Tina Chang is an American poet, teacher, and editor. She was born in 1969 and raised in New York City. Her first book of poetry, ''Half-Lit Houses'', was published by Four Way Books in May , and was a finalist for an Asian American Literary Award from the Asian American Writers Workshop. Along with poets Nathalie Handal and , she is the co-editor of ''Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia and Beyond'', W. W. Norton, 2008.
Her work has appeared in numerous journals such as McSweeney's and Ploughshares and her work has been included in the anthologies: ''Poetry 30: Poets in their Thirties'', , ''Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation'', ''Asian American Literature'' , and ''Identity Lessons'' .
Chang received her master of fine art's degree in poetry from Columbia University’s School of the Arts, where she studied with Lucie Brock-Broido, Lucille Clifton, Alfred Corn, Mark Doty and Richard Howard. She currently teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and Hunter College.
She has held residencies at MacDowell Colony, Djerassi Artist's Residency, Vermont Studio Center, Ragdale, the Constance Saltonstall Foundation, Blue Mountain Center among others. She has received grants and awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Barbara Deming Memorial Foundation/Money for Women, and the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, Poets & Writers and The Academy of American Poets.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Stella Dong
Stella Dong is the author of many historical books on China, most notably ''Shanghai 1842-1949: The Rise and Fall of a Decadent City'' , ''Peking'' and ''Sun Yat-sen'' . Born in Seattle, she worked for several magazines before her first book. She is known for her perceptive articles on Chinese-American writers, and has a regular column on American-Asian cultural affairs in Hong Kong's ''South China Morning Post''. She has also written for the ''New York Times'' and ''Washington Post''.
Shirley Geok-lin Lim
Shirley Geok-lin Lim is an award-winning Malaysian-born writer of poetry, fiction, and criticism. Her first collection of , ''Crossing The Peninsula'', published in 1980, won her the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, a first both for an and for a woman. Among several other awards that she has received, her memoir, ''Among the White Moon Faces'', received the 1997 American Book Award.
Born in Melaka, Malaysia into a life of poverty, deprivation, , and abandonment in a culture that, at that time, rarely recognised girls as individuals, Lim had a pretty unhappy childhood. Reading was a huge solace, retreat, and escape for her. Scorned by teachers for her love of over her "native" tongue, she was looked down upon for her pursuit of English literature. Her first was published in the ''Malacca Times'' when she was ten. By the age of eleven, she knew that she wanted to be a poet.
Lim had her early education at Infant Jesus Convent under the then education system. She won a federal scholarship to the University of Malaya, where she earned a B.A. first class honours degree in English at University of Malaya. In 1969, at the age of twenty-four, she entered graduate school at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts under a scholarship, and received a in English and in 1973.
Lim is a professor in the English Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She has also taught internationally at the National University of Singapore, the National Institute Education of Nanyang Technological University, and was the Chair Professor at the University of Hong Kong where she also taught poetry and creative writing. She has authored several books of poems, , and criticism, and serves as and co-editor of numerous scholarly works. Lim is a cross-genre writer, although she identifies herself as a poet. Her research interests include:
* 20th century American literature;
* Asian American cultural studies;
* and Southeast Asian literature;
* and writing and theory; and
* creative writing.
Lim has received numerous literary awards, among which are:
* "Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer Award" in 1996;
* American Book Award which she won twice, once with her co-edited anthology, ''The Forbidden Stitch: An Asian American Women's Anthology'' , and the second time, with her memoir, ''Among the White Moon Faces'' ; and
* Asiaweek Short Story award for "Mr. Tang's Uncles" .
An extract from "The Town Where Time Stands Still" by Shirley Geok-lin Lim has been included in the Journeys Stimulus Booklet as part of the compulsory course, studied by all students in their final year of secondary schooling in New South Wales, Australia.
* Memoir: "Among the White Moon Faces: An Asian American Memoir of Homelands"
* Fiction:
**" and Gold"
**''Sister Swing''
* Critical Books:
** "Nationalism and Literature: English-language Writing from the Philippines and Singapore"
** "Writing /East Asia in English"
* Books of Poetry and Short Stories:
** "Crossing the Peninsula and Other Poems"
** "Another Country"
** "Life's Mysteries"
** "No Man's Grove and Other Poems"
** "Modern Secrets: New and Selected Poems"
** "Monsoon History"
** "Two Dreams: New and Selected Stories"
** "What the Didn't Say"
* Some publications edited or co-edited:
** "The Forbidden Stitch"
** "Approaches to Teaching 's The Woman Warrior"
** "One World of Literature"
** "Transnational : Gender, Culture, and the Public Sphere"
** "Writing Out of Turn"
** "Before Its Time, Of Its Time: The Transnational Female Bildungsroman and Kartini's Letters of A nese Princess"
** "Asian American Literature: Leavening the Mosaic", in "Contemporary U. S. Literature: Multicultural Perspectives"
** "Power, Race, and Gender in : Strangers in the Tower?"
** "Tilting the Continent: Southeast Asian American Writing"
** "English-Language Creative Writing in Hong Kong: Colonial Stereotype and Process," in Pedagogy 1
** "The Center Can Hold: U.S. Women's Studies and Global Feminism"
** "The Futures for Hong Kong English", co-authored with Kingsley Bolton
** "Transnational Americans: Asian Pacific American Literature of Anamnesia"
** "Global Asia as Post-Legitimation: A Response to Ambroise Kom's 'Knowledge and Legitimation'". Mots Pluriels.
** "Old Paradigms, New Differences: Comparative ", in Cultural Encounters
** "Complications of Feminist and Ethnic in Asian American Literature", in "Challenging Boundaries: Gender and Periodization"
** Foreword to "Asian American s: A Bio- Critical Sourcebook"
** "The Companion to the 20th Century American Short Story". David Wong Louie.
Born in Melaka, Malaysia into a life of poverty, deprivation, , and abandonment in a culture that, at that time, rarely recognised girls as individuals, Lim had a pretty unhappy childhood. Reading was a huge solace, retreat, and escape for her. Scorned by teachers for her love of over her "native" tongue, she was looked down upon for her pursuit of English literature. Her first was published in the ''Malacca Times'' when she was ten. By the age of eleven, she knew that she wanted to be a poet.
Lim had her early education at Infant Jesus Convent under the then education system. She won a federal scholarship to the University of Malaya, where she earned a B.A. first class honours degree in English at University of Malaya. In 1969, at the age of twenty-four, she entered graduate school at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts under a scholarship, and received a in English and in 1973.
Lim is a professor in the English Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She has also taught internationally at the National University of Singapore, the National Institute Education of Nanyang Technological University, and was the Chair Professor at the University of Hong Kong where she also taught poetry and creative writing. She has authored several books of poems, , and criticism, and serves as and co-editor of numerous scholarly works. Lim is a cross-genre writer, although she identifies herself as a poet. Her research interests include:
* 20th century American literature;
* Asian American cultural studies;
* and Southeast Asian literature;
* and writing and theory; and
* creative writing.
Lim has received numerous literary awards, among which are:
* "Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer Award" in 1996;
* American Book Award which she won twice, once with her co-edited anthology, ''The Forbidden Stitch: An Asian American Women's Anthology'' , and the second time, with her memoir, ''Among the White Moon Faces'' ; and
* Asiaweek Short Story award for "Mr. Tang's Uncles" .
An extract from "The Town Where Time Stands Still" by Shirley Geok-lin Lim has been included in the Journeys Stimulus Booklet as part of the compulsory course, studied by all students in their final year of secondary schooling in New South Wales, Australia.
Books and articles
* Memoir: "Among the White Moon Faces: An Asian American Memoir of Homelands"
* Fiction:
**" and Gold"
**''Sister Swing''
* Critical Books:
** "Nationalism and Literature: English-language Writing from the Philippines and Singapore"
** "Writing /East Asia in English"
* Books of Poetry and Short Stories:
** "Crossing the Peninsula and Other Poems"
** "Another Country"
** "Life's Mysteries"
** "No Man's Grove and Other Poems"
** "Modern Secrets: New and Selected Poems"
** "Monsoon History"
** "Two Dreams: New and Selected Stories"
** "What the Didn't Say"
* Some publications edited or co-edited:
** "The Forbidden Stitch"
** "Approaches to Teaching 's The Woman Warrior"
** "One World of Literature"
** "Transnational : Gender, Culture, and the Public Sphere"
** "Writing Out of Turn"
** "Before Its Time, Of Its Time: The Transnational Female Bildungsroman and Kartini's Letters of A nese Princess"
** "Asian American Literature: Leavening the Mosaic", in "Contemporary U. S. Literature: Multicultural Perspectives"
** "Power, Race, and Gender in : Strangers in the Tower?"
** "Tilting the Continent: Southeast Asian American Writing"
** "English-Language Creative Writing in Hong Kong: Colonial Stereotype and Process," in Pedagogy 1
** "The Center Can Hold: U.S. Women's Studies and Global Feminism"
** "The Futures for Hong Kong English", co-authored with Kingsley Bolton
** "Transnational Americans: Asian Pacific American Literature of Anamnesia"
** "Global Asia as Post-Legitimation: A Response to Ambroise Kom's 'Knowledge and Legitimation'". Mots Pluriels.
** "Old Paradigms, New Differences: Comparative ", in Cultural Encounters
** "Complications of Feminist and Ethnic in Asian American Literature", in "Challenging Boundaries: Gender and Periodization"
** Foreword to "Asian American s: A Bio- Critical Sourcebook"
** "The Companion to the 20th Century American Short Story". David Wong Louie.
Sheryl WuDunn
Sheryl WuDunn is a Chinese American private wealth advisor with Goldman Sachs and was previously a journalist and for ''The New York Times''. She was previously the industry and international business editor at the Times. She formerly was journalist/anchor of ''The New York Times Page One'', a production of New York Times Television Enterprises. She also has worked in ''The New York Times'' Beijing and Tokyo bureaus, as well as for the ''Miami Herald'', Reuters, and ''The Wall Street Journal''. She is perhaps best known for winning the Pulitzer Prize with her husband for her reporting from Beijing about the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. WuDunn and Kristof were the first married couple ever to receive the award for journalism.
Sheryl WuDunn was anchor and principal writer for “Page One” on The Discovery Times Channel, a joint venture between Discovery Communications, Inc. and The New York Times Company. “Page One” is the network’s nightly three-minute program that gives viewers an exclusive first look at the stories headed for the next day’s front page of The New York Times.
Previously Sheryl WuDunn was a project director in Strategic Planning at The Times since September 2001. Before that she ran the effort to build the next generation of readers for the New York Times NexGen program.
She was a staff foreign correspondent for The New York Times in the Tokyo bureau where she wrote about economic, financial, political and social issues from 1995 to 1999. Ms. WuDunn joined The New York Times as a correspondent in the Beijing bureau in March 1989.
A third generation Chinese American, Sheryl WuDunn grew up in New York City in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. She attended Cornell University, graduating with a B.A. in European History in 1981. For three years, WuDunn worked for Bankers Trust Company as an international loan officer. After this, she earned her M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and M.P.A. from Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
WuDunn married fellow reporter Nicholas D. Kristof in 1988. After working with several prestigious publications, WuDunn joined the staff of ''The New York Times'' as a correspondent in the Beijing bureau in 1989. Following their work in Beijing, Kristof and WuDunn moved to Tokyo and continued to report for ''The New York Times.'' She currently serves on the Cornell University Board of Trustees.
She was recently hired by Goldman Sachs to tout securities for them to wealthy clients.
WuDunn has co-authored with her husband, '''' and '''', two non-fiction Asian studies books which examine the cultural, social, and political situation of East Asia largely through interviews and personal experiences.
In May 2007, it was announced that WuDunn would leave the ''Times'' to co-write another book with Kristof: "Her first project will be to co-write another book — with guess who? — about women in the developing world. Sheryl and Nick already have co-authored two books about Asia, and of course she has won several major journalism awards.
The new book is tentatively titled either ''It Takes a Woman,'' or ''Lost Daughters,'' and Sheryl says, “I’m looking forward to reporting for the book, maybe even wading through a rice paddy here or there. Those on-the-ground experiences will be particularly special because they will be my last such ones. After that, I will be leaving journalism.”
Sheryl WuDunn was anchor and principal writer for “Page One” on The Discovery Times Channel, a joint venture between Discovery Communications, Inc. and The New York Times Company. “Page One” is the network’s nightly three-minute program that gives viewers an exclusive first look at the stories headed for the next day’s front page of The New York Times.
Previously Sheryl WuDunn was a project director in Strategic Planning at The Times since September 2001. Before that she ran the effort to build the next generation of readers for the New York Times NexGen program.
She was a staff foreign correspondent for The New York Times in the Tokyo bureau where she wrote about economic, financial, political and social issues from 1995 to 1999. Ms. WuDunn joined The New York Times as a correspondent in the Beijing bureau in March 1989.
Biography
A third generation Chinese American, Sheryl WuDunn grew up in New York City in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. She attended Cornell University, graduating with a B.A. in European History in 1981. For three years, WuDunn worked for Bankers Trust Company as an international loan officer. After this, she earned her M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and M.P.A. from Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
WuDunn married fellow reporter Nicholas D. Kristof in 1988. After working with several prestigious publications, WuDunn joined the staff of ''The New York Times'' as a correspondent in the Beijing bureau in 1989. Following their work in Beijing, Kristof and WuDunn moved to Tokyo and continued to report for ''The New York Times.'' She currently serves on the Cornell University Board of Trustees.
She was recently hired by Goldman Sachs to tout securities for them to wealthy clients.
Books
WuDunn has co-authored with her husband, '''' and '''', two non-fiction Asian studies books which examine the cultural, social, and political situation of East Asia largely through interviews and personal experiences.
In May 2007, it was announced that WuDunn would leave the ''Times'' to co-write another book with Kristof: "Her first project will be to co-write another book — with guess who? — about women in the developing world. Sheryl and Nick already have co-authored two books about Asia, and of course she has won several major journalism awards.
The new book is tentatively titled either ''It Takes a Woman,'' or ''Lost Daughters,'' and Sheryl says, “I’m looking forward to reporting for the book, maybe even wading through a rice paddy here or there. Those on-the-ground experiences will be particularly special because they will be my last such ones. After that, I will be leaving journalism.”
Shawn Wong
Shawn Hsu Wong is an author and English Professor and former Director of the Honors Program at the University of Washington. He is Chinese American and a pioneer of Asian American studies. Wong received his undergraduate degree in English at the University of California at Berkeley and a Master's degree in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University .
Wong's first novel, "Homebase," published by Reed and Cannon , won the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award and the 15th Annual Governor's Writers Day Award of Washington. He second novel, "American Knees," first published by Simon & Schuster in 1996, was adapted into an independent feature film entitled ''Americanese'' , written and directed by Eric Byler and produced by Lisa Onodera. The book was also re-issued by University of Washington Press in 2005.
Wong is also co-editor of six multicultural literary anthologies including the pioneering anthology, ''Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian American Writers'' , ''Literary Mosaic: Asian American and Asian Diasporas, Cultures, Identities, Representations,'' and ''The Big Aiiieeeee!.'' He is co-editor of ''Before Columbus Foundation Fiction/Poetry Anthology: Selections from the American Book Awards, 1980-1990'' – two volumes of contemporary American multicultural poetry and fiction.
Wong has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship and a Rockefeller Foundation residency in Italy. He was featured in the 1997 PBS documentary, ''Shattering the Silences'' and in the Bill Moyers' PBS documentary, ''Becoming American: The Chinese Experience'', in 2003. He is also featured in the 2005 documentary, ''What's Wrong With Frank Chin?''.
Wong also serves as consulting and contributing editor for ''Transtexts-Transcultures: A Journal of Global Cultural Studies'', http://www.transtexts.net
*''American Knees'' — A novel, Simon & Schuster, 1995; Scribner paperback, 1996; re-issued by University of Washington Press, 2005
*'''' — A novel, Reed & Cannon, 1979; re-issued by Plume/NAL, 1990
*''The Literary Mosaic: An Anthology of Asian American Literature'' — Harper Collins, 1995
*''The Before Columbus Foundation Fiction Anthology: Selections from the American Book Awards 1980-1990'' — with Ishmael Reed and Kathryn Trueblood, W.W. Norton Co., 1992
*''The Big Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Chinese American and Japanese American Literature'' — with Jeffery Paul Chan, Frank Chin, and Lawson Fusao Inada, Meridian/NAL, 1991
*''Wooden Fish Songs'', 1983
*''Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian American Writers'' — Howard University Press, 1974; most recent re-issue by Meridian, 1997
Writings
Wong's first novel, "Homebase," published by Reed and Cannon , won the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award and the 15th Annual Governor's Writers Day Award of Washington. He second novel, "American Knees," first published by Simon & Schuster in 1996, was adapted into an independent feature film entitled ''Americanese'' , written and directed by Eric Byler and produced by Lisa Onodera. The book was also re-issued by University of Washington Press in 2005.
Wong is also co-editor of six multicultural literary anthologies including the pioneering anthology, ''Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian American Writers'' , ''Literary Mosaic: Asian American and Asian Diasporas, Cultures, Identities, Representations,'' and ''The Big Aiiieeeee!.'' He is co-editor of ''Before Columbus Foundation Fiction/Poetry Anthology: Selections from the American Book Awards, 1980-1990'' – two volumes of contemporary American multicultural poetry and fiction.
Wong has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship and a Rockefeller Foundation residency in Italy. He was featured in the 1997 PBS documentary, ''Shattering the Silences'' and in the Bill Moyers' PBS documentary, ''Becoming American: The Chinese Experience'', in 2003. He is also featured in the 2005 documentary, ''What's Wrong With Frank Chin?''.
Wong also serves as consulting and contributing editor for ''Transtexts-Transcultures: A Journal of Global Cultural Studies'', http://www.transtexts.net
Bibliography
Author
*''American Knees'' — A novel, Simon & Schuster, 1995; Scribner paperback, 1996; re-issued by University of Washington Press, 2005
*'''' — A novel, Reed & Cannon, 1979; re-issued by Plume/NAL, 1990
Editor
*''The Literary Mosaic: An Anthology of Asian American Literature'' — Harper Collins, 1995
*''The Before Columbus Foundation Fiction Anthology: Selections from the American Book Awards 1980-1990'' — with Ishmael Reed and Kathryn Trueblood, W.W. Norton Co., 1992
*''The Big Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Chinese American and Japanese American Literature'' — with Jeffery Paul Chan, Frank Chin, and Lawson Fusao Inada, Meridian/NAL, 1991
*''Wooden Fish Songs'', 1983
*''Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian American Writers'' — Howard University Press, 1974; most recent re-issue by Meridian, 1997
Sam Chu Lin
Sam Chu Lin was an journalist. Born in Greenville, Mississippi, Lin died, at the age of 67, in Burbank, California on March 5, 2006. In the 1960s, he was one of the first Asian Americans to appear on both radio and television, eventually working for all four major broadcast networks. Lin's career in broadcasting began in his hometown and later led him to , New York City, , and finally . It was with CBS News in New York that he first reached a national audience.
