and allegiance to the nation-state. This positioning raises difficult questions about how we participate in the larger settler-colonial project of nationalism, white supremacy, and Indigenous dispossession.
While immigrants may feel safe in showing gratitude and performing a kind of allegiance to the so-called host nation-state, we also know that this sense of safety is precarious and conditional. Being Asian in diaspora also means we should confront the historical conditions that brought us here in Canada and the US in the first place. So, how do we resist this tendency to assimilate to the settler nation-state? How does one navigate the tensions between ethnicity and national belonging in the Asian diaspora? And what can Asian diasporic embodiment look like on Turtle Island?
For those of us in the Asian diaspora, these questions surface in everyday encounters, in the stories passed down through our families, and in the histories that shape our relationships to the places we call home. As editors, we have each encountered questions that make our identities and belonging feel conditional:
[Hibah]: “Do you feel more Canadian or Pakistani?” I have found myself faced with this question in different forms throughout my life. Normally, I question what “Canadian” even means on stolen land. Most recently, though, someone decided to answer for me: “Oh, obviously she feels more Canadian.” Their certainty left a bitter taste in my mouth. I began to wonder whether my ethnic identity was somehow less valid, or whether I was really an imposter—a “coconut.” These experiences have led me to think more deeply about identity, belonging, and what it means to navigate the Asian diaspora.
[Chung]: As a person of the Korean diaspora in the US, I have encountered many people who questioned my identity and whether I belonged. For as long as I can remember, whether in school, at work, or in public, I've been asked, “Where are you from?” “Are you Chinese or Japanese?” “Are you North Korean or South Korean?” Most recently, since I came to Canada to study at UBC, some have said, “Oh, I thought you were Canadian.” These encounters, at first seemingly harmless, have layered unresolved, unsettling feelings about what it means to be Korean, American, and everything in between.
The question of belonging does not only emerge in our encounters with the nation-state or with those who perceive us as perpetual foreigners. It can also surface within our own communities, families, and diasporic relationships. For Canadian-born Asians, the expectation to embody an authentic or recognizable form of Asianness can produce another kind of alienation: being told, implicitly or explicitly, that we are not Asian enough. Whether through language, cultural knowledge, family histories, or our relationships to an ancestral homeland, our identities can be measured against expectations shaped by migration and generational difference. These expectations can obscure the varied ways Asian identity is lived and inherited, making belonging feel conditional even among those with whom we might expect to find kinship. How do we navigate the tensions between being seen as perpetually foreign in the countries where we were born or raised and being perceived as insufficiently connected to the cultures from which our families come? What does it mean to inherit an identity that others continually ask us to prove?
Thinking alongside the work of critical refugee and Asian diasporic scholars including Ayesha Chaudhry, Tasha Ausman, Sutama Ghosh, Y-Dang Troueng, Vinh Nguyen, and Crystal Mun-hye Baik, who examine how interlocking systems of power shape our individual realities in the diaspora, we welcome submissions that speak to the complex, unresolved, and multiple emotional registers that come with the Asian immigrant and Asian diasporic experience in Canada and the US. We are interested in creative work that critically resists dominant narratives that erase the nuanced conditions of Asian immigrant and diasporic experiences and attends to the historical and political conditions shaping Asian migration, exploring the tensions between racial exclusion, assimilation, and belonging. We encourage contributors to reflect on what terms such as “diaspora,” “immigrant,” “belonging,” and “(model) minority” mean to them. How might these labels illuminate certain experiences while obscuring others? What happens when the language we use to describe ourselves becomes restrictive or confining?
We invite submissions from artists and writers working across genres and media, including creative nonfiction, poetry, short stories, speculative fiction, science fiction, and visual art. Submissions may also include audio and video formats.
Writing submissions must not exceed three pages or 1000 words, which will be reformatted to fit into a 6” x 9” printed zine. We encourage contributors to consider the print format when preparing their submissions. The zine will be printed in color at 6” × 9”, so text and images may need to be reformatted to fit the final layout.
As this special relaunch issue of decomp will begin with a print version, please submit still images in PNG or JPEG format at 300 dpi. For audio and video work, please submit a link to the video (which will be printed as a QR code in the zine), along with an associated image (300dpi).
We will curate and visually entangle all works to reflect the complicated, layered Asian immigrant/diasporic experience. This special issue will experiment with how works can speak to each other while embracing their differences. The zine will be 6” x 9” and printed in color, with a special relaunch note and introduction by the editors. We will publish a digital version later in spring 2027.
Please submit works by 5pm PST on Sunday, November 29, 2026. We will communicate final decisions by December 7, 2026. We look forward to your submissions!
Submissions are welcome from folks around the globe.
Submission & Guidelines: Submit your work after reviewing our guidelines at https://decompjournal.com/submit
Note: decomp journal uses a third-party platform called Submittable to process submissions. We encourage sending submissions before the deadline in case of any technical issues.
DEADLINE TO SUBMIT: November 29, 2026 @ 5:00 PM PST
Questions or concerns? Contact us:
decomp.magazine@gmail.com
Website: https://decompjournal.com
Instagram/Twitter: @decompjournal
Facebook: decompmagazine
[decomp journal Guidelines]
All submissions should be sent in using our online submittable platform.
For Prose: 8,000 words maximum. If you write pieces that are under 1,000 words, feel free to submit two.
Art/other media: We accept art across all mediums as long as they can be uploaded in JPG, mp3 or mp4 files
We only accept previously unpublished work and yes, we consider websites, blogs, youtube channels, etc, as previously published.
We readily encourage simultaneous submissions, all we ask is that you notify us when another market accepts your work.
We aim to respond to submission within 90 days. If you don’t hear from us at all please reach out.
Unfortunately, there is no payment at this time.
If your work is accepted, it is subject to minor editing and copyrighted upon publication, plus you automatically grant us First North American Serial Rights to publish it first and Archival Rights to archive it online. Rights revert back to the author upon publication. If a piece of yours is reprinted, please mention it appeared in decomp first.
