At a fraternity party in 2015, Brock Turner , the now-notorious former Stanford University student, assaulted an incapacitated woman behind a dumpster. Thankfully, two Swedish bikers intervened, tackling him to the ground before he ran. A year-long legal battle ensued, where the survivor of Turner’s attack — then only known as “Emily Doe” — would be both implicitly and explicitly blamed for Turner's violent actions by his defense attorney and various online commenters. In spite of the heinous incident, Judge Aaron Persky sentenced Turner to just six months in prison (he could have faced up to 14 years behind bars), which led to the judge being recalled by angry voters.

When people doubt you or dismiss you, I am with you.

But Emily Doe made the world hear her voice when her stunning victim impact statement was published by Buzzfeed News in 2016, delivering a withering indictment of Turner, rape culture, and the institutions that retraumatize survivors.

"To girls everywhere, I am with you," the statement read. "On nights when you feel alone, I am with you. When people doubt you or dismiss you, I am with you. I fought everyday for you. So never stop fighting, I believe you.”

When millions of people around the world read her words, they didn’t know Emily Doe was actually a woman named Chanel Miller. But now, with the release of her new memoir, Know My Name, Miller — who writes that names are “sacred” — wants us to hear her story.

The book has been described by Los Angeles Times columnist Robin Abcarian as “required reading for every police officer, detective, prosecutor, provost and judge who deals with victims of sexual assault.” Miller is an excellent writer. She takes readers along the humiliating legal process through her powerful and poetic prose, while also describing her own journey of healing, the impact Turner’s actions had on her community and family, and offering incisive commentary on current issues surrounding sexual assault.

Shondaland spoke with Miller about her new memoir, her Asian-American identity, what she wants to see change for survivors’ rights, and the importance of continuing the healing process.

NYLAH BURTON: In the book, you speak about the dissociation that formed between your two identities, Emily Doe and Chanel Miller. Emily Doe was the name that protected your identity throughout the case, so it seems like you were shielded from so much because of that. But it also feels that, in other ways, the splitting of self was hard for you to deal with. How was that experience?

CHANEL MILLER: I feel like Emily Doe was being insulted and put down and was extremely exposed. I felt like that was too much to stomach, but I had to put it aside in order to get on with everything. Life keeps moving, and in order to survive I had to break off an entire part of myself in order to keep going.

So that division was necessary at the time. But long term, that's not a sustainable way of living, to have yourself so fragmented and to spend so much energy hiding this experience or that part of yourself that has largely shaped your identity over time. I think at the end of writing, I was able to merge the two identities and not worry that the darker identity would swallow the other one, that it was all just a part of me in entirety. So yes, now I’m fully here and it feels amazing.

NB: You’re half-Chinese, and in the book you talk about this a lot, especially the impact that your mother [a writer who immigrated from China after the Cultural Revolution ] and grandfather had on your life. But in the book, you also talk about how court documents misidentified you as white. How did it feel to sort of have that part of your identity assumed and misidentified in this case?

CM: I felt like my lineage had been erased. They had denied a vital part of my identity, my upbringing, and the entire context in which I live and exist in this world. When I saw that the "White" box was checked in the court document, I thought it was astounding that no one had even bothered to ask me. They assumed I was white and they checked that box without a question in their mind that I could be someone else. That's not [their] call to make.

I think, for him... for Brock, he may be used to having people in positions of power that look like him. I am not. I felt really alienated going into the court process. You know, I didn't expect to see Asian female attorneys or an Asian female judge. I can't even imagine what that familiarity would feel like, to be surrounded by people who looked like me.

I felt underestimated throughout the [court] process; maybe they saw me as differential or submissive. But maybe, ultimately, that worked to my advantage because they thought they could get away with more, thinking that I was more soft-spoken rather than outspoken. But I know what I'm capable of and I was not going to let that happen.

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NB: Do you think that, as a whole, society has held space to explore and reckon with the unique ways that Asian and Asian-American women experience sexual violence and harassment? As a Black woman who’s also marginalized, I don't see a lot of space held to have these discussions. I'm just curious about your perspective.

CM: I think, in general, we are more likely to be dismissed. I think our experiences are easily overridden, that we have to fight insanely hard to be taken seriously or to be heard… just to be seen, at all.

For example, my mom is Chinese and she's wild and spontaneous and imaginative. So many of her Chinese friends are artists and painters and musicians. The Chinese community she exposed me to growing up never aligned with the limited, quieter stereotypes of Asians depicted in mainstream media.

I always knew that there was so much missing in the public view, so many colorful voices and warm characteristics and beautiful elements of our culture that were just not being shown. There's so much that is lacking in terms of how much space we're given to present ourselves as a diverse group, in terms of our backgrounds, personality traits, interests, and yes, how we move through the world and experienced violence and recover from it. There's just not enough room to talk about any of it.

NB: Your book really tells survivors what to expect in the reporting process, the trial process, the healing process. You write that at one point, after talking with someone about the work that a civil rights non-profit was doing for survivors, you realized “Victims could ask for more. We could be treated better.” After going through this process, what do you think needs to change so that survivors are given the rights that they need?

CM: Well first, I just want to say that I think the most common question [directed towards survivors] is asking why the victim didn't report. And I always want to push back against that and say, "Do you realize what you're asking when you're asking us to report? You want us to move forward? Then why don't you break it down for me how this is going to work, how we're expected to overcome each obstacle we’re going to hit along the way. Who is going to be there for us as we do it?"

It's such a protracted and unrealistic process.