During his lifetime, Lin won several awards for his reporting and community service, and produced stories on the history of Asians in the U.S. for and NBC. Lin's last broadcast news position before he died was as a freelancer for KTTV , a position he held since 1995. He was also a frequent contributor to such Asian American publications as ''AsianWeek'' and ''Rafu Shimpo'', as well as the ''San Francisco Examiner''. His last published article is a feature story on efforts to preserve Phoenix's Sun Mercantile Building, dated March 3, 2006. Lin is survived by his wife, Judy, and two sons, Mark and Christopher.
During his lifetime, Lin won several awards for his reporting and community service, and produced stories on the history of Asians in the U.S. for and NBC. Lin's last broadcast news position before he died was as a freelancer for KTTV , a position he held since 1995. He was also a frequent contributor to such Asian American publications as ''AsianWeek'' and ''Rafu Shimpo'', as well as the ''San Francisco Examiner''. His last published article is a feature story on efforts to preserve Phoenix's Sun Mercantile Building, dated March 3, 2006. Lin is survived by his wife, Judy, and two sons, Mark and Christopher.
Raymond K. Wong
Raymond Kin Wong is an American actor and writer.
He is the author of the award-winning novel, ''The Pacific Between''. He was also named as one of ''Pittsburgh Magazine'''s 25 Most Beautiful People in 2007.
Raymond K. Wong began his career as an Information Technology Consultant. He later became a Screen Actors Guild actor and has worked with Peter Falk, Julianne Moore, Sarah Jessica Parker, Rob Marshall and Peter Yates in features and TV shows such as '''' and ''Sex and the City''.
As a writer, he is the author of the novel, ''The Pacific Between'', which won a 2006 IPPY Book Award . Other publications include the ''Pittsburgh Post-Gazette'', the ''Writers Post Journal'', the ''Deepening'', ''Stories of Strength'', and his movie column has appeared in ''Actors Ink'', Talk Entertainment, Cleveland.com, Boston.com, and Cincinnati.com.
Ray, a Chinese American, was born as Raymond Kin Wong. He grew up and lived in Hong Kong until the age of 18 and graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with honor. Later, he studied Creative Writing at UCLA. He became interested in acting and writing in college.
In 1997, Ray became a US citizen.
* ''The Pacific Between'' - Novel
* ''Better Safe Than Sorry'' - Short Story
* ''The Watch'' - Essay
* ''The Coins'' - Short Story
* ''Stories of Strength'' - Essay
* ''Ray's Rave Reviews'' - Movie Reviews
* ''I, the Author'' - Writer's Blog
* IPPY Independent Publishers Book Award - 2006
* '''' - Henry
* ''The Pirates of Penzance'' - Featured pirate
* ''Triumph of Love'' - Dimas
* ''The King and I'' - Lun Tha
* '''' - Deng
* ''Sex and the City'' - Featured
* ''What She Doesn't Know'' - Featured
He is the author of the award-winning novel, ''The Pacific Between''. He was also named as one of ''Pittsburgh Magazine'''s 25 Most Beautiful People in 2007.
Career
Raymond K. Wong began his career as an Information Technology Consultant. He later became a Screen Actors Guild actor and has worked with Peter Falk, Julianne Moore, Sarah Jessica Parker, Rob Marshall and Peter Yates in features and TV shows such as '''' and ''Sex and the City''.
As a writer, he is the author of the novel, ''The Pacific Between'', which won a 2006 IPPY Book Award . Other publications include the ''Pittsburgh Post-Gazette'', the ''Writers Post Journal'', the ''Deepening'', ''Stories of Strength'', and his movie column has appeared in ''Actors Ink'', Talk Entertainment, Cleveland.com, Boston.com, and Cincinnati.com.
Personal life
Ray, a Chinese American, was born as Raymond Kin Wong. He grew up and lived in Hong Kong until the age of 18 and graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with honor. Later, he studied Creative Writing at UCLA. He became interested in acting and writing in college.
In 1997, Ray became a US citizen.
Publications
* ''The Pacific Between'' - Novel
* ''Better Safe Than Sorry'' - Short Story
* ''The Watch'' - Essay
* ''The Coins'' - Short Story
* ''Stories of Strength'' - Essay
* ''Ray's Rave Reviews'' - Movie Reviews
* ''I, the Author'' - Writer's Blog
Awards
* IPPY Independent Publishers Book Award - 2006
Stage
* '''' - Henry
* ''The Pirates of Penzance'' - Featured pirate
* ''Triumph of Love'' - Dimas
* ''The King and I'' - Lun Tha
Filmography
* '''' - Deng
* ''Sex and the City'' - Featured
* ''What She Doesn't Know'' - Featured
Phoebe Eng
Phoebe Eng is an award winning Asian American national lecturer on race and gender issues who has been featured in several publications, including ''The New York Times'', ''The Wall Street Journal'', and ''Newsweek''. She is the author of ''Warrior Lessons: An Asian American Woman's Journey into Power'', a memoir discussing how to empower Asian American women, and is working on a second book.
Eng was a corporate attorney with the firm Coudert Brothers, before becoming publisher of the now defunct ''A Magazine'', which covered Asian American issues. Currently, she is serving a four year term on the board of directors of the Ms. Foundation for Women, a national women's philanthropic organization.
She also helped launch the Asian Women Leadership Network, now the largest corporate network of Asian American women in the country, and was a Founding Sister of both the Asian Women's Center and the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum, based in Washington, D.C.
In 2005, Eng co-founded and was the Creative Director of the national policy and communications group, the Opportunity Agenda with fellow co-founders Alan Jenkins, Brian Smedley, and Bill Lann Lee. In 2007 her creative team spun off to form Creative Counsel, which connects the media and arts worlds to social justice causes.
She holds a B.A. from UC Berkeley and a J.D. from New York University School of Law.
Eng's writing has focused on the theme of women's empowerment, particularly Asian American women's empowerment. She contributed the foreword to ''Yell-oh Girls!'' , edited by Vickie Nam, and has contributed chapters to several books, including: ''The Greatness of Girls'' , ''That Takes Ovaries! Bold Females and Their Brazen Acts'' , and ''Closing the Leadership Gap'' .
Eng was a corporate attorney with the firm Coudert Brothers, before becoming publisher of the now defunct ''A Magazine'', which covered Asian American issues. Currently, she is serving a four year term on the board of directors of the Ms. Foundation for Women, a national women's philanthropic organization.
She also helped launch the Asian Women Leadership Network, now the largest corporate network of Asian American women in the country, and was a Founding Sister of both the Asian Women's Center and the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum, based in Washington, D.C.
In 2005, Eng co-founded and was the Creative Director of the national policy and communications group, the Opportunity Agenda with fellow co-founders Alan Jenkins, Brian Smedley, and Bill Lann Lee. In 2007 her creative team spun off to form Creative Counsel, which connects the media and arts worlds to social justice causes.
She holds a B.A. from UC Berkeley and a J.D. from New York University School of Law.
Eng's writing has focused on the theme of women's empowerment, particularly Asian American women's empowerment. She contributed the foreword to ''Yell-oh Girls!'' , edited by Vickie Nam, and has contributed chapters to several books, including: ''The Greatness of Girls'' , ''That Takes Ovaries! Bold Females and Their Brazen Acts'' , and ''Closing the Leadership Gap'' .
Pam Chun
Pam Chun is a writer and marketing consultant, most notable as the author of the book ''The Money Dragon''.
Chun was born and raised in Hawaii and enrolled Punahou School. She won full scholarships to the University of Hawaii, and to the University of California Berkeley, where she majored in English. She graduated college in 1970.
After college, Chun was hired a job in sales and marketing at PacBell and was a private consultant in the high tech and biotech industries. She then began fundraising, after responding to a vice chancellor's appeal to assist with fundraising in the Chinese community. During one fundraising trip to Hawaii, mentioned that her great-grandfather, L. Ah Leong, had founded the Honolulu Chinatown and owned the largest retail business in Hawaii. The result was her book, ''The Money Dragon'', which quickly became a bestseller in Hawaii and was for months.
Education
Chun was born and raised in Hawaii and enrolled Punahou School. She won full scholarships to the University of Hawaii, and to the University of California Berkeley, where she majored in English. She graduated college in 1970.
Career
After college, Chun was hired a job in sales and marketing at PacBell and was a private consultant in the high tech and biotech industries. She then began fundraising, after responding to a vice chancellor's appeal to assist with fundraising in the Chinese community. During one fundraising trip to Hawaii, mentioned that her great-grandfather, L. Ah Leong, had founded the Honolulu Chinatown and owned the largest retail business in Hawaii. The result was her book, ''The Money Dragon'', which quickly became a bestseller in Hawaii and was for months.
Pai Hsien-yung
Kenneth Hsien-yung Pai is a writer who has been described as a "melancholy pioneer." He was born in Guilin, Guangxi, China at the cusp of both the Second Sino-Japanese War and subsequent Chinese Civil War. Pai's father was the famous Kuomintang general Bai Chongxi , whom he later described as a "stern, Confucian father" with "some soft spots in his heart." Pai was diagnosed with tuberculosis at the age of seven, during which time he would have to live in a separate house from his siblings . He lived with his family in Chongqing, Shanghai, and Nanjing before moving to the -controlled Hong Kong in 1948 as forces turned the tide of the Chinese Civil War. In 1952, Pai and his family resettled in Taiwan, where the KMT had relocated the Republic of China after Japan's defeat in 1945.
After graduating from high school in 1956, Pai enrolled at National Cheng Kung University as a hydraulic engineering major, because he wanted to participate in the Three Gorges Dam Project. The following year, he passed the entrance examination for the foreign literature department of National Taiwan University and transferred there to study English literature. In September 1958, after completing his freshman year of study, he published his first short story "Madame Ching" in the magazine ''Literature''. Two years later, he collaborated with several NTU classmates — e.g., Chen Ruoxi, Wang Wenxing, Ouyang Tzu — to launch ''Modern Literature'' , in which many of his early works were published.
Pai went abroad in 1963 to study literary theory and creative writing at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. That same year, Pai's mother, the parent with whom Pai had the closest relationship, died, and it was this death to which Pai attributes the melancholy that pervades his work. After earning his M.A. from Iowa, he became a professor of Chinese literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and has resided in Santa Barbara ever since. Pai retired from UCSB in 1994.
Among other , Pai is appreciated for sophisticated narratives that introduce controversial and groundbreaking perspectives to Chinese literature. Pai's most famous work of fiction, ''Taipei People'' , is a seminal work of Chinese modernism that mixes both literary Chinese and experimental modernist techniques. In terms of his choice of themes, Pai's work is also far ahead of its time. His novel, ''Crystal Boys'' , tells the story of a group of homosexual youths living in 1960s Taipei largely from the viewpoint of a young, gay runaway who serves as its main protagonist. The novel's comparison of the dark corners of Taipei's New Park, the characters' main cruising area, with the cloistered society of Taiwan of that period proved quite unacceptable to Taipei's then KMT-dominated establishment, though Pai has generally remained a loyal KMT supporter.
Bai's writings while in the US in the early 1960's have greatly contributed to an understanding of the Chinese experience in postwar America. "Death in Chicago" is a semi-autobiographical account of a young Chinese man who, on the eve of his graduation from the English Literature department of the University of Chicago, discovers that his mother has passed away back home. "Pleasantville" explores the depressed state of a Chinese mother in the upper-class New York suburbs who feels alienated by the "Americanization" of her Chinese husband and daughter. Both "Death in Chicago" and "Pleasantville" subtly criticize America as a superficial and materialistic culture that can cause immigrant Chinese to feel lonely and isolated.
In recent years, Bai has gained some acclaim in Mainland Chinese literary circles. He has held various lectures at Beijing Normal University, among others. In the ''Beijing University Selection of Modern Chinese Literature: 1949-1999'' published in 2002, three of Bai's works are included under the time period 1958-1978. These stories reflect the decadence of Shanghai high society in the Republican era. This subject matter constitutes only a small segment of Bai's diverse work, yet it fits particularly well with orthodox renditions of pre-1949 history taught on the Mainland.
In April 2000, a series of five books representing Bai Xianyong's lifework was published by Huacheng Publishing House in Guangzhou. This series is widely available in Mainland bookstores. It includes short stories, essays, diary entries, and the novel ''Niezi''. A lengthy preface in Volume 1 was penned by Ou Yangzi, a fellow member of the group that founded the journal ''Xiandai Wenxue'' in Taiwan in the 1950's.
Although he was born Muslim and attended missionary Catholic schools, Pai came to embrace Buddhism in America.
Pai is one of the few Chinese homosexuals that have come out. Pai has explained that he believed his father knew of his homosexuality and "never made it an issue," though it was never discussed.
After graduating from high school in 1956, Pai enrolled at National Cheng Kung University as a hydraulic engineering major, because he wanted to participate in the Three Gorges Dam Project. The following year, he passed the entrance examination for the foreign literature department of National Taiwan University and transferred there to study English literature. In September 1958, after completing his freshman year of study, he published his first short story "Madame Ching" in the magazine ''Literature''. Two years later, he collaborated with several NTU classmates — e.g., Chen Ruoxi, Wang Wenxing, Ouyang Tzu — to launch ''Modern Literature'' , in which many of his early works were published.
Pai went abroad in 1963 to study literary theory and creative writing at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. That same year, Pai's mother, the parent with whom Pai had the closest relationship, died, and it was this death to which Pai attributes the melancholy that pervades his work. After earning his M.A. from Iowa, he became a professor of Chinese literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and has resided in Santa Barbara ever since. Pai retired from UCSB in 1994.
Influence
Among other , Pai is appreciated for sophisticated narratives that introduce controversial and groundbreaking perspectives to Chinese literature. Pai's most famous work of fiction, ''Taipei People'' , is a seminal work of Chinese modernism that mixes both literary Chinese and experimental modernist techniques. In terms of his choice of themes, Pai's work is also far ahead of its time. His novel, ''Crystal Boys'' , tells the story of a group of homosexual youths living in 1960s Taipei largely from the viewpoint of a young, gay runaway who serves as its main protagonist. The novel's comparison of the dark corners of Taipei's New Park, the characters' main cruising area, with the cloistered society of Taiwan of that period proved quite unacceptable to Taipei's then KMT-dominated establishment, though Pai has generally remained a loyal KMT supporter.
Bai's writings while in the US in the early 1960's have greatly contributed to an understanding of the Chinese experience in postwar America. "Death in Chicago" is a semi-autobiographical account of a young Chinese man who, on the eve of his graduation from the English Literature department of the University of Chicago, discovers that his mother has passed away back home. "Pleasantville" explores the depressed state of a Chinese mother in the upper-class New York suburbs who feels alienated by the "Americanization" of her Chinese husband and daughter. Both "Death in Chicago" and "Pleasantville" subtly criticize America as a superficial and materialistic culture that can cause immigrant Chinese to feel lonely and isolated.
In recent years, Bai has gained some acclaim in Mainland Chinese literary circles. He has held various lectures at Beijing Normal University, among others. In the ''Beijing University Selection of Modern Chinese Literature: 1949-1999'' published in 2002, three of Bai's works are included under the time period 1958-1978. These stories reflect the decadence of Shanghai high society in the Republican era. This subject matter constitutes only a small segment of Bai's diverse work, yet it fits particularly well with orthodox renditions of pre-1949 history taught on the Mainland.
In April 2000, a series of five books representing Bai Xianyong's lifework was published by Huacheng Publishing House in Guangzhou. This series is widely available in Mainland bookstores. It includes short stories, essays, diary entries, and the novel ''Niezi''. A lengthy preface in Volume 1 was penned by Ou Yangzi, a fellow member of the group that founded the journal ''Xiandai Wenxue'' in Taiwan in the 1950's.
Although he was born Muslim and attended missionary Catholic schools, Pai came to embrace Buddhism in America.
Sexuality
Pai is one of the few Chinese homosexuals that have come out. Pai has explained that he believed his father knew of his homosexuality and "never made it an issue," though it was never discussed.
Norman Wong
Norman Wong is a gay American writer.
Born and raised in Honolulu he is a graduate of the University of Chicago. His stories have appeared in ''Men's Style'', ''Kenyon Review'', the ''Asian Pacific American Journal'', and the ''Threepenny Review''. He taught fiction writing at the Writer's Voice and now lives in New York City.
*Cultural Revolution ISBN 978-0-345-39648-8
*Men on Men 4, anthology
*Men on Men 6, anthology
Born and raised in Honolulu he is a graduate of the University of Chicago. His stories have appeared in ''Men's Style'', ''Kenyon Review'', the ''Asian Pacific American Journal'', and the ''Threepenny Review''. He taught fiction writing at the Writer's Voice and now lives in New York City.
Works
*Cultural Revolution ISBN 978-0-345-39648-8
*Men on Men 4, anthology
*Men on Men 6, anthology
Nien Cheng
Nien Cheng , born in Beijing on January 28, 1915, is a Chinese American author who recounted her harrowing experiences of the Cultural Revolution in her memoir ''Life and Death in Shanghai''. Ms. Cheng became a target of attack by due to her management of a foreign firm in Shanghai, Shell. Maoist revolutionaries used this fact to claim that Ms. Cheng was a British spy in order to strike at moderates for allowing the firm to operate in China after 1949.
Cheng endured six-and-a-half years of squalid and inhumane conditions in prison, all the while refusing to give any false confession. Her daughter Meiping Cheng, a prominent Shanghai film actress, was murdered by Maoists after the young woman refused to denounce her mother. Ms. Cheng was rehabilitated after the were arrested, and she used the opportunity to leave for the United States, as she was still a constant target of surveillance by those who wished her ill.
Cheng used Mao's teachings successfully against her interrogators, frequently turning the tide of the against the interrogators.
Cheng endured six-and-a-half years of squalid and inhumane conditions in prison, all the while refusing to give any false confession. Her daughter Meiping Cheng, a prominent Shanghai film actress, was murdered by Maoists after the young woman refused to denounce her mother. Ms. Cheng was rehabilitated after the were arrested, and she used the opportunity to leave for the United States, as she was still a constant target of surveillance by those who wished her ill.
Cheng used Mao's teachings successfully against her interrogators, frequently turning the tide of the against the interrogators.
Nancy Yi Fan
Nancy Yi Fan is a Chinese American author. She currently resides with her parents in Gainesville, Florida.
Nancy Yi Fan was born in 1993 and was raised in Beijing, China. At the age of 7, she moved with her parents to the United States. She is best known for writing her novel ''Swordbird'' at age 12. She enjoys doing martial arts and taking care of her three birds. She currently lives in Florida with her family.
Fan began her book when she was ten and had lived in the United States for only three short years. When she finished the manuscripts at age 12, she was able to find a publisher willing to print her adventurous novel with a 50,000-copy first printing. Birds, a lifelong passion of the author's, provided the inspiration for ''Swordbird''. After awaking from a vivid dream about birds at war while simultaneously wrestling with her feelings about terrorism and September 11, Nancy wrote ''Swordbird'' as a way to convey her message of peace to the world.
''Swordbird'' is a tale of how the once-peaceful blue jays and cardinals of Stone-Run Forest have been turned against each other.
