“To be left ignorant about Asian American history is to erase who we are as a people”: Ellie Yang Camp’s “Louder Than the Lies”

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Taiwanese American author Ellie Yang Camp has been a high school history teacher, an artist, and an anti-racist educator. Now she’s taking on another task, authoring Louder Than the Lies: Asian American Identity, Solidarity, and Self-Love. In this book she unpacks the Asian American identity by drawing on personal experiences, stories from her friends, and the history of Asians in America. She also tackles the topic of white supremacy, capitalism, and racial solidarity.   This is not a…

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How bilingual author & pediatric music therapist Isabelle Engler is raising the next generation of Taiwanese Americans

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“Raising the Next Generation” aims to feature and connect stories of Taiwanese American parenthood, caretaking, and community-building across generations. We want to hear from our community on the unique challenges they navigate, the resources and tools they can share with each other, and the triumphs they want to celebrate with us all. We want to showcase and serve how Taiwanese American families are increasingly complex and diverse. They may include transcontinental relationships, intercultural…

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“Baking is working, right?”: Meet Baker Cat Cheng, from Netflix’s “Blue Ribbon Baking Championship”

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Baker Cat Cheng of Cat’s Bakes on Discovering a Her New Talent and Chasing the Blue Ribbon Cat Cheng became a music teacher straight out of college, but found herself struggling to continue down that path despite devoting much of her life to the craft. When COVID hit, she, like many, took to baking as a hobby and a distraction. But her skills quickly flourished and she saw the potential for baking to become a small business. Within a few short years, she launched Cat’s Bakes, a home baking business,…

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Taiwanese Homecoming: Meet Artist Felicia Liang

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We may try, but it’s not often our travel scrapbooks look as vivid as artist Felicia Liang’s. Liang’s art often depicts the cuisine, still life, and everyday objects of the Asian American experience. In 2022, as she prepared for a trip to Taiwan, she grabbed a set of color pencils, her preferred medium. There, she would sketch a range of foods and scenes she encountered during her three-month stay: scenes of Taiwanese breakfast, cafe eats, local sweets, and colorful dumplings. The contents…

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“Half a World Apart”: Grace Loh Prasad (The Translator’s Daughter) in conversation with Jami Nakamura Lin

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I’ve had the pleasure of following Grace Loh Prasad’s writing for years, after we met in a Facebook group for writers. (We finally met in person at AWP in 2021, at a gathering of Taiwanese American writers, and have met up at every AWP since!) After getting to see her journey from afar—and getting to read excerpts of her memoir in different literary journals—I was so delighted to be able to read The Translator’s Daughter (Ohio State University Press/Mad Creek Books) in full this year.  In…

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Real You Mandarin: Angela Lin on Empowering American-born Mandarin Speakers to have Adult Conversations

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Real You Mandarin is an online language course created by Taiwanese American and Taiwanese co-founders Angela Lin and Jane Liu. Angela is Taiwanese American, with extensive language learning experience across multiple languages and learning techniques. As creator and co-host of the But Where Are You Really From? Podcast, she has spent years discussing the unique cultural and identity challenges faced by Asian Americans, and brings that exploration as inspiration for this course. Jane, a…

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Beyond Boba: Grunge Rock, Taiwanese Democracy, and the Model Minority Myth—in A Kid’s Book

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  The idea for my first novel for kids, It’s Boba Time for Pearl Li!, came pretty easily. Anti-Asian and Asian American hate had surged in the early days of the pandemic, with its hateful perpetrators demanding that many of us who have lived in the US our entire lives “go home.” To resist their cruelty, I decided to create a sweet, happy, joyful book that showcased a normal, everyday, highly relatable Taiwanese American kid— one who was super proud of her heritage. And what immensely…

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NOW CASTING: First-generation Taiwanese immigrants, 60+ years

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"Life Lessons from Ah-Ma and Ah-Gong" is a documentary about first generation Taiwanese immigrants passing on their wisdom, stories, and skills to their grandchildren and the next generation. Click here to see a teaser on the website. From cooking, fishing, and gardening to history, language, and Taiwanese etiquette, the subjects of these lessons will unlock personal histories and deep memories, providing an intimate lens into the early years of a diverse Taiwanese American community pushed and…

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“KITE”: On Crossing and Choreographing ‘Min Bridges’

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The old railway in HaMaXing Is the perfect place for flying a kite As breeze plays in the air The kite flies in the sky The kite flies among the trees The kite flies into every kid’s laughter The kite flies back to Dad’s childhood time   A time when  Grandpa worked and went fishing  Like a kite that flew and flew  All the way to the faraway seas  The kite’s string – Tied tightly around Grandma’s heart Held firmly between Dad’s hands – Supports…

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