If you start at the very beginning, I was assaulted on Stanford's campus. They don't do forensic exams at Stanford hospital, currently. So I had to be taken 40 minutes south to San Jose because that was the nearest hospital where I could get a rape kit done. So first, we can talk about transportation. [It’s difficult to] get access to collecting evidence and we have to do it within 24 hours of the assault. You can't change your clothes. You can't shower. So what do you do? Do you take an Uber?

There are very basic things like that, that society fails to think through that are inhibiting and making it impossible for us to even begin to go down this route of reporting.

We also need access to and funding for rape crisis centers. We should fund the labs that process these rape kit. Mine took six months to process and they told me that that was expedited due to media pressure. Six months. It's quick in this world.

It says something that there's a backlog of kits. It says something that we can't even keep up with the demand to process them in time. We're not allocating enough money to even give them a chance to be looked at. If we cared enough, we would put more funding there. There's just so many, so many things like that along the process.

NB: One of the things that really struck me as I was reading your book is the importance of all the positive bystanders in your story. You say that after your experience with the nurses in the hospital during your exam, "the primary feeling was warmth." And you mention that as a society, "we need to raise that instinct in others" that the Swedes had when they saved you. What are some ways that we can raise that instinct so that they will be positive bystanders?

CM: I would say: “Do you ever see a vulnerable person being devalued? If you see a woman being disrespected, speak up, don't be complacent. Silence is its own stance. Don't be afraid to confront what you see happening, to challenge it, to question it.”

In terms of the nurses, so much of how we process our trauma afterwards relies on the context in which we are processing. It's so vital that those forces around us are gentle, that they're nourishing, that they're expressing that all they want is for you to be okay.

They're not bombarding you with questions, they're not doubting your immediate experience. They are letting you process however you need to, and letting you know that however you may choose to move forward, they will be there. [Survivors need] tenderness, patience, warmth, and fierce protection.

It's also our job, as a society, to educate ourselves about how victims process trauma and how we behave. If juries were more educated about behavioral reactions to trauma, then we would have more empathy in the courtroom.

NB: You mentioned that your DA had told you women weren’t preferred on rape trials because many believe woman are more likely to resist empathizing and to participate in victim blaming. You had so many women supporting you, but you also had women who expressed that they felt Brock’s actions were your fault. How do you feel about this concept of women potentially hurting other women during these cases?

CM: Perhaps it's this really sad instinct to want to distance yourself from the victim, to believe that you're above that situation, that you're smarter than that, that you know that you know better or that you would never end up like that. It's much scarier to realize that could be any of us, that we are vulnerable and susceptible to different forms of violence in our daily lives. That's a difficult reality to accept. I think in order for some people to make themselves mentally immune to that, they say, "Well, she must be different than me. That would never be me, and I'll be fine and I'll keep her at arms length.”

NB: I remember reading the letter you wrote in 2016. Being a survivor, it felt like someone understood what I was going through and had put it in such an eloquent and beautiful way. You have inspired so many people. Which survivors have inspired you? How has hearing their stories or seeing the work that they’ve done helped you through your own healing process?

CM: Honestly, there are many unnamed survivors that I owe so much to that wrote me letters, that confessed their own stories to me. It made me aware that there's so many of us out there who are carrying around these stories and who are quietly fighting. Sometimes fighting just means showing up every day to keep living your life. I'm so impressed.

Sometimes fighting just means showing up every day to keep living your life.

I mean, think of like how many friends you know who have gone through something similar. The fact that we've all just lived through so much and yet continue to be who we are and just find ways to celebrate each other and lift each other up. Those letters sustained me for the last few years. While writing, every time I got stuck, I would just pull out a few and they would remind me why I was doing this and tell me to keep going. So it's these survivors that have propelled me forward.

NB: Yeah, it does take a lot of strength to just keep on existing. To celebrate survivors, we don't have to say, “This person started a company after their assault or this person did this.” Like this person is alive, they're drinking water, they're taking their meds and they're doing amazing.

CM: [laughs] Yeah, exactly! If someone is taking their vitamins, I’m proud.

NB: Right! And speaking of that, we know that healing is a nonlinear process. It is not something that starts and ends when we want it to. How do you continue to take care of yourself, and continue to let yourself go through the ebb and flow of feelings.

CM: You could describe it as like an undertow. You kind of get swept away and pulled back into everything again and again. But it almost feels natural at this point, to get pulled back to that space. What changes is how quickly you're able to recover from it. So, I know that even when I lose my footing or when I'm overcome with emotion, the time I'll need to get back on my own two feet is faster than it was before — before it used to be months.

So much of this is still really emotional, you know? And you have to experience the emotion first before you can begin to articulate it. In the past few years of writing, yes, I was working constantly, but there were also days devoted just to processing. Those were the days when I knew I wasn't going to put any words down on the page, but that didn't mean I wasn't being productive. I knew I was working something out inside myself and I gave myself credit for that.

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NB: Speaking of writing, you use art as a way to heal throughout the book. Why does art have that wonderful capacity to help people deal with trauma?

CM: I love how art doesn't have to be as neat as writing. In writing, I'm really meticulous and selective about the words I choose. I spend a lot of time figuring out the precise language I need in order to express exactly what I'm feeling. In art, I don't know what's gonna come out. [laughs]

NB: I just want to say that I loved your book and would love to read anything you write. Anything else you want to add?

CM: I would just say continue to define yourself. Nobody has the right to just limit you by labels. you get to choose how you exist in the world and how you choose to express yourself. It’s your right. So just remember that.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

Nylah Burton is a Washington D.C. based writer. Follow her on Twitter @yumcoconutmilk.

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