Fan later wrote a prequel to ''Swordbird'', tentatively called ''Sword Quest''. It is set 100 years before the time of ''Swordbird'' and tells how Wind-Voice became Swordbird, a giant dove-like bird of peace with magical powers.
HarperCollins has signed Fan to write ''Sword Quest''. This book was released in hardcover on January 22, 2008.
"There will be more books than even these, though. I am sure that there will be more books as time goes on and more ideas pop into my head," says Fan. "I believe that the forest world has a river of stories that flow without ending."
During her book tour, she also announced that a next book would be called ''Sword Mountain''.
Biography
Nancy Yi Fan was born in 1993 and was raised in Beijing, China. At the age of 7, she moved with her parents to the United States. She is best known for writing her novel ''Swordbird'' at age 12. She enjoys doing martial arts and taking care of her three birds. She currently lives in Florida with her family.
''Swordbird''
Fan began her book when she was ten and had lived in the United States for only three short years. When she finished the manuscripts at age 12, she was able to find a publisher willing to print her adventurous novel with a 50,000-copy first printing. Birds, a lifelong passion of the author's, provided the inspiration for ''Swordbird''. After awaking from a vivid dream about birds at war while simultaneously wrestling with her feelings about terrorism and September 11, Nancy wrote ''Swordbird'' as a way to convey her message of peace to the world.
''Swordbird'' is a tale of how the once-peaceful blue jays and cardinals of Stone-Run Forest have been turned against each other.
''Sword Quest''
Fan later wrote a prequel to ''Swordbird'', tentatively called ''Sword Quest''. It is set 100 years before the time of ''Swordbird'' and tells how Wind-Voice became Swordbird, a giant dove-like bird of peace with magical powers.
HarperCollins has signed Fan to write ''Sword Quest''. This book was released in hardcover on January 22, 2008.
"There will be more books than even these, though. I am sure that there will be more books as time goes on and more ideas pop into my head," says Fan. "I believe that the forest world has a river of stories that flow without ending."
During her book tour, she also announced that a next book would be called ''Sword Mountain''.
Minfong Ho
Minfong Ho is an award-winning Chinese American writer. Her works frequently deal with the lives of people living in poverty in Southeast Asian countries. Despite being fictions, her stories are always set against the backdrop of real events, such as the student movement in Thailand in the 1970s and the Cambodian refugee problem with the collapse of Khmer Rouge regime at the turn of 1970s and 1980s. Her simple yet touching language and her optimistic themes have made her writing popular among children as well as young adults.
Ho was born in Rangoon, Burma, better known now as Yangon, Myanmar, to an father and mother, who were both of descent. Ho was raised in Thailand, near Bangkok, where she attended the and the International School Bangkok. She was enrolled in Tunghai University in Taiwan and subsequently transferred to Cornell University in the United States, where she attained her Bachelor's degree in economics.
Ho is the daughter of the famed philanthropist Ho Rih Hwa. Her brother Kwon Ping is the Executive Chairman of the Banyan Tree Group.
It was in Cornell when she first began to write to combat homesickness. She submitted a short story, titled ''Sing to the Dawn'', to the Council for Interracial Books for Children for its annual short story contest. She won the award for the Asian American Division of unpublished Third World Authors, and was encouraged to enlarge the story into a novel.
This she did, and through the process Ho began to see writing as "a political expression," as she once wrote in Interracial Books for Children Bulletin. She resented the stories about Thailand, Burma, and China she previously read, for she thought that their mostly idyllic portrayal of lives there misrepresented the Asia that she came to know during her childhood. In ''Sing to the Dawn'', Ho brought her readers into a realistic rural Thailand through the eyes of a young village girl Dawan, whose struggle to convince those around her to allow her to take up a scholarship to study in the city reflected the sexual discrimination faced by girls in Thailand, especially in the countryside.
After graduating in 1973, Ho returned to Asia and began working as a journalist for The Straits Times in Singapore. She left two years later for Chiang Mai University in Thailand, where she worked as a lecturer in . The subsequent two years she was going to spend in Chiang Mai had a deep impact on her. Together with her students and colleagues, Ho spent several periods living and working in nearby villages, as part of the ongoing student movement to alleviate rural poverty. While the student leaders were preoccupied with organizing the peasants into a political group in their search for democracy, Ho became more aware of the emotional world of the women and children there. She later commented that there was "so much beauty and so much pain in the world" around her that she wanted to write about.
However, on October 6, 1976, Ho observed firsthand the massacre of student protesters by paramilitary force under the army and the subsequent restoration of military rule in the kingdom, which had generally been labeled in the West as a coup. But she did not stay long under such circumstance. After marrying John Value Dennis, Jr., an international agriculture policy person whom she met during her Cornell years, Ho left for her alma mater again, where she completed a in creative writing while working as an English literature teaching assistant. She had also spent some time in relief work along the Thai-Cambodian border in 1980.
In 1986, Ho gave birth to her first child, a son. And finally, a decade after returning from Thailand, she began writing fiction again. The result was ''Rice without Rain'', a story centering around Jinda, a seventeen year-old girl from the fictitious Maekung Village which was caught up in the political winds sweeping across the country when a group of university students from Bangkok arrived to encourage the landless farmers to take up a rent resistance movement. Set against the very same historical background as Ho had experienced herself, Jinda's realization that the peasant class was but pawns in the ongoing political tug-of-war and her journey to find her own path in life told the untold stories during those years of turmoil that shrouded Thailand.
Five years later Ho published her third book, ''The Clay Marble''. This time she drew her inspiration from the interaction with Cambodian refugees during her relief work on the Thai-Cambodian border. Once again, she presented a strong female protagonist, a twelve year-old girl named Dara who was one of the thousands of refugees escaping to the border at the end of the Khmer Rouge regime when Vietnam invaded the country. She also employed the theme of family unity in the face of adversity, as Dara persuaded her elder brother not to join the army but to return with family, which had already lost the father, to restart life back at home.
In 1983, Ho returned to Singapore, where she worked as the writer-in-residence at the National University of Singapore for the next seven years. As a result, she is widely referred to there as a "local writer". Her works had been selected as teaching material for English literature in lower secondary schools. Since 1990, Ho has been living with her family in Ithaca, New York. She has also traveled and made presentations at various writing workshops in middle schools and high schools in the United States and international schools in Switzerland, Indonesia, Thailand, Poland, and Malaysia.
After the birth of her third and last child Ho shifted her focus to writing books for children. Collaborating with Saphan Ros, executive director of the Cambodian Association of Greater Philadelphia, she published two books on traditional Cambodian folktales, ''The Two Brothers'' and ''Brother Rabbit: A Cambodian Tale''. In the meantime, she even translated sixteen into English and compiled them into a picture book titled ''Maples in the Mist: Children's Poems from the Tang Dynasty''. In 2004, she returned to writing for more mature readers with ''Gathering the Dew'', a story of how a young Cambodian girl who lost her sister during the Khmer Rouge regime learnt to reconcile with life's harsh realities and live on.
Minfong Ho, in her four novels, presented to her readers realistic depictions of her native Southeast Asia. Despite being fictions, her stories were all set against the backdrop of real historical events that she herself had experienced or at least observed firsthand. Her optimistic central theme remains similar throughout all four books. So do the central figures, who are all young girls facing harsh realities of life unimaginable by their more fortunate contemporaries in developed countries. With her sensitivity for the emotional world of her characters, Ho showed her readers the humane side behind atrocities of the October 6 massacre of student protesters in Bangkok and the Khmer Rouge regime. Against poverty, sexual discrimination, oppression, war, loss of loved ones, she maintained that human spirit should prevail.
Ho's ability to interpret the to the came chiefly from her own upbringing. Having been born in the then Burma to parents, she was brought up both in Singapore and Thailand, allowing her to acquire three languages. According to her, , her first language, is the language of her "heart", the language of her "hands", and that of her "head". This multifaceted linguistic ability, coupled with her childhood experiences, has perhaps given her a unique insight into the world she writes about, which is not easily attainable by foreign writers.
Although she does not avoid relatively mature subjects such as poverty and war, Ho's writings have been hailed as excellent reading materials for children and young adults. She had received many awards, including Commonwealth Book Awards from the Commonwealth Book Council and Best Books for Young Adults from the American Library Association for ''Rice without Rain'', Pick of the Lists from the American Booksellers Association for ''The Clay Marble'', and Best Books selection from the New York Public Library for ''Maples in the Mist: Children's Poems from the Tang Dynasty'', among others.
* ''Sing to the Dawn
* ''The Clay Marble''
* ''Tanjong Rhu and Other Stories''
* ''Rice without Rain''
* ''The Two Brothers'', with Saphan Ros
* ''Hush!: A Thai Lullaby''
* ''Maples in the Mist: Children's Poems from the Tang Dynasty''
* ''Brother Rabbit: A Cambodian Tale'', with Saphan Ros
* ''Gathering the Dew''
* ''Peek!: A Thai Hide-and-Seek''
Selected works of Minfong Ho have been translated into , , , , and . Among these, ''Sing to the Dawn'' had also been adapted into a in 1996 for the Singapore Arts Festival.
Life
Ho was born in Rangoon, Burma, better known now as Yangon, Myanmar, to an father and mother, who were both of descent. Ho was raised in Thailand, near Bangkok, where she attended the and the International School Bangkok. She was enrolled in Tunghai University in Taiwan and subsequently transferred to Cornell University in the United States, where she attained her Bachelor's degree in economics.
Ho is the daughter of the famed philanthropist Ho Rih Hwa. Her brother Kwon Ping is the Executive Chairman of the Banyan Tree Group.
It was in Cornell when she first began to write to combat homesickness. She submitted a short story, titled ''Sing to the Dawn'', to the Council for Interracial Books for Children for its annual short story contest. She won the award for the Asian American Division of unpublished Third World Authors, and was encouraged to enlarge the story into a novel.
This she did, and through the process Ho began to see writing as "a political expression," as she once wrote in Interracial Books for Children Bulletin. She resented the stories about Thailand, Burma, and China she previously read, for she thought that their mostly idyllic portrayal of lives there misrepresented the Asia that she came to know during her childhood. In ''Sing to the Dawn'', Ho brought her readers into a realistic rural Thailand through the eyes of a young village girl Dawan, whose struggle to convince those around her to allow her to take up a scholarship to study in the city reflected the sexual discrimination faced by girls in Thailand, especially in the countryside.
After graduating in 1973, Ho returned to Asia and began working as a journalist for The Straits Times in Singapore. She left two years later for Chiang Mai University in Thailand, where she worked as a lecturer in . The subsequent two years she was going to spend in Chiang Mai had a deep impact on her. Together with her students and colleagues, Ho spent several periods living and working in nearby villages, as part of the ongoing student movement to alleviate rural poverty. While the student leaders were preoccupied with organizing the peasants into a political group in their search for democracy, Ho became more aware of the emotional world of the women and children there. She later commented that there was "so much beauty and so much pain in the world" around her that she wanted to write about.
However, on October 6, 1976, Ho observed firsthand the massacre of student protesters by paramilitary force under the army and the subsequent restoration of military rule in the kingdom, which had generally been labeled in the West as a coup. But she did not stay long under such circumstance. After marrying John Value Dennis, Jr., an international agriculture policy person whom she met during her Cornell years, Ho left for her alma mater again, where she completed a in creative writing while working as an English literature teaching assistant. She had also spent some time in relief work along the Thai-Cambodian border in 1980.
In 1986, Ho gave birth to her first child, a son. And finally, a decade after returning from Thailand, she began writing fiction again. The result was ''Rice without Rain'', a story centering around Jinda, a seventeen year-old girl from the fictitious Maekung Village which was caught up in the political winds sweeping across the country when a group of university students from Bangkok arrived to encourage the landless farmers to take up a rent resistance movement. Set against the very same historical background as Ho had experienced herself, Jinda's realization that the peasant class was but pawns in the ongoing political tug-of-war and her journey to find her own path in life told the untold stories during those years of turmoil that shrouded Thailand.
Five years later Ho published her third book, ''The Clay Marble''. This time she drew her inspiration from the interaction with Cambodian refugees during her relief work on the Thai-Cambodian border. Once again, she presented a strong female protagonist, a twelve year-old girl named Dara who was one of the thousands of refugees escaping to the border at the end of the Khmer Rouge regime when Vietnam invaded the country. She also employed the theme of family unity in the face of adversity, as Dara persuaded her elder brother not to join the army but to return with family, which had already lost the father, to restart life back at home.
In 1983, Ho returned to Singapore, where she worked as the writer-in-residence at the National University of Singapore for the next seven years. As a result, she is widely referred to there as a "local writer". Her works had been selected as teaching material for English literature in lower secondary schools. Since 1990, Ho has been living with her family in Ithaca, New York. She has also traveled and made presentations at various writing workshops in middle schools and high schools in the United States and international schools in Switzerland, Indonesia, Thailand, Poland, and Malaysia.
After the birth of her third and last child Ho shifted her focus to writing books for children. Collaborating with Saphan Ros, executive director of the Cambodian Association of Greater Philadelphia, she published two books on traditional Cambodian folktales, ''The Two Brothers'' and ''Brother Rabbit: A Cambodian Tale''. In the meantime, she even translated sixteen into English and compiled them into a picture book titled ''Maples in the Mist: Children's Poems from the Tang Dynasty''. In 2004, she returned to writing for more mature readers with ''Gathering the Dew'', a story of how a young Cambodian girl who lost her sister during the Khmer Rouge regime learnt to reconcile with life's harsh realities and live on.
Literary criticism
Minfong Ho, in her four novels, presented to her readers realistic depictions of her native Southeast Asia. Despite being fictions, her stories were all set against the backdrop of real historical events that she herself had experienced or at least observed firsthand. Her optimistic central theme remains similar throughout all four books. So do the central figures, who are all young girls facing harsh realities of life unimaginable by their more fortunate contemporaries in developed countries. With her sensitivity for the emotional world of her characters, Ho showed her readers the humane side behind atrocities of the October 6 massacre of student protesters in Bangkok and the Khmer Rouge regime. Against poverty, sexual discrimination, oppression, war, loss of loved ones, she maintained that human spirit should prevail.
Ho's ability to interpret the to the came chiefly from her own upbringing. Having been born in the then Burma to parents, she was brought up both in Singapore and Thailand, allowing her to acquire three languages. According to her, , her first language, is the language of her "heart", the language of her "hands", and that of her "head". This multifaceted linguistic ability, coupled with her childhood experiences, has perhaps given her a unique insight into the world she writes about, which is not easily attainable by foreign writers.
Although she does not avoid relatively mature subjects such as poverty and war, Ho's writings have been hailed as excellent reading materials for children and young adults. She had received many awards, including Commonwealth Book Awards from the Commonwealth Book Council and Best Books for Young Adults from the American Library Association for ''Rice without Rain'', Pick of the Lists from the American Booksellers Association for ''The Clay Marble'', and Best Books selection from the New York Public Library for ''Maples in the Mist: Children's Poems from the Tang Dynasty'', among others.
Bibliography
* ''Sing to the Dawn
* ''The Clay Marble''
* ''Tanjong Rhu and Other Stories''
* ''Rice without Rain''
* ''The Two Brothers'', with Saphan Ros
* ''Hush!: A Thai Lullaby''
* ''Maples in the Mist: Children's Poems from the Tang Dynasty''
* ''Brother Rabbit: A Cambodian Tale'', with Saphan Ros
* ''Gathering the Dew''
* ''Peek!: A Thai Hide-and-Seek''
Selected works of Minfong Ho have been translated into , , , , and . Among these, ''Sing to the Dawn'' had also been adapted into a in 1996 for the Singapore Arts Festival.
Mei Chin
Mei Chin is a fiction writer and food critic living in New York City.
Her short stories have appeared in and Bomb Magazine and are characterized by a combination of the fantastic and the mundane.
She won the James Beard Foundation's M.F.K. Fisher Distinguished Writing Award in 2005 for "Eat Drink Mother Daughter," a long article published in Saveur . She also writes about food for . Her essays have been anthologized in Best Food Writing 2005 and 2006.
From 1998-1999 she was an editor at Vogue Magazine and has written reviews and essays for Vogue, Mirabella, the New York Times Book Review, and other publications. She is also the author of a number of books of literary criticism for Chelsea House Publishers.
She is a native of Connecticut and graduate of Hopkins School and Wesleyan University. Her mother is Professor Annping Chin and her stepfather Professor Jonathan Spence, both at Yale.
Her short stories have appeared in and Bomb Magazine and are characterized by a combination of the fantastic and the mundane.
She won the James Beard Foundation's M.F.K. Fisher Distinguished Writing Award in 2005 for "Eat Drink Mother Daughter," a long article published in Saveur . She also writes about food for . Her essays have been anthologized in Best Food Writing 2005 and 2006.
From 1998-1999 she was an editor at Vogue Magazine and has written reviews and essays for Vogue, Mirabella, the New York Times Book Review, and other publications. She is also the author of a number of books of literary criticism for Chelsea House Publishers.
She is a native of Connecticut and graduate of Hopkins School and Wesleyan University. Her mother is Professor Annping Chin and her stepfather Professor Jonathan Spence, both at Yale.
Maxine Hong Kingston
Maxine Hong Kingston is an Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley where she graduated with a in English in 1962. She is both a prolific academic and autobiographical writer.
She was born as Maxine Ting Ting Hong to a laundry house owner in Stockton, California. She was the third of eight children, and the first among them born in the United States. Her mother trained as a midwife at the To Keung School of Midwifery in . Her father had been brought up a scholar and taught in his village of Sun Woi, near Canton. Tom left China for America in 1924 and took a job in a laundry.
Her works often reflect on her cultural heritage and blend fiction with non-fiction. Among her works are ''The Woman Warrior'' , awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, and ''China Men'' , which was awarded the 1981 National Book Award. She has written one novel, ''Tripmaster Monkey'', a story depicting a character based on the mythical Chinese character Sun Wu Kong. Her most recent books are ''To Be The Poet'' and ''The Fifth Book of Peace''.
She was awarded the 1997 National Humanities Medal by President of the United States Bill Clinton. Kingston was a member of the committee to choose the design for the California commemorative quarter. She was arrested in March 2003 in Washington, D.C., for crossing a police line during a . In April, 2007, Hong Kingston was awarded the Northern California Book Award Special Award in Publishing for her most recent anthology, ''Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace'' , edited by Maxine Hong Kingston.
She married actor Earl Kingston in 1962 ; they have had one child, Joseph Lawrence Chung Mei, born in 1964. They now live in .
Kingston was honored as a 175th Speaker Series writer at Emma Willard School in September 2005.
* ''Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace'', edited by Maxine Hong Kingston, Koa Books, 2006.
* '''', Knopf distributed by Random House, 1976.
* ''China Men'', Knopf, 1980.
* ''Through the Black Curtain'', University of California Press, Berkeley, 1987.
* ''Hawai'i One Summer'' , Meadow Press, San Francisco, 1987.
* '''' , Knopf, 1989
* ''To Be the Poet'' , Harvard University Press, 2002.
* ''The Fifth Book of Peace'' , Brent, 2006
Life and career
She was born as Maxine Ting Ting Hong to a laundry house owner in Stockton, California. She was the third of eight children, and the first among them born in the United States. Her mother trained as a midwife at the To Keung School of Midwifery in . Her father had been brought up a scholar and taught in his village of Sun Woi, near Canton. Tom left China for America in 1924 and took a job in a laundry.
