Balancing the Trifecta: Growing up Taiwanese, Korean, and American

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  There are 27 picture frames on the wall next to our staircase, each chronicling flashes of the life I know. Pictures of my mom and dad on a vacation to Italy while they were dating, pictures of my brother and me in Mexico, pictures of my brother as a toddler in a pumpkin patch. Pictures of my grandpa’s 60th birthday party, of my parents playing golf with their friends, of my late grandfather with my cousins, of my brother and me sitting on a swing set in Korea. My parents immigrated…

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228 and the Power of Storytelling

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[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="735"] "For those of us who remember that every struggle is for a glory beyond our own." Drawing by Leona Chen, December 2015[/caption] (Amma, I may be studying Walt Whitman, but I am writing my way back to you.) I was born in 1996, the year of Taiwan’s first direct presidential election. Exactly two decades later, we have named the first woman president of Taiwan (and the second female head of state in the history of East Asia). And while we have tremendous…

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