No Kings, Just Goddesses of Democracy + Song
Foreshadowing? Did I write this letter for my young friend from China all those years ago? Or did I write it for the young people living in America today if we should fall?
Narrated by Demian, song starts at 11:28
Was this foreshadowing?
In 2000, Radio Free Asia (RFA) conducted a three-part interview of me.1
In that interview, I talked about my love for China, what it meant to me as part of my survival as a child, and the student democracy movement that culminated in the Tiananmen Square Massacre on June 4th, 1989.
About a year or so after the interview, I received an email from a young person purporting to be from mainland China.
He stated he was from a rural province, that he and his mother listened to RFA in secret. His small village recently received a community computer. He contacted me as soon as he could.
He heard my RFA interview. Or some of it. The transmission was crackly and intermittent. He heard the song I wrote for the students of Tiananmen Square after the massacre, Keeping the Dream Alive. He wanted to know about the students of Tiananmen Square. And more, he wanted to know how to honor them.
I never expected to receive anything like this. Was this even real?
A human rights activist friend of mine, who had been sentenced to a re-education camp in China when he was young, and now living in the US, said he was familiar with the province and it wasn’t uncommon for poor rural villages to have to wait for a single computer for all to share.
This was a number of years before China’s Great Fire Wall was completed—technology giving the Chinese government massive control over what people could see or talk about on the internet, punishing those who search terms or engage in discussions that were strictly censored.
Still, I was wary of the surveillance that was already set in place. I didn’t know, realistically, how much jeopardy this would place him in—he was so young—but I couldn’t ignore him either.
My first email was responsive to his inquiry, though I focused on the esoteric and not the details of the actual events or crackdown of the students of Tiananmen Square.
Our other emails were more personal, more focused on what he wanted for his life. I didn’t initiate the emails. I only respond to them. Until they stopped.
Did he get tired of writing to me? There was school, new adjustments and expectations that would be placed upon him. For one, he said some family members would expect him to join the Communist Youth League. He said he didn’t want to.
Did he take that stand? Did he acquiesce and join anyway? Was he caught communicating with someone who sympathized with the students of Tiananmen Square, a subject banned in China? Or did he simply move on to other more pressing concerns in his young life?
I still think about him. That was almost 25 years ago. He’d be in his late 30’s, almost 40, by now. I hope he’s okay, and more than okay. I hope he grew up to have a wonderful and fulfilling life. And I hope he not only held his personal dreams close to his heart but that he was able to make some of them come true.
I want to share with you here my reply to my young friend’s first email to me in honor of the Students of Tiananmen Square, and to him, this beautiful young student with so much curiosity and wonder in his heart.
And is it surprising that with the current state of America, and the present siege Trump is waging on California, and the rest of the United States—his attempt to usurp the power of the states to consolidate into his own—that I read my reply to my young friend from China now, and wonder:
Did I write this letter for him back then? Or did I write it for the young people living in America today, for our own selves, if we fall under the total grip of authoritarianism?
Not if I can help it. Not if millions of other Americans can help it, with the support of our neighbors and allies around the world rooting for the American people and for democracy.
I’m going to a No Kings Protest this coming weekend. I have to. To retreat is not okay.
And then I’m going to stand up and speak out whenever and wherever I can. I owe that to my children, my grandchildren, and to every dreamer and true lover of freedom and human dignity, whether they live here or on the other side of the world.
My hope, as always, lies with us, we the people. My hope lies in rising together and for each other.
Is our situation in America the same as the current situation in China? No. Not yet. Not unless Trump and his regime get their way.
This letter, that I wrote many years ago, to a young person living in a one-party dictatorship—it cannot be as if written for our children who in the future, however near or far, have to live under what we let happen.
They look to us. What will our answer be?
To My Young Friend,
(Living under an authoritarian regime)
Your time to speak freely, to fully spread your wings and fly will come. That I truly believe. But for now, you must fly in your heart. And I and others will be here for you to encourage you and be inspired by you as well.
You are especially precious and very important to your people because of your brave spirit, your beautiful passion to learn and to know more than just what others would have you know. But you must be wise and pick your battles carefully.
There were many people who stood up for a dream when you were cradled in your mother’s arms and paid for it with their lives. To honor them…or their dream…to honor the sacrifice of those who gave up their lives for a principle or an ideal, means embracing the ideal first–even and especially if you can’t embrace the people or the cause openly by name.
These students wanted to live in a world where their voices could be heard without punishment, where thoughts could be freely discussed, because they believed in the worth of every individual. Therefore, to honor them you must value yourself.
Whether you know what actually happened or not back then, if you honor your worth as an individual now and hold that vision for all in the future, you honor the students, even more than someone who vocalizes their support but carries cynicism in their heart.
I support your desire to seek information and to know the truth, because that’s important. But what I’m trying to say is the reality of who you are is even more important than the facts of what has been.
It’s when you become so angry that you lose the ability to feel compassion, or so guilt-ridden that you become numb to the sounds of your own heart beating, that those who fell are truly dead. While you live with hope, they live with you.
So live. Where they can no longer reach out, embrace. Where their eyes are closed, see. Where their ears are deaf, listen to the sound of truth all around you and within you. Perceive with all your senses the richness of the beauty and the potential for good in all humankind.
Do not be blind to the ills of our world…but do not be blinded by them, either.
Now, their mouths are motionless with silence. Let yours move to speak words of kindness and love…for these are the greatest truths, greater than the greatest political speeches.
And where they no longer walk, dance.
In this way you honor those who died. Those who honor them as you do in spirit, whether consciously in their name or not, will find you as you will find them.
And the dream will unfold through your lives and those who follow. Nothing will stop it.”
Your friend,
Demian DreamSinger
~Keeping the Dream
Song only: KEEPING THE DREAM ALIVE (written shortly after the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989 for the Students of Tiananmen Square, recorded in 2000)2
Keeping the Dream Alive Lyrics
I heard the anguished cries Saw them fall and die A dream turn nightmare The soul in despair A part of me dies But the dream still survives Keeping the dream alive Safe in me it will survive Someday I'll see the way it can be I'm keeping the dream alive - in me I won't turn my love to hate For the dream dies with that mistake I'll honor the dead And choose life instead My passion will burn Till the Goddess returns Keeping the dream alive Safe in me it will survive Someday I'll see the way it can be I'm keeping the dream alive - in me Keeping the dream alive I'm keeping the dream alive in me Someday I'll see the way it can be I'm keeping the dream alive Someday I'll see the way it can be I'm keeping the dream alive - in me
You might be interested in the story behind how the song Keeping the Dream Alive was created, and what inspired me to finally record it using both Mandarin and English simultaneously in the ending chorus lines.
From my heart to yours,
Demian Elainé Yumei ~ Silent No More
Silent No More is pro-democracy with focus on personal healing, creative expression and activism through the written and spoken word, and song.
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Radio Free Asia’s funding was terminated by the Trump regime on March 15, 2025, another fine agency on the chopping block.
Keeping the Dream Alive credits: Lead vocal, lyrics and melody by Demian Yumei; recorded and engineered by Stacey Young; produced by Stacey Young and Demian Yumei; Cello and keyboards by Stacey; Flute by Chris Davis; Voices of the people: Demian, Stacey, Dionna Yumei Novin, John Terlazzo, Chris Davis.Youngest Voice: Edna Zhou