Her works often reflect on her cultural heritage and blend fiction with non-fiction. Among her works are ''The Woman Warrior'' , awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, and ''China Men'' , which was awarded the 1981 National Book Award. She has written one novel, ''Tripmaster Monkey'', a story depicting a character based on the mythical Chinese character Sun Wu Kong. Her most recent books are ''To Be The Poet'' and ''The Fifth Book of Peace''.
She was awarded the 1997 National Humanities Medal by President of the United States Bill Clinton. Kingston was a member of the committee to choose the design for the California commemorative quarter. She was arrested in March 2003 in Washington, D.C., for crossing a police line during a . In April, 2007, Hong Kingston was awarded the Northern California Book Award Special Award in Publishing for her most recent anthology, ''Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace'' , edited by Maxine Hong Kingston.
She married actor Earl Kingston in 1962 ; they have had one child, Joseph Lawrence Chung Mei, born in 1964. They now live in .
Kingston was honored as a 175th Speaker Series writer at Emma Willard School in September 2005.
Selected works
* ''Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace'', edited by Maxine Hong Kingston, Koa Books, 2006.
* '''', Knopf distributed by Random House, 1976.
* ''China Men'', Knopf, 1980.
* ''Through the Black Curtain'', University of California Press, Berkeley, 1987.
* ''Hawai'i One Summer'' , Meadow Press, San Francisco, 1987.
* '''' , Knopf, 1989
* ''To Be the Poet'' , Harvard University Press, 2002.
* ''The Fifth Book of Peace'' , Brent, 2006
Mai Ngai
Mae M. Ngai is a professor of history at Columbia University, who focuses on nationalism, citizenship, ethnicity, and in 20th-century United States history.
Ngai writes that "as the daughter of Chinese immigrants, grew up in a home where being in Chinese and being American existed in tension, but not in contradiction", and spent "not a few years in New York's Chinatown community and labor movement as an activist and professional labor educator" before becoming an academic.
Ngai obtained her bachelor's degree from Empire State College, and obtained her PhD from Columbia University in 1998.
After graduation, Ngai obtained postdoctoral fellowships from the Social Science Research Council, the New York University School of Law, and, in 2003, the Radcliffe Institute.
Ngai's first book, ''Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America'', was published by Princeton University Press in 2004. The book won several prizes, including the American Historical Association's 2004 Littleton-Griswold Prize, the Immigration and Ethnic History Society's 2004 Theodore Saloutos Book Award, and the Organization of American Historians' 2005 Frederick Jackson Turner Award. The book discusses the creation of the legal category of an "illegal alien" in the early 20th century, and its social and historical consequences and context.
Besides publishing in various academic journals, Ngai has written on immigration and related policy for the ''Washington Post'', the ''New York Times'', the ''Los Angeles Times'', ''The Nation'', and the ''Boston Review''.
Life, education and career
Ngai writes that "as the daughter of Chinese immigrants, grew up in a home where being in Chinese and being American existed in tension, but not in contradiction", and spent "not a few years in New York's Chinatown community and labor movement as an activist and professional labor educator" before becoming an academic.
Ngai obtained her bachelor's degree from Empire State College, and obtained her PhD from Columbia University in 1998.
After graduation, Ngai obtained postdoctoral fellowships from the Social Science Research Council, the New York University School of Law, and, in 2003, the Radcliffe Institute.
Published work
Ngai's first book, ''Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America'', was published by Princeton University Press in 2004. The book won several prizes, including the American Historical Association's 2004 Littleton-Griswold Prize, the Immigration and Ethnic History Society's 2004 Theodore Saloutos Book Award, and the Organization of American Historians' 2005 Frederick Jackson Turner Award. The book discusses the creation of the legal category of an "illegal alien" in the early 20th century, and its social and historical consequences and context.
Besides publishing in various academic journals, Ngai has written on immigration and related policy for the ''Washington Post'', the ''New York Times'', the ''Los Angeles Times'', ''The Nation'', and the ''Boston Review''.
Loung Ung
Loung Ung is a Cambodian American human-rights , an internationally-recognized lecturer, and the national spokesperson for the Campaign for a Landmine-Free World. Between 1997 and 2003 she served in the same capacity for the "International Campaign to Ban Landmines", which is affiliated with the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation.
Ung was born in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, the sixth of seven children and the third of four girls, to Sem Im Ung and Ay Chourng Ung. Her actual birthdate is unknown; the Khmer Rouge destroyed many of the birth records of the inhabitants of cities in Cambodia. At ten years of age, she escaped from Cambodia as a survivor of what became known as "the Killing Fields" during the reign of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime. After emigrating to the United States and adjusting to her new country, she wrote two books which related her life experiences from 1975 through 2003.
Today Ung is married and lives in Shaker Heights, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio.
Ung's first memoir, '''', details her experiences in Cambodia from 1975 until 1980:
"From 1975 to 1979—through execution, starvation, disease, and forced labor—the Khmer Rouge systematically killed an estimated two million Cambodians, almost a fourth of the country's population. This is a story of survival: my own and my family's. Though these events constitute my own experience, my story mirrors that of millions of Cambodians. If you had been living in Cambodia during this period, this would be your story too."
Published in the United States in 2000 by HarperCollins, it became a national bestseller, and in 2001 it won the award for "Excellence in Adult Non-fiction Literature" from the Asian/Pacific American Librarians' Association. ''First They Killed My Father'' has subsequently been published in twelve countries in nine languages.
Her second memoir, '''', chronicles her adjustment to life in the U.S. with and without her family, and the experiences of her surviving family members in Cambodia during the ensuing warfare between Vietnamese troops and the Khmer Rouge. It covers the period of 1980 until 2003, and HarperCollins published it in 2005.
In both of her memoirs, Ung wrote in the first person and, for the most part, in the present tense, describing the events and circumstances as if they were unfolding before the reader's eyes: "I wanted to be there".
Ung's father was born in the small village of Tro Nuon in province in 1931 . Her mother was born in China and moved with her family to Cambodia when she was a little girl. They married against her family's wishes, and eventually came to live with their children in a third-floor apartment in the center of the bustling capital city of Phnom Penh. Due to his record of service in the previous government of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, Ung's father was conscripted into the government of Lon Nol, and became a high-ranking military police officer. The family was wealthy enough to own two cars and a truck, and in their house they had running water, a flush toilet, and an iron bathtub. They also had telephones as well as the daily services of a maid, and often enjoyed films at the nearby theater and swimming in the pool at a local club. By her own account, Loung lived a happy and carefree life in a close-knit loving family, until April 17 1975, when the Khmer Rouge gained control of Cambodia and evacuated Phnom Penh.
Ung was playing near her home when trucks filled with Khmer Rouge troops rolled into her neighborhood. The populace of Phnom Penh, estimated at nearly two million people, was forced to evacuate. The Ungs abruptly left their home with what few belongings they could stow in their truck. When it ran out of fuel, they gathered the bare essentials that they could carry and began what became a seven-day trek toward Bat Deng in a throng of evacuees, harried by the bullhorns of the soldiers. Along the way, they stopped at night to sleep in the fields and to search for food. Sem Ung, posing as the father of a peasant family, was fortunate to get by a military checkpoint in Kom Baul without being detained; many evacuees who were perceived to be a threat to the new government, because of their previous education or political position, were summarily executed there.
On the seventh day, as the Ungs neared Bat Deng, Loung's uncle found them and arranged to bring them by wagon to his village of Krang Truop.
Ung and her family stayed only a few months; her father was afraid that newly-arrived evacuees from Phnom Penh would reveal his identity, and he made arrangements for the family to be transported to Battambang, the village of Loung's grandmother. But this plan was thwarted by the Khmer Rouge; instead they were taken along with about 300 other evacuees to the village of Anglungthmor, where they stayed for five months. During that time, more than half of these new arrivals at Anglungthmor died of starvation, food poisoning, or disease; malnourishment was severe.
Again fearing that discovery of his ties to the Lon Nol government was imminent, Sem pleaded to have his family relocated. The Khmer Rouge ordered them taken to Ro Leap, where about sixty other families arrived on the same day.
Ro Leap was Ung's home for the next eighteen months. Cut off from all outside communication and constantly in fear of soldiers who patrolled the village, the Ungs were forced by the Khmer Rouge to work long hours with very little food. Near-starvation and physical exhaustion became a way of life. A few months after their arrival, Loung's oldest brothers, eighteen-year-old Meng and sixteen-year-old Khouy, and her oldest sister, fourteen-year-old Keav, were sent away to work in different camps. Six months later, in August 1976, Keav died of food poisoning at the teenager's work camp at Kong Cha Lat. In December, two soldiers came to the Ungs' hut and demanded the help of Loung's father to free a stuck wagon; he was never seen or heard from again.
Loung and her brother, eleven-year-old Kim, and her two sisters, nine-year-old Chou and four-year-old Geak, remained in Ro Leap with their mother until May 1977. During this time, they avoided starvation with the help of Meng and Khouy, who brought them what little food they could from their work camp, and by Kim, who risked his life late at night by stealing corn from the crops guarded by the soldiers. In May, agitated by screams in the night and the sudden disappearance of a neighboring family, Ay Ung sent Kim, Chou, and Loung away from Ro Leap with instructions to pretend they were orphans and never to come back. Kim separated from his sisters, while Loung and Chou found a nearby children's work camp where their guise as orphans was accepted. In time, Loung and Chou gained strength with improved food rationing, and in August 1977, Loung, now seven years old, was assigned to a training camp for , and was forced to leave her sister Chou behind.
For the following seventeen months, Ung learned how to fight the Vietnamese soldiers. In November 1978, she left her camp under cover of night without permission, and returned to Ro Leap to see her mother and sister. Upon arriving, she found the hut empty, although her mother's belongings were still there. The woman in the neighboring hut told her that Ay and Geak had been taken away by the soldiers. They also were never seen again.
In January 1979, the Vietnamese army gained control of Phnom Penh and continued their invasion westward. explosions in her camp forced Ung and her fellow villagers to flee for their lives. In the ensuing chaos, her brother Kim and sister Chou found her on the road, and they set out for Pursat City, stopping only to rest and find food. Several days later, they entered Pursat City, a refugee camp in the control of friendly Vietnamese troops, and eventually they were given shelter by families willing to take them in. The camp was sporadically attacked by Khmer Rouge soldiers, and Ung, nearly nine years old, saw more of the horrors of warfare.
In March 1979, Meng and Khouy, both of whom had also escaped their camps when the Vietnamese invaded, arrived at Pursat City. In April, the reunited Ungs set out on an eighteen-day trek to Bat Deng, where they stayed with their uncle Leang and his family. During this time Meng married Eang, a twenty-year-old Chinese girl who was separated from her family, in a ceremony arranged by Loung's uncle and aunt. In time, they learned that Eang's mother and father were safe in Vietnam, and Meng and Eang went to see them. With their aid, Meng and Eang devised a plan to get to Thailand via Vietnam, and then, they hoped, to the United States. Meng returned alone to Bat Deng. With limited resources, he could afford to take only one family member with him back to Vietnam; he chose Loung.
In October, Loung and Meng were smuggled into Vietnam via a fishing boat, and stayed with Eang and her family. In December, Loung, Meng, and Eang moved to a houseboat in Long Deang in preparation for their prearranged escape to Thailand. In February 1980, after a perilous three-day voyage across the Gulf of Thailand in the hands of paid professionals, they arrived at the Lam Sing refugee camp on the coast of Thailand. Among the thousands of refugees who were waiting for sponsorship to go to another country, the Ungs waited four months in Lam Sing before they found out that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Holy Family Church in Essex Junction, Vermont, would be their sponsors. In the middle of June 1980, Loung, Meng, and Eang boarded a plane at and headed for their new home.
Their sponsors brought the Ungs by car from Burlington International Airport to , and ushered them into a small one-bedroom apartment above a dentist's office at 48 Main Street. The dining room doubled as Loung's bedroom. Church members continued to help the Ungs adjust and provided tutoring in the English language. In a few months, Meng, whose grasp of English was good, obtained employment as an for newly arrived refugees in Vermont, and Eang found work at a local manufacturing company. In September, Loung, age ten, began her formal education in the United States in the third grade. The early years of her education were difficult for Loung because of the language barrier, and she continued to be tutored during those years. In the late stage of Eang's pregnancy, Meng abandoned his studies at a nearby college and began working at two jobs; on December 21, Meng and Eang's daughter Maria was born.
In 1983, Loung entered the ADL Intermediate School, and continued with English language learning and teaching sessions. Meng and Eang both found employment with IBM on the evening shift, and Loung, now thirteen years old, cared for Maria after school until they returned home late at night. Meng sent money and packages, via the Asian community in Montreal, Canada, to his family in Cambodia as often as he could throughout the 1980s; some packages either did not arrive, or arrived with contents missing. In 1985, Eang gave birth to her second daughter, Victoria, and Loung entered Essex Junction High School as a freshman. A few months later, Meng and Eang were sworn in as of the United States. In early 1986, the Ungs moved, with the help of their sponsors, into their own modest two-story home in a nearby neighborhood, and Loung, now nearly sixteen years old, delighted in having her own personal room.
Later that year Loung's teacher praised her for a sophomore English class paper she had written about growing up in Cambodia, and he encouraged her to write the whole story. During her six years in the U.S., Loung had often dealt with bouts of sadness and loneliness. After attempting suicide, she took pencil and paper and began to write the story of her life in Cambodia, her family, and the Khmer Rouge .
Over many months, her journal came to number hundreds of pages, and Loung continued to maintain a journal for many years. In retrospect, Loung has stated that untangling her feelings and putting them into words throughout those years was very therapeutic for her.
In 1989, Loung graduated from high school, and in the fall, she entered Saint Michael's College with the financial assistance of a full four-year scholarship provided by the Turrell Scholarship Fund. During her college years, she made a conscious decision to become an activist, and met her future husband. In early 1992, Loung studied at Cannes International College as part of Saint Michael's curriculum. During that time, she was reunited with her youngest brother Kim, who had fled Cambodia to Thailand and was brought to France via Germany with the help of his Aunt Heng in 1985. In 1993, Loung graduated from Saint Michael’s College with an undergraduate degree, and found work as a community educator at a for abused women in Lewiston, Maine.
In 1995, Ung traveled back to Cambodia for the first time since she had fled fifteen years earlier. During this visit, she and Meng and his family reconnected with the family they had left behind, and learned of the murders of many of their relatives during the Khmer Rouge reign. Some time after returning to the U.S., Ung left Maine and moved to Washington, D.C., and in late 1996, joined the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation , an international humanitarian organization that provides physical rehabilitation clinics, prostheses, and mobility devices free of charge in many countries and in several provinces in Cambodia. In 2005, Loung made her twenty-fifth trip to Cambodia as the VVAF's spokesperson for the "International Campaign to Ban Landmines". The VVAF has, since 1991, fitted more than 15,000 victims with the means to walk and enjoy a better quality of life. Bobby Muller, chairman of the foundation, has remarked that "...what comes out is just staggering. It rocks people. She's the best thing this organization has ever had to advance our agenda". The campaign won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997.
Loung, Meng and Kim returned to Bat Deng in 1998 for a large family reunion with Khouy, Chou, and all their relatives young and old, including their 88-year-old grandmother. The Ungs arranged a ceremony to honor their parents, Sem and Ay, and their sisters, Keav and Geak, who had all died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge regime; the service was attended by many hundreds of relatives and friends. Two years later, her first memoir was published. In 2002, Loung married her college sweetheart, Mark Priemer, and bought two and a half acres of land in Cambodia just a short distance from her sister Chou's home. During commencement ceremonies at Saint Michael's College in May 2002, Loung was inducted into the inaugural class of the college's Alumnae Academic Hall of Fame: "Saint Michael's is proud beyond measure to honor its 1993 graduate, Luong Ung". In 2003, she was chosen by Saint Michael's to address the graduating class. Her second memoir was published in 2005.
The following is an excerpt from the article "Cambodian refugee had new difficulties after move to U.S.", published by the Nashua Telegraph on Sunday, April 17 2005.
"Ung recently moved to suburban Cleveland where her husband grew up. He knows, though, that someday he'll probably be living in Cambodia where Ung owns 2? acres and plans to build a home. For now, she keeps plenty of reminders of the country in her fourth-floor home office — a statue of Buddha, a photograph of a palm tree and rice field that she feels captures the country's beauty. Her office overlooks a wood deck that has been painted rusty red to remind her of the soil of her native home. She's working on her first novel, set in 1148 in Cambodia. She's shy about revealing the plot. Again, she's sure it will only sell 10 copies."
Ung's first book has been criticized by members of the Cambodian community in the United States, a number of whom believe that it is more a work of fiction than an actual autobiography. She has also been accused of misrepresenting the Khmer race and playing on ethnic stereotypes for the purpose of self-aggrandizement and over-dramatization to increase sales and publicity.
Among the complaints that some Cambodians have about her works is that she was only five years old when the Khmer Rouge began its reign, and that she could not possibly have so vivid and detailed a memory of the events as they have been documented in her book. Her detractors also claim that, as a child of a Chinese mother and a Khmer father highly placed in the Phnom Penh government, she paints a very unfavorable picture of Khmer villagers.
There is a picture in "First They Killed My Father" that was supposedly taken "on a family trip to Angkor Wat" in 1973 or 1974. A civil war had been in progress in Cambodia since 1970 and the Khmer Rouge was in control of Siem Reap from 1973 onward. Critics state that it is not likely that Ung's family would be vacationing at that time in that region of Cambodia, that the picture was taken at Wat Phnom , which is in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, and that Ung's memory is therefore unreliable.
In late 2000, Ung responded to the earliest of these criticisms.
*
*
*
*
*
Ung was born in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, the sixth of seven children and the third of four girls, to Sem Im Ung and Ay Chourng Ung. Her actual birthdate is unknown; the Khmer Rouge destroyed many of the birth records of the inhabitants of cities in Cambodia. At ten years of age, she escaped from Cambodia as a survivor of what became known as "the Killing Fields" during the reign of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime. After emigrating to the United States and adjusting to her new country, she wrote two books which related her life experiences from 1975 through 2003.
Today Ung is married and lives in Shaker Heights, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio.
Biography
Memoirs
Ung's first memoir, '''', details her experiences in Cambodia from 1975 until 1980:
"From 1975 to 1979—through execution, starvation, disease, and forced labor—the Khmer Rouge systematically killed an estimated two million Cambodians, almost a fourth of the country's population. This is a story of survival: my own and my family's. Though these events constitute my own experience, my story mirrors that of millions of Cambodians. If you had been living in Cambodia during this period, this would be your story too."
Published in the United States in 2000 by HarperCollins, it became a national bestseller, and in 2001 it won the award for "Excellence in Adult Non-fiction Literature" from the Asian/Pacific American Librarians' Association. ''First They Killed My Father'' has subsequently been published in twelve countries in nine languages.
