Preserving a Slice of Taiwan’s Culinary History: Meet Rich and X Wang of Chicago’s Minyoli Taiwanese Noodles 民有里台灣麵館

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Before Minyoli became a Taiwanese restaurant in Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood, it was the name of the military dependents' village where chef Rich Wang and his family had resided for decades. In 1949, the Kuomintang government established hundreds of these villages called juan cun 眷村, to house KMT military personnel and their families who fled to Taiwan after the Chinese Civil War. Wang grew up in the Minyoli juan cun for the first nine years of his life before life in the village became…

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On Family, Love, and Creating: Jocelyn Chung & Julia Kuo (When Love is More Than Words) in conversation with Jasmine Fang

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Jasmine: Hi Jocelyn and Julia! Congratulations Jocelyn on your debut picture book, and thank you both for creating WHEN LOVE IS MORE THAN WORDS. I was immediately intrigued by the title and thrilled to see this Taiwanese American pairing. What a beautiful story that will resonate deeply with young readers. This book is a mirror for me, as I felt transported back to my Taiwanese childhood.  I love that you’ve captured the magic of intergenerational love in WHEN LOVE IS MORE THAN WORDS. What…

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On playfulness, anger, mother-daughter relationships, and all the white space in between: Bo Lu (Bao’s Doll) in conversation with Mikaela Luke

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Bao’s Doll is one of those books that makes you gasp when you first flip through it and stays with you in your mind long after.  Filled with soft hues of blue, red, and purple, the book follows a young girl, Bao, who covets a certain kind of relationship with her Mama, one that she sees between her classmates and their mothers. She also covets a birthday party with cakes and balloons and the blond-haired All-American Artist Amanda doll, much like her friend’s—and she believes that there…

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“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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From “幾乎沒有 Basically Nothing,” Pop-Up Chef James Chang Defines Taiwanese American Cuisine in Kansas City

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[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="1440"] Photo provided by James Chang[/caption] Chef James Chang was perusing the aisle at the Pan Asian Supermarket in Overland Park, Kansas when I spoke with him. Along the way, he picked up soy paste, oyster sauce, black vinegar, rice wine, ChingKiang vinegar. These were items for his upcoming pop-up and a collaboration dinner he was planning for the following week. Chang grew up in Taiwan and Southern California, then moved to Kansas City where he made…

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“Where Every Ghost Has a Name”: Kim Liao in conversation with Cosette Wu

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After hearing Kim Liao speak at the 2024 North American Taiwan Studies Association Conference welcoming plenary session, I found myself eagerly anticipating the September release of her book, Where Every Ghost Has a Name: A Memoir of Taiwanese Independence. In 2010, Kim traveled to Taiwan on a Fulbright, seeking to uncover the story of her grandfather, Thomas Liao (Liao Wen-yi), a prominent leader of the Taiwanese independence movement. Her research led to conversations with family near and far…

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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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A True Family Business: Jessica Wang of Gu Grocery in conversation with Tiffany Ran

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I thought I first met Jessica Wang and her mother, who lovingly goes by the name Mama Peggy, at the LA River Farmers Market a few years ago. But looking back in my shoebox of old photos from high school, I dug out a picture of my friends enjoying a park picnic and there she was. My friend had asked to bring along a family friend that day. We'd all enjoyed a day at the park and I hadn’t seen her since. That is, until the day at the LA River Farmers Market so many years later, when we started chatting…

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On Identity, Writing, and Preserving Heritage: Erica Lee Schlaikjer (“Wild Greens, Beautiful Girl”) in conversation with Crystal Z. Lee

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[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="1296"] Art by Cinyee Chiu. Published by Sleeping Bear Press.[/caption] As a parent, I'm perpetually on the lookout for children’s books about Taiwan or meaningful reads written by fellow Taiwanese American authors. Wild Greens, Beautiful Girl, is a soon-to-be released picture book that has been on my radar ever since I first heard of this award-winning story about an aboriginal Amis girl in Taiwan. My daughters and I were thrilled to receive an advanced…

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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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