Tainted Love

One man's obsession is another woman's living nightmare.

In 1990s Honolulu Ariana Baraquio’s current boyfriend, James Devlin, meets her last boyfriend, Lance Byun, in a chance meeting and the interaction goes south in a blink. Lance’s views on dating and Asian-American women have changed since Ari last saw him. He lets her know that she should be with him again instead of J.D. because J.D. isn’t Asian. Ari’s refusal to accept his racial purity ideology leads to Lance stalking and ultimately holding them hostage before disappearing. It takes time and heartache before Ari and J.D. can move on from the trauma. Before they know it, Lance returns engaging in the same patterns of stalking and violence. Ari’s story will not just make you wish for a better future in which the system, institutions, and individuals take victims at their word and do more to protect them, making them feel safer to report in the first place, but to understand that it’s not hyperbole when Asian-American women say their lives are in danger because they’ve been fetishized.