Her second memoir, '''', chronicles her adjustment to life in the U.S. with and without her family, and the experiences of her surviving family members in Cambodia during the ensuing warfare between Vietnamese troops and the Khmer Rouge. It covers the period of 1980 until 2003, and HarperCollins published it in 2005.
In both of her memoirs, Ung wrote in the first person and, for the most part, in the present tense, describing the events and circumstances as if they were unfolding before the reader's eyes: "I wanted to be there".
Early years: 1970–1975
Ung's father was born in the small village of Tro Nuon in province in 1931 . Her mother was born in China and moved with her family to Cambodia when she was a little girl. They married against her family's wishes, and eventually came to live with their children in a third-floor apartment in the center of the bustling capital city of Phnom Penh. Due to his record of service in the previous government of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, Ung's father was conscripted into the government of Lon Nol, and became a high-ranking military police officer. The family was wealthy enough to own two cars and a truck, and in their house they had running water, a flush toilet, and an iron bathtub. They also had telephones as well as the daily services of a maid, and often enjoyed films at the nearby theater and swimming in the pool at a local club. By her own account, Loung lived a happy and carefree life in a close-knit loving family, until April 17 1975, when the Khmer Rouge gained control of Cambodia and evacuated Phnom Penh.
Evacuation: 1975
Ung was playing near her home when trucks filled with Khmer Rouge troops rolled into her neighborhood. The populace of Phnom Penh, estimated at nearly two million people, was forced to evacuate. The Ungs abruptly left their home with what few belongings they could stow in their truck. When it ran out of fuel, they gathered the bare essentials that they could carry and began what became a seven-day trek toward Bat Deng in a throng of evacuees, harried by the bullhorns of the soldiers. Along the way, they stopped at night to sleep in the fields and to search for food. Sem Ung, posing as the father of a peasant family, was fortunate to get by a military checkpoint in Kom Baul without being detained; many evacuees who were perceived to be a threat to the new government, because of their previous education or political position, were summarily executed there.
On the seventh day, as the Ungs neared Bat Deng, Loung's uncle found them and arranged to bring them by wagon to his village of Krang Truop.
Ung and her family stayed only a few months; her father was afraid that newly-arrived evacuees from Phnom Penh would reveal his identity, and he made arrangements for the family to be transported to Battambang, the village of Loung's grandmother. But this plan was thwarted by the Khmer Rouge; instead they were taken along with about 300 other evacuees to the village of Anglungthmor, where they stayed for five months. During that time, more than half of these new arrivals at Anglungthmor died of starvation, food poisoning, or disease; malnourishment was severe.
Again fearing that discovery of his ties to the Lon Nol government was imminent, Sem pleaded to have his family relocated. The Khmer Rouge ordered them taken to Ro Leap, where about sixty other families arrived on the same day.
Separation, starvation, and death: 1976–1978
Ro Leap was Ung's home for the next eighteen months. Cut off from all outside communication and constantly in fear of soldiers who patrolled the village, the Ungs were forced by the Khmer Rouge to work long hours with very little food. Near-starvation and physical exhaustion became a way of life. A few months after their arrival, Loung's oldest brothers, eighteen-year-old Meng and sixteen-year-old Khouy, and her oldest sister, fourteen-year-old Keav, were sent away to work in different camps. Six months later, in August 1976, Keav died of food poisoning at the teenager's work camp at Kong Cha Lat. In December, two soldiers came to the Ungs' hut and demanded the help of Loung's father to free a stuck wagon; he was never seen or heard from again.
Loung and her brother, eleven-year-old Kim, and her two sisters, nine-year-old Chou and four-year-old Geak, remained in Ro Leap with their mother until May 1977. During this time, they avoided starvation with the help of Meng and Khouy, who brought them what little food they could from their work camp, and by Kim, who risked his life late at night by stealing corn from the crops guarded by the soldiers. In May, agitated by screams in the night and the sudden disappearance of a neighboring family, Ay Ung sent Kim, Chou, and Loung away from Ro Leap with instructions to pretend they were orphans and never to come back. Kim separated from his sisters, while Loung and Chou found a nearby children's work camp where their guise as orphans was accepted. In time, Loung and Chou gained strength with improved food rationing, and in August 1977, Loung, now seven years old, was assigned to a training camp for , and was forced to leave her sister Chou behind.
For the following seventeen months, Ung learned how to fight the Vietnamese soldiers. In November 1978, she left her camp under cover of night without permission, and returned to Ro Leap to see her mother and sister. Upon arriving, she found the hut empty, although her mother's belongings were still there. The woman in the neighboring hut told her that Ay and Geak had been taken away by the soldiers. They also were never seen again.
In January 1979, the Vietnamese army gained control of Phnom Penh and continued their invasion westward. explosions in her camp forced Ung and her fellow villagers to flee for their lives. In the ensuing chaos, her brother Kim and sister Chou found her on the road, and they set out for Pursat City, stopping only to rest and find food. Several days later, they entered Pursat City, a refugee camp in the control of friendly Vietnamese troops, and eventually they were given shelter by families willing to take them in. The camp was sporadically attacked by Khmer Rouge soldiers, and Ung, nearly nine years old, saw more of the horrors of warfare.
Escape from Cambodia: 1979–1980
In March 1979, Meng and Khouy, both of whom had also escaped their camps when the Vietnamese invaded, arrived at Pursat City. In April, the reunited Ungs set out on an eighteen-day trek to Bat Deng, where they stayed with their uncle Leang and his family. During this time Meng married Eang, a twenty-year-old Chinese girl who was separated from her family, in a ceremony arranged by Loung's uncle and aunt. In time, they learned that Eang's mother and father were safe in Vietnam, and Meng and Eang went to see them. With their aid, Meng and Eang devised a plan to get to Thailand via Vietnam, and then, they hoped, to the United States. Meng returned alone to Bat Deng. With limited resources, he could afford to take only one family member with him back to Vietnam; he chose Loung.
In October, Loung and Meng were smuggled into Vietnam via a fishing boat, and stayed with Eang and her family. In December, Loung, Meng, and Eang moved to a houseboat in Long Deang in preparation for their prearranged escape to Thailand. In February 1980, after a perilous three-day voyage across the Gulf of Thailand in the hands of paid professionals, they arrived at the Lam Sing refugee camp on the coast of Thailand. Among the thousands of refugees who were waiting for sponsorship to go to another country, the Ungs waited four months in Lam Sing before they found out that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Holy Family Church in Essex Junction, Vermont, would be their sponsors. In the middle of June 1980, Loung, Meng, and Eang boarded a plane at and headed for their new home.
Life in America: 1980–2006
Education in the United States
Their sponsors brought the Ungs by car from Burlington International Airport to , and ushered them into a small one-bedroom apartment above a dentist's office at 48 Main Street. The dining room doubled as Loung's bedroom. Church members continued to help the Ungs adjust and provided tutoring in the English language. In a few months, Meng, whose grasp of English was good, obtained employment as an for newly arrived refugees in Vermont, and Eang found work at a local manufacturing company. In September, Loung, age ten, began her formal education in the United States in the third grade. The early years of her education were difficult for Loung because of the language barrier, and she continued to be tutored during those years. In the late stage of Eang's pregnancy, Meng abandoned his studies at a nearby college and began working at two jobs; on December 21, Meng and Eang's daughter Maria was born.
In 1983, Loung entered the ADL Intermediate School, and continued with English language learning and teaching sessions. Meng and Eang both found employment with IBM on the evening shift, and Loung, now thirteen years old, cared for Maria after school until they returned home late at night. Meng sent money and packages, via the Asian community in Montreal, Canada, to his family in Cambodia as often as he could throughout the 1980s; some packages either did not arrive, or arrived with contents missing. In 1985, Eang gave birth to her second daughter, Victoria, and Loung entered Essex Junction High School as a freshman. A few months later, Meng and Eang were sworn in as of the United States. In early 1986, the Ungs moved, with the help of their sponsors, into their own modest two-story home in a nearby neighborhood, and Loung, now nearly sixteen years old, delighted in having her own personal room.
Later that year Loung's teacher praised her for a sophomore English class paper she had written about growing up in Cambodia, and he encouraged her to write the whole story. During her six years in the U.S., Loung had often dealt with bouts of sadness and loneliness. After attempting suicide, she took pencil and paper and began to write the story of her life in Cambodia, her family, and the Khmer Rouge .
Over many months, her journal came to number hundreds of pages, and Loung continued to maintain a journal for many years. In retrospect, Loung has stated that untangling her feelings and putting them into words throughout those years was very therapeutic for her.
In 1989, Loung graduated from high school, and in the fall, she entered Saint Michael's College with the financial assistance of a full four-year scholarship provided by the Turrell Scholarship Fund. During her college years, she made a conscious decision to become an activist, and met her future husband. In early 1992, Loung studied at Cannes International College as part of Saint Michael's curriculum. During that time, she was reunited with her youngest brother Kim, who had fled Cambodia to Thailand and was brought to France via Germany with the help of his Aunt Heng in 1985. In 1993, Loung graduated from Saint Michael’s College with an undergraduate degree, and found work as a community educator at a for abused women in Lewiston, Maine.
Professional life
In 1995, Ung traveled back to Cambodia for the first time since she had fled fifteen years earlier. During this visit, she and Meng and his family reconnected with the family they had left behind, and learned of the murders of many of their relatives during the Khmer Rouge reign. Some time after returning to the U.S., Ung left Maine and moved to Washington, D.C., and in late 1996, joined the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation , an international humanitarian organization that provides physical rehabilitation clinics, prostheses, and mobility devices free of charge in many countries and in several provinces in Cambodia. In 2005, Loung made her twenty-fifth trip to Cambodia as the VVAF's spokesperson for the "International Campaign to Ban Landmines". The VVAF has, since 1991, fitted more than 15,000 victims with the means to walk and enjoy a better quality of life. Bobby Muller, chairman of the foundation, has remarked that "...what comes out is just staggering. It rocks people. She's the best thing this organization has ever had to advance our agenda". The campaign won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997.
Loung, Meng and Kim returned to Bat Deng in 1998 for a large family reunion with Khouy, Chou, and all their relatives young and old, including their 88-year-old grandmother. The Ungs arranged a ceremony to honor their parents, Sem and Ay, and their sisters, Keav and Geak, who had all died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge regime; the service was attended by many hundreds of relatives and friends. Two years later, her first memoir was published. In 2002, Loung married her college sweetheart, Mark Priemer, and bought two and a half acres of land in Cambodia just a short distance from her sister Chou's home. During commencement ceremonies at Saint Michael's College in May 2002, Loung was inducted into the inaugural class of the college's Alumnae Academic Hall of Fame: "Saint Michael's is proud beyond measure to honor its 1993 graduate, Luong Ung". In 2003, she was chosen by Saint Michael's to address the graduating class. Her second memoir was published in 2005.
Today
The following is an excerpt from the article "Cambodian refugee had new difficulties after move to U.S.", published by the Nashua Telegraph on Sunday, April 17 2005.
"Ung recently moved to suburban Cleveland where her husband grew up. He knows, though, that someday he'll probably be living in Cambodia where Ung owns 2? acres and plans to build a home. For now, she keeps plenty of reminders of the country in her fourth-floor home office — a statue of Buddha, a photograph of a palm tree and rice field that she feels captures the country's beauty. Her office overlooks a wood deck that has been painted rusty red to remind her of the soil of her native home. She's working on her first novel, set in 1148 in Cambodia. She's shy about revealing the plot. Again, she's sure it will only sell 10 copies."
Criticisms
Ung's first book has been criticized by members of the Cambodian community in the United States, a number of whom believe that it is more a work of fiction than an actual autobiography. She has also been accused of misrepresenting the Khmer race and playing on ethnic stereotypes for the purpose of self-aggrandizement and over-dramatization to increase sales and publicity.
Among the complaints that some Cambodians have about her works is that she was only five years old when the Khmer Rouge began its reign, and that she could not possibly have so vivid and detailed a memory of the events as they have been documented in her book. Her detractors also claim that, as a child of a Chinese mother and a Khmer father highly placed in the Phnom Penh government, she paints a very unfavorable picture of Khmer villagers.
There is a picture in "First They Killed My Father" that was supposedly taken "on a family trip to Angkor Wat" in 1973 or 1974. A civil war had been in progress in Cambodia since 1970 and the Khmer Rouge was in control of Siem Reap from 1973 onward. Critics state that it is not likely that Ung's family would be vacationing at that time in that region of Cambodia, that the picture was taken at Wat Phnom , which is in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, and that Ung's memory is therefore unreliable.
In late 2000, Ung responded to the earliest of these criticisms.
Audio interviews
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Lori Bryant-Woolridge
Lori Bryant-Woolridge is an Emmy Award-winning Chinese-American/African-American author in the chick-lit genre.
Bryant-Woolridge made her debut as a novelist in 1999 when she published the novel ''Read Between the Lies''. The book went on to become a best-seller, and in 2000 was nominated for a Golden Pen Award for Best Contemporary Fiction. Her second novel, ''Hitts & Mrs.'', was published in 2004, and made the Essence Magazine bestseller list. Bryant-Woolridge's latest work, the novel ''Weapons of Mass Seduction'' was published in April 2007.
Bryant-Woolridge has also contributed to several anthologies, such as ''Gumbo: A Celebration of African-American Writing'' , and ''Brown Sugar 3: Opposites Attract'' .
In the Spring of 2005, Bryant-Woolridge co-founded the Femme Fantastik Literary Tour, a book tour dedicated to showcasing the work of female authors of color.
Bryant-Woolridge spent her early career in various television production and management roles at the ABC Television Network, Public Broadcasting System , and Black Entertainment Television . In 1983, Bryant-Woolridge was honored with the Emmy Award for Individual Achievement in Writing.
Bryant-Woolridge hails from the San Francisco Bay and Washington D.C. metro areas, and is a graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park. She comesfrom a decorated military family. She is the daughter of retired Army Reserve Brigadier General Albert Bryant, Sr. and is sister to US Army Brigadier General Albert Bryant Jr. Bryant-Woolridge currently has a nephew on active duty in the Army, who recently completed a third tour in Iraq.
She currently resides in New Jersey with her husband and two children.
She is the co-founder of Mothers Off Duty, a non-profit women's organization committed to aiding in the prevention of teen pregnancy and the promotion of continued education and parental responsibility.
* Essence Magazine, Essence.com, 2007.
* America On-Line Black Voices Blog, 2007.
* @uthors on the Web.com, 2002.
*
* on Urban Reviews
Writing career
Bryant-Woolridge made her debut as a novelist in 1999 when she published the novel ''Read Between the Lies''. The book went on to become a best-seller, and in 2000 was nominated for a Golden Pen Award for Best Contemporary Fiction. Her second novel, ''Hitts & Mrs.'', was published in 2004, and made the Essence Magazine bestseller list. Bryant-Woolridge's latest work, the novel ''Weapons of Mass Seduction'' was published in April 2007.
Bryant-Woolridge has also contributed to several anthologies, such as ''Gumbo: A Celebration of African-American Writing'' , and ''Brown Sugar 3: Opposites Attract'' .
In the Spring of 2005, Bryant-Woolridge co-founded the Femme Fantastik Literary Tour, a book tour dedicated to showcasing the work of female authors of color.
Broadcasting Career and Emmy Win
Bryant-Woolridge spent her early career in various television production and management roles at the ABC Television Network, Public Broadcasting System , and Black Entertainment Television . In 1983, Bryant-Woolridge was honored with the Emmy Award for Individual Achievement in Writing.
Biography
Bryant-Woolridge hails from the San Francisco Bay and Washington D.C. metro areas, and is a graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park. She comesfrom a decorated military family. She is the daughter of retired Army Reserve Brigadier General Albert Bryant, Sr. and is sister to US Army Brigadier General Albert Bryant Jr. Bryant-Woolridge currently has a nephew on active duty in the Army, who recently completed a third tour in Iraq.
She currently resides in New Jersey with her husband and two children.
She is the co-founder of Mothers Off Duty, a non-profit women's organization committed to aiding in the prevention of teen pregnancy and the promotion of continued education and parental responsibility.
References and External Links
* Essence Magazine, Essence.com, 2007.
* America On-Line Black Voices Blog, 2007.
* @uthors on the Web.com, 2002.
*
* on Urban Reviews
Liu Binyan
Liu Binyan was a Chinese author and journalist, as well as a political dissident.
Liu Binyan, whose family hails from Shandong province, was born in 1925, on the fifteenth of the first month of the lunar calendar, in the city of Changchun, Jilin Province. He grew up in Harbin in Heilongjiang province, where he went to school until the ninth grade, after which he had to withdraw for lack of tuition money. He persisted in reading voraciously, especially works about World War II, and in 1944 joined the Communist Party of China. After 1949 he worked as a reporter and editor for China Youth News and began a long career of writing rooted in an iron devotion to social ideals, an affection for China's ordinary people, and an insistence on honest expression even at the cost of great personal sacrifice.
In 1956 he published 《在桥梁工地上》 "Zai qiaoliang gongdi shang" ," which exposed bureaucratism and corruption, and 《本报内部消息》 "Benbao neibu xiaoxi" , about press control. The two works had a powerful nationwide impact among readers, but in the next year, 1957, Liu was labeled a "rightist" and expelled from the Communist Party . After being rehabilitated in the 1960s, he again fell out of favor in 1969 and was condemned to a laogai detention camp, where he spent eight years. After being rehabilitated again, he built up a sound reputation as a reformer and a corruption watchdog. From 1957 on, he spent roughly 21 years in and out of labor camps.
In 1978, after the "rightist" label was removed, Liu was re-admitted to the Communist Party but continued, in even starker terms than before, to write "reportage literature" about injustices and the sufferings of ordinary people. 《人妖之间》"Renyao zhijian" , 《第二种忠诚》"Di-er zhong zhongcheng" and other essays made him a household name among Chinese readers and cemented his reputation as "China's conscience." In 1985, when the Chinese Writers' Association was allowed to elect its own leaders, Liu Binyan received the second-highest number of votes to Ba Jin, the surviving May-Fourth era writer.
In January 1987, as part of Deng Xiaoping's crackdown on "bourgeois liberalism," Liu Binyan was again expelled from the Communist Party. In spring of 1988 he came to the United States for teaching and writing; then, after publicly denouncing the Chinese government for the and nationwide crackdown in June, 1989, he was barred from returning to China and never saw his beloved homeland again. Although largely isolated from his Chinese readers, he continued to write about China where his sources often came from interviewing visitors from China.
He published articles critical of Chinese corruption for the Hong Kong media, and offered commentary for the U.S. government funded Radio Free Asia.
He died in East Windsor, New Jersey on December 5 2005 from complications due to colon cancer. He's survived by his wife, Zhu Hong.
Liu Binyan, whose family hails from Shandong province, was born in 1925, on the fifteenth of the first month of the lunar calendar, in the city of Changchun, Jilin Province. He grew up in Harbin in Heilongjiang province, where he went to school until the ninth grade, after which he had to withdraw for lack of tuition money. He persisted in reading voraciously, especially works about World War II, and in 1944 joined the Communist Party of China. After 1949 he worked as a reporter and editor for China Youth News and began a long career of writing rooted in an iron devotion to social ideals, an affection for China's ordinary people, and an insistence on honest expression even at the cost of great personal sacrifice.
In 1956 he published 《在桥梁工地上》 "Zai qiaoliang gongdi shang" ," which exposed bureaucratism and corruption, and 《本报内部消息》 "Benbao neibu xiaoxi" , about press control. The two works had a powerful nationwide impact among readers, but in the next year, 1957, Liu was labeled a "rightist" and expelled from the Communist Party . After being rehabilitated in the 1960s, he again fell out of favor in 1969 and was condemned to a laogai detention camp, where he spent eight years. After being rehabilitated again, he built up a sound reputation as a reformer and a corruption watchdog. From 1957 on, he spent roughly 21 years in and out of labor camps.
In 1978, after the "rightist" label was removed, Liu was re-admitted to the Communist Party but continued, in even starker terms than before, to write "reportage literature" about injustices and the sufferings of ordinary people. 《人妖之间》"Renyao zhijian" , 《第二种忠诚》"Di-er zhong zhongcheng" and other essays made him a household name among Chinese readers and cemented his reputation as "China's conscience." In 1985, when the Chinese Writers' Association was allowed to elect its own leaders, Liu Binyan received the second-highest number of votes to Ba Jin, the surviving May-Fourth era writer.
In January 1987, as part of Deng Xiaoping's crackdown on "bourgeois liberalism," Liu Binyan was again expelled from the Communist Party. In spring of 1988 he came to the United States for teaching and writing; then, after publicly denouncing the Chinese government for the and nationwide crackdown in June, 1989, he was barred from returning to China and never saw his beloved homeland again. Although largely isolated from his Chinese readers, he continued to write about China where his sources often came from interviewing visitors from China.
He published articles critical of Chinese corruption for the Hong Kong media, and offered commentary for the U.S. government funded Radio Free Asia.
He died in East Windsor, New Jersey on December 5 2005 from complications due to colon cancer. He's survived by his wife, Zhu Hong.
Lisa See
Lisa See is a Chinese American writer and novelist. One-eighth Chinese, the Chinese side of her family has had a great impact on her life and work . Her books include ''On Gold Mountain: The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family'' , ''Flower Net'' , '''' , '''' , ''Snow Flower and the Secret Fan'' , and ''Peony in Love'' .
''Flower Net'', ''The Interior'', and ''Dragon Bones'' make up the Red Princess mystery series. ''Snow Flower and the Secret Fan'' and ''Peony in Love'' focus on the lives of Chinese women in the 19th and 17th centuries respectively.
Writing under the pen name Monica Highland, See, her mother Caroline, and John Espy, published three novels: ''Lotus Land'' , ''110 Shanghai Road'' , and ''Greetings from Southern California'' .
See has written a personal essay for ''Half and Half''.
Lisa See was born in Paris February 18, 1955 but has spent many years in Los Angeles, especially Los Angeles Chinatown. Her mother, Carolyn See, is also a writer and novelist. Her autobiography provides insight into her daughter's life in personal terms . Lisa See graduated with a B.A. from Loyola Marymount University in 1979 .
See was West Coast correspondent for ''Publishers Weekly'' ; has written articles for ''Vogue'', ''Self'', and ''More''; has written the libretto for the opera based on ''On Gold Mountain'' ; and has helped develop the Family Discovery Gallery for the Autry Museum, which depicts 1930s Los Angeles from the perspective of her father as a seven-year-old boy. Her exhibition ''On Gold Mountain: A Chinese American Experience'' was featured in the Autry Museum of Western Heritage and the Smithsonian . See is also a public speaker.
She has written for and led in many cultural events emphasizing the importance of Los Angeles and Chinatown. Among her awards and recognitions are the Organization of Chinese American Women's 2001 award as National Woman of the Year and the 2003 History Makers Award presented by the Chinese American Museum. See serves as a Los Angeles City Commissioner .
She also has won the "Mom of the Year" award from the Christopher Kendall Foundation.
* ''On Gold Mountain'': The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of My Chinese American Family''. St. Martins Press, 1995.
* ''Flower Net'''. HarperCollins, 1997.
* ''''. HarperCollins, 1999.
* ''''.'' Random House, Inc., 2004.
* ''Snow Flower and the Secret Fan''. Random House, Inc., 2005.
* ''Peony in Love''. Random House, Inc., 2008.
* ''Chinatown'' , Angels Walk LA, 2003.
*"A Conversation with Lisa See", Random House Reader's Circle. ''Peony in Love''. New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2008, pp. 287-294.
*"Author's Note". ''Peony in Love'', pp. 275-280.
''Flower Net'', ''The Interior'', and ''Dragon Bones'' make up the Red Princess mystery series. ''Snow Flower and the Secret Fan'' and ''Peony in Love'' focus on the lives of Chinese women in the 19th and 17th centuries respectively.
Writing under the pen name Monica Highland, See, her mother Caroline, and John Espy, published three novels: ''Lotus Land'' , ''110 Shanghai Road'' , and ''Greetings from Southern California'' .
See has written a personal essay for ''Half and Half''.
Biography
Lisa See was born in Paris February 18, 1955 but has spent many years in Los Angeles, especially Los Angeles Chinatown. Her mother, Carolyn See, is also a writer and novelist. Her autobiography provides insight into her daughter's life in personal terms . Lisa See graduated with a B.A. from Loyola Marymount University in 1979 .
See was West Coast correspondent for ''Publishers Weekly'' ; has written articles for ''Vogue'', ''Self'', and ''More''; has written the libretto for the opera based on ''On Gold Mountain'' ; and has helped develop the Family Discovery Gallery for the Autry Museum, which depicts 1930s Los Angeles from the perspective of her father as a seven-year-old boy. Her exhibition ''On Gold Mountain: A Chinese American Experience'' was featured in the Autry Museum of Western Heritage and the Smithsonian . See is also a public speaker.
She has written for and led in many cultural events emphasizing the importance of Los Angeles and Chinatown. Among her awards and recognitions are the Organization of Chinese American Women's 2001 award as National Woman of the Year and the 2003 History Makers Award presented by the Chinese American Museum. See serves as a Los Angeles City Commissioner .
She also has won the "Mom of the Year" award from the Christopher Kendall Foundation.
Books by Lisa See
* ''On Gold Mountain'': The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of My Chinese American Family''. St. Martins Press, 1995.
* ''Flower Net'''. HarperCollins, 1997.
* ''''. HarperCollins, 1999.
* ''''.'' Random House, Inc., 2004.
* ''Snow Flower and the Secret Fan''. Random House, Inc., 2005.
* ''Peony in Love''. Random House, Inc., 2008.
* ''Chinatown'' , Angels Walk LA, 2003.
Lisa See on Her Life and Works
*"A Conversation with Lisa See", Random House Reader's Circle. ''Peony in Love''. New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2008, pp. 287-294.
*"Author's Note". ''Peony in Love'', pp. 275-280.
Li-Young Lee
Li-Young Lee is an poet. He was born in Jakarta, Indonesia to parents.
Li-Young Lee was born in 1957 in Jakarta, Indonesia, of Chinese parents. His father, who was a personal physician to Mao Zedong while in China, relocated his family to Indonesia, where he helped found Gamaliel University. His father spent a year in an Indonesian prison camp where he was tortured because of his belief in Christianity. In 1959 the Lee family fled the country to escape anti-Chinese sentiment and after a five-year trek through Hong Kong, Macau, and Japan, they settled in the United States in 1964. Li-Young Lee attended the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Arizona, and the State University of New York at Brockport. He has taught at several universities, including Northwestern University and the University of Iowa.
He is the author of ''Book of My Nights'' ; ''The City in Which I Love You'' , which was the 1990 Lamont Poetry Selection; and ''Rose'' , which won the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Poetry Award; as well as a memoir entitled ''The Winged Seed: A Remembrance'' , which received an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. His other honors include a Lannan Literary Award, a Whiting Writer's Award, grants from the Illinois Arts Council, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship. He lives in Chicago, Illinois, with his wife, Donna, and their two sons.
Lee attended the University of Pittsburgh, where he began to develop his love for writing. He had seen his father find his passion for ministry and as a result of his father reading to him and encouraging Lee to find his passion, Lee began to dive into the art of language. Lee’s writing has also been influenced by classic Chinese poets, Li Bo and Tu Fu. Many of Lee’s poems are filled with themes of simplicity, strength, and silence. All are strongly influenced by his family history, childhood, and individuality. He writes with simplicity and passion which creates images that take the reader deeper and also requires his audience to fill in the gaps with their own imagination. These feelings of exile and boldness to rebel take shape as they provide common themes for many of his poems.
Lee often writes from personal experience and uses poetry to tell his own story, which resonates with a wide spectrum of readers because of its universal themes.
Lee has attended the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Arizona, and the State University of New York at Brockport. He has taught at Stanford University, Northwestern University, the University of Iowa, the Asian American Writers Workshop in New York City, and Kearny Street Workshop in San Francisco.
Lee's poems have also been published in three ''Pushcart Prize: Best of Small Presses''
His most recent book, ''Behind My Eyes'', was published by W.W. Norton in January 2008.
Li-Young Lee has been an established Asian American poet who has been doing interviews for the past twenty years. ''Breaking the Alabaster Jar: Conversations with Li-Young Lee'' , is the first edited and published collection of interviews with an Asian American poet. In this collection, Earl G. Ingersoll asks "conversational" questions to bring out Lee’s views on Asian American poetry, writing, and identity.
Lee has won numerous poetry awards:
* 2003: Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets, which does not accept applications and which includes a $25,000 stipend
* 2002: William Carlos Williams Award for ''Book of My Nights'' Judge: Carolyn Kizer
* 1990: Lamont Poetry Selection for ''The City in Which I Love You''
* Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award from New York University, for ''Rose''
* American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation for ''The Winged Seed: A Remembrance''
* 1988: Whiting Writer's Award
* Lannan Literary Award
* Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts
* Fellowship, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
* Grant, Illinois Arts Council
* Grant, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
* Grant, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts
* 1986: ''Rose.'' Rochester: BOA Editions Limited, ISBN 0-918526-53-1
* 1990: ''The City In Which I Love You.'' Rochester: BOA Editions Limited, ISBN 0-918526-83-3
* 2001: ''Book of My Nights.'' Rochester: BOA Editions Limited, ISBN 1-929918-08-9
* 2008: ''Behind My Eyes.'' W. W. Norton & Company, ISBN 978-0-393-06542-8
*''The Wingéd Seed: A Remembrance.'' New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995. ASIN: B000NGRB2G St. Paul: Ruminator, 1999. ISBN 1-886913-28-5
as of March 2008:
#Meaning Maker By: Butts, Lisa; ''Publishers Weekly'', 2007 Nov 19; 254 : 38.
#Li-Young Lee no hyoka o tooshite By: Kajiwara, Teruko; ''Eigo Seinen/Rising Generation'', 2006 July; 152 : 212-13.
#Transcendentalism, Ethnicity, and Food in the Work of Li-Young Lee By: Xu, Wenying; ''Boundary 2: An International Journal of Literature and Culture,'' 2006 Summer; 33 : 129-57.
#An Exile's Will to Canon and Its Tension with Ethnicity: Li-Young Lee By: Xu, Wenying. IN: Bona and Maini, ''Multiethnic Literature and Canon Debates.'' Albany, NY: State U of New York P; 2006. pp. 145-64
#Li-Young Lee By: Davis, Rocío G.. IN: Madsen, ''Asian American Writers.'' Detroit, MI: Gale; 2005. pp. 202-06
#'Your Otherness Is Perfect as My Death': The Ethics and Aesthetics of Li-Young Lee's Poetry By: Zhou, Xiaojing. IN: Fahraeus and Jonsson, ''Textual Ethos Studies or Locating Ethics.'' New York, NY: Rodopi; 2005. pp. 297-314
#Sexual Desire and Cultural Memory in Three Ethnic Poets By: Basford, Douglas; ''MELUS: The Journal of the Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States,'' 2004 Fall-Winter; 29 : 243-56.
#The Politics of Ethnic Authorship: Li-Young Lee, , and at the Banquet Table By: Partridge, Jeffrey F. L.; ''Studies in the Literary Imagination,'' 2004 Spring; 37 : 101-26.
#Interview with Li-Young Lee By: Bilyak, Dianne; ''Massachusetts Review: A Quarterly of Literature, the Arts and Public Affairs,'' 2003-2004 Winter; 44 : 600-12.
#Poetries of Transformation: Joy Harjo and Li-Young Lee By: Kolosov, Jacqueline; ''Studies in American Indian Literatures: The Journal of the Association for the Study of American Indian Literatures,'' 2003 Summer; 15 : 39-57.
#''"Father-Stem and Mother-Root": Genealogy, Memory, and the Poetics of Origins in Theodore Roethke, Elizabeth Bishop, and Li-Young Lee'' By: Malandra, Marc Joseph; Dissertation, Cornell U, 2002.
#Forming Personal and Cultural Identities in the Face of Exodus: A Discussion of Li-Young Lee's Poetry By: Jenkins, Tricia; S''outh Asian Review,'' 2003; 24 : 199-210.
#Lee's 'Eating Alone' By: Moeser, Daniel; ''Explicator'', 2002 Winter; 60 : 117-19.
#The Way a Calendar Dissolves: A Refugee's Sense of Time in the Work of Li-Young Lee By: Lorenz, Johnny. IN: Davis and Ludwig, ''Asian American Literature in the International Context: Readings on Fiction, Poetry, and Performance.'' Hamburg, Germany: Lit; 2002. pp. 157-69
#''Night of No Exile'' By: Jones, Marie C.; Dissertation, U of North Texas, 1999.
#Art, Spirituality, and the Ethic of Care: Alternative Masculinities in Chinese American Literature By: Cheung, King-Kok. IN: Gardiner, ''Masculinity Studies and Feminist Theory: New Directions.'' New York, NY: Columbia UP; 2002. pp. 261-89
#The Precision of Persimmons: Hybridity, Grafting and the Case of Li-Young Lee By: Yao, Steven G.; ''Lit: Literature Interpretation Theory,'' 2001 Apr; 12 : 1-23.
#To Witness the Invisible: A Talk with Li-Young Lee By: Marshall, Tod; ''Kenyon Review,'' 2000 Winter; 22 : 129-47.
#Beyond Lot's Wife: The Immigration Poems of Marilyn Chin, Garrett Hongo, Li-Young Lee, and David Mura By: Slowik, Mary; ''MELUS'', 2000 Fall-Winter; 25 : 221-42.
#Form and Identity in Language Poetry and Asian American Poetry By: Yu, Timothy; ''Contemporary Literature,'' 2000 Spring; 41 : 422-61.
#An Interview with Li-Young Lee By: Fluharty, Matthew; M''issouri Review,'' 2000; 23 : 81-99.
#Li-Young Lee By: Lee, James Kyung-Jin. IN: Cheung, ''Words Matter: Conversations with Asian American Writers.'' Honolulu: U of Hawaii P, with UCLA Asian American Studies Center; 2000. pp. 270-80
#''Necessary Figures: Metaphor, Irony and Parody in the Poetry of Li-Young Lee, Marilyn Chin, and John Yau'' By: Wang, Dorothy Joan; Dissertation,U of California, Berkeley, 1998.
#A Conversation with Li-Young Lee ; ''Indiana Review,'' 1999 Fall-Winter; 21 : 101-08.
#The Cultural Predicaments of Ethnic Writers: Three Chicago Poets By: Bresnahan, Roger J. Jiang; ''Midwestern Miscellany,'' 1999 Fall; 27: 36-46.
#''The City in Which I Love You:'' Li-Young Lee's Excellent Song By: Hesford, Walter A.; ''Christianity and Literature,'' 1996 Autumn; 46 : 37-60.
#Lee's 'Persimmons' By: Engles, Tim; ''Explicator'', 1996 Spring; 54 : 191-92.
#Inheritance and Invention in Li-Young Lee's Poetry By: Zhou, Xiaojing; ''MELUS'', 1996 Spring; 21 : 113-32.
#Li-Young Lee By: Hsu, Ruth Y.. IN: Conte, ''American Poets since World War II: Fourth Series.'' Detroit: Thomson Gale; 1996. pp. 139-46
#Li-Young Lee By: Lee, James; ''BOMB'', 1995 Spring; 51: 10-13.
Family history
Li-Young Lee was born in 1957 in Jakarta, Indonesia, of Chinese parents. His father, who was a personal physician to Mao Zedong while in China, relocated his family to Indonesia, where he helped found Gamaliel University. His father spent a year in an Indonesian prison camp where he was tortured because of his belief in Christianity. In 1959 the Lee family fled the country to escape anti-Chinese sentiment and after a five-year trek through Hong Kong, Macau, and Japan, they settled in the United States in 1964. Li-Young Lee attended the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Arizona, and the State University of New York at Brockport. He has taught at several universities, including Northwestern University and the University of Iowa.
He is the author of ''Book of My Nights'' ; ''The City in Which I Love You'' , which was the 1990 Lamont Poetry Selection; and ''Rose'' , which won the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Poetry Award; as well as a memoir entitled ''The Winged Seed: A Remembrance'' , which received an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. His other honors include a Lannan Literary Award, a Whiting Writer's Award, grants from the Illinois Arts Council, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship. He lives in Chicago, Illinois, with his wife, Donna, and their two sons.
Development as a poet
Lee attended the University of Pittsburgh, where he began to develop his love for writing. He had seen his father find his passion for ministry and as a result of his father reading to him and encouraging Lee to find his passion, Lee began to dive into the art of language. Lee’s writing has also been influenced by classic Chinese poets, Li Bo and Tu Fu. Many of Lee’s poems are filled with themes of simplicity, strength, and silence. All are strongly influenced by his family history, childhood, and individuality. He writes with simplicity and passion which creates images that take the reader deeper and also requires his audience to fill in the gaps with their own imagination. These feelings of exile and boldness to rebel take shape as they provide common themes for many of his poems.
Lee often writes from personal experience and uses poetry to tell his own story, which resonates with a wide spectrum of readers because of its universal themes.
Career
Lee has attended the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Arizona, and the State University of New York at Brockport. He has taught at Stanford University, Northwestern University, the University of Iowa, the Asian American Writers Workshop in New York City, and Kearny Street Workshop in San Francisco.
Lee's poems have also been published in three ''Pushcart Prize: Best of Small Presses''
His most recent book, ''Behind My Eyes'', was published by W.W. Norton in January 2008.
Lee’s influence on Asian American poetry
Li-Young Lee has been an established Asian American poet who has been doing interviews for the past twenty years. ''Breaking the Alabaster Jar: Conversations with Li-Young Lee'' , is the first edited and published collection of interviews with an Asian American poet. In this collection, Earl G. Ingersoll asks "conversational" questions to bring out Lee’s views on Asian American poetry, writing, and identity.
Awards and honors
Lee has won numerous poetry awards:
* 2003: Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets, which does not accept applications and which includes a $25,000 stipend
* 2002: William Carlos Williams Award for ''Book of My Nights'' Judge: Carolyn Kizer
* 1990: Lamont Poetry Selection for ''The City in Which I Love You''
* Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award from New York University, for ''Rose''
* American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation for ''The Winged Seed: A Remembrance''
* 1988: Whiting Writer's Award
* Lannan Literary Award
* Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts
* Fellowship, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
* Grant, Illinois Arts Council
* Grant, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
* Grant, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts
Selected bibliography
Poetry
* 1986: ''Rose.'' Rochester: BOA Editions Limited, ISBN 0-918526-53-1
* 1990: ''The City In Which I Love You.'' Rochester: BOA Editions Limited, ISBN 0-918526-83-3
* 2001: ''Book of My Nights.'' Rochester: BOA Editions Limited, ISBN 1-929918-08-9
* 2008: ''Behind My Eyes.'' W. W. Norton & Company, ISBN 978-0-393-06542-8
Memoir
*''The Wingéd Seed: A Remembrance.'' New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995. ASIN: B000NGRB2G St. Paul: Ruminator, 1999. ISBN 1-886913-28-5
Critical studies
as of March 2008:
#Meaning Maker By: Butts, Lisa; ''Publishers Weekly'', 2007 Nov 19; 254 : 38.
#Li-Young Lee no hyoka o tooshite By: Kajiwara, Teruko; ''Eigo Seinen/Rising Generation'', 2006 July; 152 : 212-13.
#Transcendentalism, Ethnicity, and Food in the Work of Li-Young Lee By: Xu, Wenying; ''Boundary 2: An International Journal of Literature and Culture,'' 2006 Summer; 33 : 129-57.
#An Exile's Will to Canon and Its Tension with Ethnicity: Li-Young Lee By: Xu, Wenying. IN: Bona and Maini, ''Multiethnic Literature and Canon Debates.'' Albany, NY: State U of New York P; 2006. pp. 145-64
#Li-Young Lee By: Davis, Rocío G.. IN: Madsen, ''Asian American Writers.'' Detroit, MI: Gale; 2005. pp. 202-06
#'Your Otherness Is Perfect as My Death': The Ethics and Aesthetics of Li-Young Lee's Poetry By: Zhou, Xiaojing. IN: Fahraeus and Jonsson, ''Textual Ethos Studies or Locating Ethics.'' New York, NY: Rodopi; 2005. pp. 297-314
#Sexual Desire and Cultural Memory in Three Ethnic Poets By: Basford, Douglas; ''MELUS: The Journal of the Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States,'' 2004 Fall-Winter; 29 : 243-56.
#The Politics of Ethnic Authorship: Li-Young Lee, , and at the Banquet Table By: Partridge, Jeffrey F. L.; ''Studies in the Literary Imagination,'' 2004 Spring; 37 : 101-26.
#Interview with Li-Young Lee By: Bilyak, Dianne; ''Massachusetts Review: A Quarterly of Literature, the Arts and Public Affairs,'' 2003-2004 Winter; 44 : 600-12.
#Poetries of Transformation: Joy Harjo and Li-Young Lee By: Kolosov, Jacqueline; ''Studies in American Indian Literatures: The Journal of the Association for the Study of American Indian Literatures,'' 2003 Summer; 15 : 39-57.
#''"Father-Stem and Mother-Root": Genealogy, Memory, and the Poetics of Origins in Theodore Roethke, Elizabeth Bishop, and Li-Young Lee'' By: Malandra, Marc Joseph; Dissertation, Cornell U, 2002.
#Forming Personal and Cultural Identities in the Face of Exodus: A Discussion of Li-Young Lee's Poetry By: Jenkins, Tricia; S''outh Asian Review,'' 2003; 24 : 199-210.
#Lee's 'Eating Alone' By: Moeser, Daniel; ''Explicator'', 2002 Winter; 60 : 117-19.
#The Way a Calendar Dissolves: A Refugee's Sense of Time in the Work of Li-Young Lee By: Lorenz, Johnny. IN: Davis and Ludwig, ''Asian American Literature in the International Context: Readings on Fiction, Poetry, and Performance.'' Hamburg, Germany: Lit; 2002. pp. 157-69
#''Night of No Exile'' By: Jones, Marie C.; Dissertation, U of North Texas, 1999.
#Art, Spirituality, and the Ethic of Care: Alternative Masculinities in Chinese American Literature By: Cheung, King-Kok. IN: Gardiner, ''Masculinity Studies and Feminist Theory: New Directions.'' New York, NY: Columbia UP; 2002. pp. 261-89
#The Precision of Persimmons: Hybridity, Grafting and the Case of Li-Young Lee By: Yao, Steven G.; ''Lit: Literature Interpretation Theory,'' 2001 Apr; 12 : 1-23.
#To Witness the Invisible: A Talk with Li-Young Lee By: Marshall, Tod; ''Kenyon Review,'' 2000 Winter; 22 : 129-47.
#Beyond Lot's Wife: The Immigration Poems of Marilyn Chin, Garrett Hongo, Li-Young Lee, and David Mura By: Slowik, Mary; ''MELUS'', 2000 Fall-Winter; 25 : 221-42.
#Form and Identity in Language Poetry and Asian American Poetry By: Yu, Timothy; ''Contemporary Literature,'' 2000 Spring; 41 : 422-61.
#An Interview with Li-Young Lee By: Fluharty, Matthew; M''issouri Review,'' 2000; 23 : 81-99.
#Li-Young Lee By: Lee, James Kyung-Jin. IN: Cheung, ''Words Matter: Conversations with Asian American Writers.'' Honolulu: U of Hawaii P, with UCLA Asian American Studies Center; 2000. pp. 270-80
#''Necessary Figures: Metaphor, Irony and Parody in the Poetry of Li-Young Lee, Marilyn Chin, and John Yau'' By: Wang, Dorothy Joan; Dissertation,U of California, Berkeley, 1998.
#A Conversation with Li-Young Lee ; ''Indiana Review,'' 1999 Fall-Winter; 21 : 101-08.
#The Cultural Predicaments of Ethnic Writers: Three Chicago Poets By: Bresnahan, Roger J. Jiang; ''Midwestern Miscellany,'' 1999 Fall; 27: 36-46.
#''The City in Which I Love You:'' Li-Young Lee's Excellent Song By: Hesford, Walter A.; ''Christianity and Literature,'' 1996 Autumn; 46 : 37-60.
#Lee's 'Persimmons' By: Engles, Tim; ''Explicator'', 1996 Spring; 54 : 191-92.
#Inheritance and Invention in Li-Young Lee's Poetry By: Zhou, Xiaojing; ''MELUS'', 1996 Spring; 21 : 113-32.
#Li-Young Lee By: Hsu, Ruth Y.. IN: Conte, ''American Poets since World War II: Fourth Series.'' Detroit: Thomson Gale; 1996. pp. 139-46
#Li-Young Lee By: Lee, James; ''BOMB'', 1995 Spring; 51: 10-13.
Laurence Yep
Laurence Michael Yep is a prolific, award-winning Chinese-American modern author. Born in San Francisco, California, he was the youngest child of his family. Growing up, he often felt torn between both and Chinese culture, and expressed this in many of his books. As it says in his autobiography, "I was too American to fit into Chinatown, and too Chinese to fit in anywhere else." His first writing was done in high school, for a science fiction magazine. His teacher, a priest, told him and a couple of his friends that to get an A, they had to get a piece of writing accepted by a magazine, and that's when he started to realize that writing was meant to be for him.
Yep attended Marquette University and graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz. He earned a in at the State University of New York at Buffalo.
The most notable of his books is a series called the ''Golden Mountain Chronicles'', which documents the story of the fictional Young family from 1849, in China, to 1995, in America. He received the Newbery Honor for two books in the series, ''Dragon's Gate'' and ''Dragonwings''. The latter has been adapted into a play. Other notable books are the ''Dragon'' series and ''The Chinatown Mysteries.'' He was awarded the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal in 2005 for his contributions to children's literature.
Yep is married to fellow author Joanne Ryder and lives in Pacific Grove, California.
Golden Mountain Chronicles, in chronological order
# ''The Serpent's Children''
# ''Mountain Light''
# ''Dragon's Gate''
# ''The Traitor''
# ''Dragonwings''
# ''The Red Warrior''
# ''Child of the Owl''
# ''Sea Glass''
# ''Thief of Hearts''
Ribbons
# ''Dragon of the Lost Sea''
# ''Dragon Steel''
# ''Dragon Cauldron''
# ''Dragon War''
Chinatown Mysteries
# ''The Case of the Goblin Pearls''
# ''The Case of the Lion Dance''
# ''The Case of the Firecrackers''
The Tiger's Apprentice
# ''The Tiger's Apprentice: Book One''
# ''Tiger's Blood: Book Two''
# ''Tiger Magic: Book Three''
Ribbons
# ''Ribbons''
# ''The Cook's Family''
# ''The Amah''
# ''Angelfish''
Later, Gator
# ''Later, Gator''
# ''Cockroach Cooties''
# ''Skunk Scout''
Nonfiction
# ''American Dragons: Twenty-five Asian American Voices''
# ''The Lost Garden''
Picture Books
# ''The Magic Paintbrush''
# ''The Dragon Prince: A Chinese Beauty and the Beast Tale''
# ''The Butterfly Boy''
# ''The Shell Woman and the King: a Chinese folktale''
# ''The Khan's Daughter: a Mongolian folktale''
# ''When the Circus Came to Town''
# ''The Ghost Fox''
# ''The Boy Who Swallowed Snakes''
# ''The Man who Tricked a Ghost''
Other books
# ''Tongues of Jade''
# ''The Rainbow People''
# ''Sweetwater''
# ''The Star Fisher''
# ''Dream Soul''
# ''Hiroshima: A Novella''
# ''The Earth Dragon Awakes: the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906''
# ''Lady of Ch'iao Kuo: Warrior of the South''
# ''The Journal of Wong Ming-Chung: A Chinese Miner''
# ''Spring Pearl: The Last Flower''
# ''The Imp that Ate My Homework''
# ''Kind Hearts and Gentle Monsters''
# ''The Mark Twain Murders''
# ''The Tom Sawyer Fires''
# ''''
# ''Mia''
# ''Bravo, Mia!''
Plays
# ''The Age of Wonders''
# ''Dragonwings''
# ''Pay the Chinaman''
# ''Fairy Bones''
Yep attended Marquette University and graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz. He earned a in at the State University of New York at Buffalo.
The most notable of his books is a series called the ''Golden Mountain Chronicles'', which documents the story of the fictional Young family from 1849, in China, to 1995, in America. He received the Newbery Honor for two books in the series, ''Dragon's Gate'' and ''Dragonwings''. The latter has been adapted into a play. Other notable books are the ''Dragon'' series and ''The Chinatown Mysteries.'' He was awarded the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal in 2005 for his contributions to children's literature.
Yep is married to fellow author Joanne Ryder and lives in Pacific Grove, California.
Bibliography
Golden Mountain Chronicles, in chronological order
# ''The Serpent's Children''
# ''Mountain Light''
# ''Dragon's Gate''
# ''The Traitor''
# ''Dragonwings''
# ''The Red Warrior''
# ''Child of the Owl''
# ''Sea Glass''
# ''Thief of Hearts''
Ribbons
# ''Dragon of the Lost Sea''
# ''Dragon Steel''
# ''Dragon Cauldron''
# ''Dragon War''
Chinatown Mysteries
# ''The Case of the Goblin Pearls''
# ''The Case of the Lion Dance''
# ''The Case of the Firecrackers''
The Tiger's Apprentice
# ''The Tiger's Apprentice: Book One''
# ''Tiger's Blood: Book Two''
# ''Tiger Magic: Book Three''
Ribbons
# ''Ribbons''
# ''The Cook's Family''
# ''The Amah''
# ''Angelfish''
Later, Gator
# ''Later, Gator''
# ''Cockroach Cooties''
# ''Skunk Scout''
Nonfiction
# ''American Dragons: Twenty-five Asian American Voices''
# ''The Lost Garden''
Picture Books
# ''The Magic Paintbrush''
# ''The Dragon Prince: A Chinese Beauty and the Beast Tale''
# ''The Butterfly Boy''
# ''The Shell Woman and the King: a Chinese folktale''
# ''The Khan's Daughter: a Mongolian folktale''
# ''When the Circus Came to Town''
# ''The Ghost Fox''
# ''The Boy Who Swallowed Snakes''
# ''The Man who Tricked a Ghost''
Other books
# ''Tongues of Jade''
# ''The Rainbow People''
# ''Sweetwater''
# ''The Star Fisher''
# ''Dream Soul''
# ''Hiroshima: A Novella''
# ''The Earth Dragon Awakes: the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906''
# ''Lady of Ch'iao Kuo: Warrior of the South''
# ''The Journal of Wong Ming-Chung: A Chinese Miner''
# ''Spring Pearl: The Last Flower''
# ''The Imp that Ate My Homework''
# ''Kind Hearts and Gentle Monsters''
# ''The Mark Twain Murders''
# ''The Tom Sawyer Fires''
# ''''
# ''Mia''
# ''Bravo, Mia!''
Plays
# ''The Age of Wonders''
# ''Dragonwings''
# ''Pay the Chinaman''
# ''Fairy Bones''
Kaiser Kuo
Kaiser Kuo is a Chinese American freelance writer and musician living in Beijing. He is a former member of the rock band , and has further innovated contemporary Chinese music culture with the formation of another ethnically oriented heavy metal rock group, Spring and Autumn . Kaiser currently works for the advertising group Ogilvy & Mather in Beijing and writes a column for the English-language magazine ''That's BJ''.
Judy Yung
Judy Yung is professor emerita in American Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She specializes in oral history, women's history, and Chinese American and Asian American history.
She is author of ''Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, 1910-1940'' , the award-winning ''Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco'' and ''Chinese American Voices: From the Gold Rush to the Present'' , among other books.
Yung received her Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. She also holds an M.A. in Library Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.A. in English Literature and Chinese from San Francisco State University.
Prior to entering academia, Yung worked as librarian for the Chinatown branch of the San Francisco Public Library.
She is author of ''Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, 1910-1940'' , the award-winning ''Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco'' and ''Chinese American Voices: From the Gold Rush to the Present'' , among other books.
Yung received her Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. She also holds an M.A. in Library Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.A. in English Literature and Chinese from San Francisco State University.
Prior to entering academia, Yung worked as librarian for the Chinatown branch of the San Francisco Public Library.
Jeffery Paul Chan
Jeffery Paul Chan is a Chinese American author. He is a professor of Asian American studies and at San Francisco State University, where he also received his masters degree and has taught for 38 years until his retirement.
Chan was a co-founder of the Asian American studies department at SFSU, and has twice served as first chair of the department. With Frank Chin, Lawson Fusao Inada, and Shawn Wong, Chan edited two editions of the groundbreaking anthology of Asian American literature, ''Aiiieeee!'', which helped introduce Asian American authors as worthy of serious study. He also coined the term racist love to express the ways Asians are stereotyped in overly-positive ways that are just as damaging as the negative stereotypes used against blacks, Latinos and Native Americans.
* ''Aiieeeee!: An Anthology of Asian American Writers''
* ''The Big AIIEEEEE!: An Anthology of Chinese American and Japanese American Literature''
* ''Eat Everything Before You Die: A Chinaman In The Counterculture'' Seattle: University of Washington Press
* ''A Night on Lead Mountain: Short Stories'' , submitted for his Masters' Degree
Chan was a co-founder of the Asian American studies department at SFSU, and has twice served as first chair of the department. With Frank Chin, Lawson Fusao Inada, and Shawn Wong, Chan edited two editions of the groundbreaking anthology of Asian American literature, ''Aiiieeee!'', which helped introduce Asian American authors as worthy of serious study. He also coined the term racist love to express the ways Asians are stereotyped in overly-positive ways that are just as damaging as the negative stereotypes used against blacks, Latinos and Native Americans.
Bibliography
* ''Aiieeeee!: An Anthology of Asian American Writers''
* ''The Big AIIEEEEE!: An Anthology of Chinese American and Japanese American Literature''
* ''Eat Everything Before You Die: A Chinaman In The Counterculture'' Seattle: University of Washington Press
* ''A Night on Lead Mountain: Short Stories'' , submitted for his Masters' Degree
Jeff Yang
Jeff Yang is an writer and business/media consultant who is currently the "Asian Pop" columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle, although he lives in New York City. Besides his column, Yang is also known for his books, including "Once Upon a Time in China: A Guide to the Cinemas of Hong Kong, Taiwan and Mainland China," "I Am Jackie Chan: My Life in Action" , and "Eastern Standard Time: A Guide to Asian Influence in American Culture, from Astro Boy to Zen Buddhism." In addition, he has written for the Village Voice, VIBE, , and Condé Nast Portfolio.
Yang is also a business/media consultant on marketing to Asian American consumers for Iconoculture, Inc. Before joining Iconoculture, Yang was CEO of Factor, Inc., another marketing consultancy targeting Asian Americans. From 1989 until 2002, when it went out of business, Yang was publisher of A Magazine, then the largest circulating English-language Asian American magazine in the United States. The magazine grew out of an undergraduate publication that he had edited while a student at Harvard University.
Yang graduated from Harvard in 1989 with a B.A. in psychology. He is a member of the Asian American Journalists Association and has served on the advisory boards of the Asian American Justice Center and the China Institute in America. Yang is married to Heather Ying.
Yang is also a business/media consultant on marketing to Asian American consumers for Iconoculture, Inc. Before joining Iconoculture, Yang was CEO of Factor, Inc., another marketing consultancy targeting Asian Americans. From 1989 until 2002, when it went out of business, Yang was publisher of A Magazine, then the largest circulating English-language Asian American magazine in the United States. The magazine grew out of an undergraduate publication that he had edited while a student at Harvard University.
Yang graduated from Harvard in 1989 with a B.A. in psychology. He is a member of the Asian American Journalists Association and has served on the advisory boards of the Asian American Justice Center and the China Institute in America. Yang is married to Heather Ying.
Jeff Chang (journalist)
Jeff Chang is an journalist and music critic on hip hop music and culture. His 2005 book, ''Can't Stop Won't Stop'', which chronicles the early hip hop scene, won an American Book Award in 2005. His writings have appeared in publications such as ''URB'', ''The Bomb'', ''San Francisco Chronicle'', the ''Village Voice'', the ''San Francisco Bay Guardian'', ''Vibe'', ''Spin'', ''The Nation'', and ''Mother Jones''.
Jeff Chang is a 1985 graduate of Iolani School. He was a founding member of the Solesides record label while a DJ at a college radio station, which was the home to acts like DJ Shadow and Blackalicious before it was recreated as Quannum Projects.
Chang's 2007 book, ''Total Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop'', is an anthology of essays and interviews documenting the impact of hip hop beyond music and the "". According to its companion website, following the release of ''Total Chaos'', Chang held a series of public panel discussions to further explore the subject.
Jeff Chang is a 1985 graduate of Iolani School. He was a founding member of the Solesides record label while a DJ at a college radio station, which was the home to acts like DJ Shadow and Blackalicious before it was recreated as Quannum Projects.
Chang's 2007 book, ''Total Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop'', is an anthology of essays and interviews documenting the impact of hip hop beyond music and the "". According to its companion website, following the release of ''Total Chaos'', Chang held a series of public panel discussions to further explore the subject.
James Wong
James Wong is an television producer, writer, and film director notable for his screen works of ''The X-Files'', '''', '''', ''Final Destination'', '''', '''', and the remakes of '''' and '''' along with writing partner Glen Morgan.
Wong was born in Hong Kong, and he moved to the United States along with his family at age 10 to San Diego, California. During his youth, he met his future writing partner Glen Morgan at El Cajon Valley High School. Later on, he went to Loyola Marymount University, joining a comedy group. Originally seeking a major in engineering, he later switched to a film major after seeing ''Apocalypse Now'' in Cinerama Dome. After graduating, he landed a job as an assistant to Sandy Howard. During this time, both Wong and Morgan wrote screenplays, eventually having one produced.
With Morgan, he co-wrote '''', after this Wong became a story editor on the short-lived crime drama ''Knightwatch''. Later, with Morgan, Wong would work on many Stephen J. Cannell productions, including ''Wiseguy'' , ''The Commish'' , and as a staff writer and story editor for ''21 Jump Street'' and its spinoff, ''Booker''.
With their background in , Wong and Morgan caught the attention of Chris Carter, also setting up production in Vancouver on a new show, sci-fi/drama ''The X-Files'', about two FBI agents investigating the paranormal. Part of the ''X-Files'' production team from the start, Wong, along with Morgan, helped define the direction of the show in its first two seasons, from 1993 to 1995. They were also responsible for the creation of the long-running characters The Lone Gunmen, Assistant Director Walter Skinner, and the liver-eating mutant Eugene Tooms. Early episodes written by the team, such as "Squeeze," "Ice," "Beyond the Sea" and "One Breath," received acclaim from critics for their combination of character-driven plots and sometimes macabre dark humor, as well as praise from series creator Carter and actors David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson.
In 1995, due to their success with ''The X-Files'', Wong and Morgan were offered an $8 million, four-year contract deal with 20th Century Fox Television to write and produce television series. As part of this deal, Morgan and Wong went on to create the short-lived cult series ''''. Many actors who appeared in this series have since appeared in other films and television work connected to Morgan and Wong.
They returned to ''The X-Files'' briefly in its fourth season , where they wrote the popular horror episode "Home", controversial among executives for its content. Wong also made his TV directing debut with the conspiracy-themed "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man", written by Morgan. Their close relationship with executive producer Carter led into increased production and writing duties on his new series '''', where they oversaw the production for the second season while Carter concentrated on other projects. Later, the duo would go on to executive produce the short-lived NBC paranormal series, ''''.
In 2000, Wong directed ''Final Destination'', a film he co-wrote with Glen Morgan. The movie became a hit in the teen / genre, yielding a on which the two did not work. Wong followed the directorial debut with '''' , an action film starring Jet Li, and with more horror films, ''Willard'' , directed by Glen Morgan and starring Crispin Glover, and a second sequel, ''Final Destination 3'' , again directed by Wong. In late 2006, Wong and Morgan's remake of '''' was released; the script was by James Wong and Glen Morgan, and the film was directed by Morgan. He is currently working on the live action film adaptation of for 20th Century Fox, which is set to release in 2009.
He is married to Teena Wong, with whom he has three children. They reside in California.
*James Wong's name was used as a character name in the video game ''The X-Files: The Game''.
Biography
Early life
Wong was born in Hong Kong, and he moved to the United States along with his family at age 10 to San Diego, California. During his youth, he met his future writing partner Glen Morgan at El Cajon Valley High School. Later on, he went to Loyola Marymount University, joining a comedy group. Originally seeking a major in engineering, he later switched to a film major after seeing ''Apocalypse Now'' in Cinerama Dome. After graduating, he landed a job as an assistant to Sandy Howard. During this time, both Wong and Morgan wrote screenplays, eventually having one produced.
Writing career with Morgan
With Morgan, he co-wrote '''', after this Wong became a story editor on the short-lived crime drama ''Knightwatch''. Later, with Morgan, Wong would work on many Stephen J. Cannell productions, including ''Wiseguy'' , ''The Commish'' , and as a staff writer and story editor for ''21 Jump Street'' and its spinoff, ''Booker''.
With their background in , Wong and Morgan caught the attention of Chris Carter, also setting up production in Vancouver on a new show, sci-fi/drama ''The X-Files'', about two FBI agents investigating the paranormal. Part of the ''X-Files'' production team from the start, Wong, along with Morgan, helped define the direction of the show in its first two seasons, from 1993 to 1995. They were also responsible for the creation of the long-running characters The Lone Gunmen, Assistant Director Walter Skinner, and the liver-eating mutant Eugene Tooms. Early episodes written by the team, such as "Squeeze," "Ice," "Beyond the Sea" and "One Breath," received acclaim from critics for their combination of character-driven plots and sometimes macabre dark humor, as well as praise from series creator Carter and actors David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson.
In 1995, due to their success with ''The X-Files'', Wong and Morgan were offered an $8 million, four-year contract deal with 20th Century Fox Television to write and produce television series. As part of this deal, Morgan and Wong went on to create the short-lived cult series ''''. Many actors who appeared in this series have since appeared in other films and television work connected to Morgan and Wong.
They returned to ''The X-Files'' briefly in its fourth season , where they wrote the popular horror episode "Home", controversial among executives for its content. Wong also made his TV directing debut with the conspiracy-themed "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man", written by Morgan. Their close relationship with executive producer Carter led into increased production and writing duties on his new series '''', where they oversaw the production for the second season while Carter concentrated on other projects. Later, the duo would go on to executive produce the short-lived NBC paranormal series, ''''.
In 2000, Wong directed ''Final Destination'', a film he co-wrote with Glen Morgan. The movie became a hit in the teen / genre, yielding a on which the two did not work. Wong followed the directorial debut with '''' , an action film starring Jet Li, and with more horror films, ''Willard'' , directed by Glen Morgan and starring Crispin Glover, and a second sequel, ''Final Destination 3'' , again directed by Wong. In late 2006, Wong and Morgan's remake of '''' was released; the script was by James Wong and Glen Morgan, and the film was directed by Morgan. He is currently working on the live action film adaptation of for 20th Century Fox, which is set to release in 2009.
Personal life
He is married to Teena Wong, with whom he has three children. They reside in California.
Trivia
*James Wong's name was used as a character name in the video game ''The X-Files: The Game''.
Jade Snow Wong
Jade Snow Wong was an ceramic artist and author of two autobiographical volumes.
Wong was born in San Francisco and brought up in a family that maintained traditional Chinese customs. Due to the high importance her family placed on education and her own desire to learn, Wong graduated from Mills College in 1942. She worked as a secretary during World War II, and discovered a talent for ceramics. When she began to sell her work in a shop in Chinatown, it quickly found popularity.
In 1950, Wong published the first of her two autobiographical volumes, ''Fifth Chinese Daughter.'' The book was translated into several Asian languages by the , which sent her on a four-month speaking tour of Asia in 1953. "I was sent," Wong wrote, "because those Asian audiences who had read translations of ''Fifth Chinese Daughter'' did not believe a female born to poor Chinese immigrants could gain a toehold among prejudiced Americans." Her second volume, ''No Chinese Stranger,'' was published in 1975.
Wong's pottery was later displayed in art museums across the United States, including a 2002 exhibition at the Chinese Historical Society of America. Towards the end of her life, Wong ran a travel service in San Francisco, and died there in 2006.
#The Oriental/Occidental Dynamic in Chinese American Life Writing: Pardee Lowe and Jade Snow Wong By: Madsen, Deborah L.; ''Amerikastudien/American Studies'', 2006; 51 : 343-53.
#Chinese American Writers of the Real and the Fake: Authenticity and the Twin Traditions of Life Writing By: Madsen, Deborah L.; ''Canadian Review of American Studies/Revue Canadienne d'Etudes Americaines'', 2006; 36 : 257-71.
#Reading Ethnography: The Cold War Social Science of Jade Snow Wong's ''Fifth Chinese Daughter'' and Brown v. Board of Education By: Douglas, Christopher. pp. 101-24 IN: Zhou, Xiaojing ; Najmi, Samina ; ''Form and Transformation in Asian American Literature''. Seattle, WA: U of Washington P; 2005. 296 pp.
#Labored Realisms: Geopolitical Rhetoric and Asian American and Asian Migrant Women's biography By: Hesford, Wendy S.; ''JAC'', 2003; 23 : 77-107.
#Chinese Medicine and Asian-American Literature: A Case Study of ''Fifth Chinese Daughter'' By: Zheng, Da; ''JASAT '', 2002 Oct; 33: 11-30.
#'Nothing Solid': Racial Identity and Identification in ''Fifth Chinese Daughter'' and ''Wilshire Bus'' By: Motooka, Wendy. pp. 207-32 IN: Goldner, Ellen J. ; Henderson-Holmes, Safiya ; ''Racing and Racing Language: Living with the Color of Our Words''. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse UP; 2001. xvi, 300 pp.
#Jade Snow Wong By: Kapai, Leela. pp. 387-90 IN: Nelson, Emmanuel S. ; ''Asian American Novelists: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook''. Westport, CT: Greenwood; 2000. xi, 422 pp.
#''Representing the 'Other': Images of China and the Chinese in the Works of Jade Snow Wong, Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan'' By: Liu, Hong; Dissertation Abstracts International, Section A: The Humanities and Social Sciences, 1999 May; 59 : 4144. U of Toledo, 1998.
#''"Just Translating": The Politics of Translation and Ethnography in Chinese-American Women's Writing'' By: Su, Karen Kai-yuan; Dissertation Abstracts International, Section A: The Humanities and Social Sciences, 1999 Feb; 59 : 2989. U of California, Berkeley, 1998.
#The Meaning of Ethnic Literature to the Historian By: Daniels, Roger. pp. 31-38 IN: Grabher, Gudrun M. ; Bahn-Coblans, Sonja ; ''The Self at Risk in English Literatures and Other Landscapes/Das Risiko Selbst in der englischsprachigen Literatur und in anderen Bereichen''. Innsbruck, Austria: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft, Universit?t Innsbruck; 1999. xvi, 381 pp.
#''Lands of Her Own: The Chinese-American Woman in Two Pioneering Texts'' By: Wong, Patricia May-Lynn; Dissertation Abstracts International, Section A: The Humanities and Social Sciences, 1997 June; 57 : 5156. State U of New York, Binghamton, 1996.
#''Estranging the Natural Elements of Narrative'' By: Shitabata, Russell Hiromu; Dissertation Abstracts International, Section A: The Humanities and Social Sciences, 1997 Mar; 57 : 3952. U of Oregon, 1996.
#Jade Snow Wong's Badge of Distinction in the 1990s By: Su, Karen; ''Hitting Critical Mass: A Journal of Asian American Cultural Criticism'', 1994 Winter; 2 : 3-52.
#The Illusion of the Middle Way: Liberal Feminism and Biculturalism in Jade Snow Wong's ''Fifth Chinese Daughter'' By: Bow, Leslie. pp. 161-75 IN: Revilla, Linda A. ; Nomura, Gail M. ; Wong, Shawn ; Hune, Shirley ; ''Bearing Dream, Shaping Visions: Asian Pacific American Perspectives''. Pullman, WA: Washington State UP; 1993. xv, 282 pp.
#The Tradition of Chinese American Women's Life Stories: Thematics of Race and Gender in Jade Snow Wong's ''Fifth Chinese Daughter'' and Maxine Hong Kingston's ''The Woman Warrior'' By: Lim, Shirley Geok-lin. pp. 252-67 IN: Culley, Margo ; ''American Women's Autobiography: Feats of Memory''. Madison: U of Wisconsin P; 1992. xiii, 329 pp.
#Food as an Expression of Cultural Identity in Jade Snow Wong and ''Songs for Jadina'' By: Cobb, Nora; ''Hawaii Review'', 1988 Spring; 12 : 12-16.
#''The Female Identity in Cross-Cultural Perspective: Immigrant Women's Autobiography'' By: Demirturk, Emine Lale; Dissertation Abstracts International, 1987 Jan.; 47 : 2584A.
#Chinesisch-amerikanische Literatur: Eine Fallstudie anhand zweier Autobiographien By: Meissenburg, Karin. pp. 356-379 IN: Ostendorf, Berndt ; ''Amerikanische Gettoliteratur: Zur Literatur ethnischer, marginaler und unterdrückter Gruppen in Amerika''. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchges.; 1984. 403 pp.
#The Divided Voice of Chinese-American Narration: Jade Snow Wong's ''Fifth Chinese Daughter'' By: Yin, Kathleen Loh Swee; ''MELUS'', 1982 Spring; 9 : 53-59.
#The Icicle in the Desert: Perspective and Form in the Works of Two Chinese-American Women Writers By: Blinde, Patricia Lin; ''MELUS'', 1979 Fall; 6 : 51-71.
Biography
Wong was born in San Francisco and brought up in a family that maintained traditional Chinese customs. Due to the high importance her family placed on education and her own desire to learn, Wong graduated from Mills College in 1942. She worked as a secretary during World War II, and discovered a talent for ceramics. When she began to sell her work in a shop in Chinatown, it quickly found popularity.
Literary and artistic work
In 1950, Wong published the first of her two autobiographical volumes, ''Fifth Chinese Daughter.'' The book was translated into several Asian languages by the , which sent her on a four-month speaking tour of Asia in 1953. "I was sent," Wong wrote, "because those Asian audiences who had read translations of ''Fifth Chinese Daughter'' did not believe a female born to poor Chinese immigrants could gain a toehold among prejudiced Americans." Her second volume, ''No Chinese Stranger,'' was published in 1975.
Wong's pottery was later displayed in art museums across the United States, including a 2002 exhibition at the Chinese Historical Society of America. Towards the end of her life, Wong ran a travel service in San Francisco, and died there in 2006.
Critical studies
#The Oriental/Occidental Dynamic in Chinese American Life Writing: Pardee Lowe and Jade Snow Wong By: Madsen, Deborah L.; ''Amerikastudien/American Studies'', 2006; 51 : 343-53.
#Chinese American Writers of the Real and the Fake: Authenticity and the Twin Traditions of Life Writing By: Madsen, Deborah L.; ''Canadian Review of American Studies/Revue Canadienne d'Etudes Americaines'', 2006; 36 : 257-71.
#Reading Ethnography: The Cold War Social Science of Jade Snow Wong's ''Fifth Chinese Daughter'' and Brown v. Board of Education By: Douglas, Christopher. pp. 101-24 IN: Zhou, Xiaojing ; Najmi, Samina ; ''Form and Transformation in Asian American Literature''. Seattle, WA: U of Washington P; 2005. 296 pp.
#Labored Realisms: Geopolitical Rhetoric and Asian American and Asian Migrant Women's biography By: Hesford, Wendy S.; ''JAC'', 2003; 23 : 77-107.
#Chinese Medicine and Asian-American Literature: A Case Study of ''Fifth Chinese Daughter'' By: Zheng, Da; ''JASAT '', 2002 Oct; 33: 11-30.
#'Nothing Solid': Racial Identity and Identification in ''Fifth Chinese Daughter'' and ''Wilshire Bus'' By: Motooka, Wendy. pp. 207-32 IN: Goldner, Ellen J. ; Henderson-Holmes, Safiya ; ''Racing and Racing Language: Living with the Color of Our Words''. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse UP; 2001. xvi, 300 pp.
#Jade Snow Wong By: Kapai, Leela. pp. 387-90 IN: Nelson, Emmanuel S. ; ''Asian American Novelists: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook''. Westport, CT: Greenwood; 2000. xi, 422 pp.
#''Representing the 'Other': Images of China and the Chinese in the Works of Jade Snow Wong, Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan'' By: Liu, Hong; Dissertation Abstracts International, Section A: The Humanities and Social Sciences, 1999 May; 59 : 4144. U of Toledo, 1998.
#''"Just Translating": The Politics of Translation and Ethnography in Chinese-American Women's Writing'' By: Su, Karen Kai-yuan; Dissertation Abstracts International, Section A: The Humanities and Social Sciences, 1999 Feb; 59 : 2989. U of California, Berkeley, 1998.
#The Meaning of Ethnic Literature to the Historian By: Daniels, Roger. pp. 31-38 IN: Grabher, Gudrun M. ; Bahn-Coblans, Sonja ; ''The Self at Risk in English Literatures and Other Landscapes/Das Risiko Selbst in der englischsprachigen Literatur und in anderen Bereichen''. Innsbruck, Austria: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft, Universit?t Innsbruck; 1999. xvi, 381 pp.
#''Lands of Her Own: The Chinese-American Woman in Two Pioneering Texts'' By: Wong, Patricia May-Lynn; Dissertation Abstracts International, Section A: The Humanities and Social Sciences, 1997 June; 57 : 5156. State U of New York, Binghamton, 1996.
#''Estranging the Natural Elements of Narrative'' By: Shitabata, Russell Hiromu; Dissertation Abstracts International, Section A: The Humanities and Social Sciences, 1997 Mar; 57 : 3952. U of Oregon, 1996.
#Jade Snow Wong's Badge of Distinction in the 1990s By: Su, Karen; ''Hitting Critical Mass: A Journal of Asian American Cultural Criticism'', 1994 Winter; 2 : 3-52.
#The Illusion of the Middle Way: Liberal Feminism and Biculturalism in Jade Snow Wong's ''Fifth Chinese Daughter'' By: Bow, Leslie. pp. 161-75 IN: Revilla, Linda A. ; Nomura, Gail M. ; Wong, Shawn ; Hune, Shirley ; ''Bearing Dream, Shaping Visions: Asian Pacific American Perspectives''. Pullman, WA: Washington State UP; 1993. xv, 282 pp.
#The Tradition of Chinese American Women's Life Stories: Thematics of Race and Gender in Jade Snow Wong's ''Fifth Chinese Daughter'' and Maxine Hong Kingston's ''The Woman Warrior'' By: Lim, Shirley Geok-lin. pp. 252-67 IN: Culley, Margo ; ''American Women's Autobiography: Feats of Memory''. Madison: U of Wisconsin P; 1992. xiii, 329 pp.
#Food as an Expression of Cultural Identity in Jade Snow Wong and ''Songs for Jadina'' By: Cobb, Nora; ''Hawaii Review'', 1988 Spring; 12 : 12-16.
#''The Female Identity in Cross-Cultural Perspective: Immigrant Women's Autobiography'' By: Demirturk, Emine Lale; Dissertation Abstracts International, 1987 Jan.; 47 : 2584A.
#Chinesisch-amerikanische Literatur: Eine Fallstudie anhand zweier Autobiographien By: Meissenburg, Karin. pp. 356-379 IN: Ostendorf, Berndt ; ''Amerikanische Gettoliteratur: Zur Literatur ethnischer, marginaler und unterdrückter Gruppen in Amerika''. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchges.; 1984. 403 pp.
#The Divided Voice of Chinese-American Narration: Jade Snow Wong's ''Fifth Chinese Daughter'' By: Yin, Kathleen Loh Swee; ''MELUS'', 1982 Spring; 9 : 53-59.
#The Icicle in the Desert: Perspective and Form in the Works of Two Chinese-American Women Writers By: Blinde, Patricia Lin; ''MELUS'', 1979 Fall; 6 : 51-71.
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