Posted on Leave a comment

Interview with Dr. Carolee Tran, Author of The Gifts of Adversity (Part 1)

​​​​Dr. Carolee GiaoUyen Tran is a refugee and the first Vietnamese woman to earn a PhD in clinical psychology in America. She received her doctorate from Boston University and completed her internship at Harvard Medical School. She teaches at the UC Davis Medical School Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and has a private practice in Sacramento, California. 

Your new book is titled, “The Gifts of Adversity.” To you, what are the gifts of adversity? What does this phrase mean to you?

The gifts of adversity are the things we learn about ourselves and the gifts we receive from having gone through various adversities. Going through life’s challenges can reveal our greatest strengths. We learn that we can persevere through hard times, that we’re resilient, courageous, and resourceful. We learn that we have the capacity to cope, survive, and thrive in the darkest of times. Living through adversities can also help us identify with others who have suffered and have compassion and empathy for them. It can awaken our humanity and inspire us to help others.

In your book, you talk about the bullying you experienced after arriving in the United States, including being called derogatory names, such as “boat person,” due to being a Vietnamese refugee from an impoverished background. How did you deal with these adverse childhood experiences at such a young age?

These incidents of bullying were extremely painful and ALMOST  broke me. I became depressed, anxious, and contemplated suicide. What saved me was the love I had for my siblings and parents, knowing that I would cause them great heartache if I took my own life, and that my siblings needed my love and care. So I coped by focusing on my family and excelling in my schoolwork. The gift that came from this adversity was discovering my own resilience. I learned that I had an inner strength and resourcefulness that enabled me to cope, mobilize, survive, and thrive through this very difficult time of my life. Seeing how my parents coped with racists acts against them with such courage and dignity also helped me to persevere through mine.

You discuss in great detail your memories of your family’s escape by boat from Vietnam during the Vietnam War. How does this journey continue to affect you today?

I get triggered by various current events such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the fall of Kabul, deportations of migrants at the borders, the list could go on and on. My heart aches for all these people who have suffered so much. I try to channel my energies into advocating for immigrants and refugees in various ways. My feature in the documentary “My Vietnam War Story,” this book, and countless talks I’ve given throughout the U.S., at professional and education institutions have been my efforts to educate the public about the devastation, displacement, and suffering of war, as well as cultivate a deeper understanding and compassion for immigrants and refugees worldwide.

You also talk a lot about your relationship with Dad and weathering the “seasons of a marriage.” Given you and Dad both came from drastically different upbringings and experiences, how were you able to “weather these seasons” together without growing apart?

While your dad and I are racially, ethnically, and culturally different, we have deep love and respect for one another. We also share similar values in our appreciation for good food, closeness to our families, a commitment to growing together as a couple, as well as shared interests in cross-cultural psychology, traveling, and the arts. These commonalities and the strong commitment to one another have carried us through the seasons of our marriage and allowed us to deepen our relationship over the past 35 years.

A common theme throughout your book is the hard work and grit of grandpa and grandma, who both worked multiple jobs to support your family, and made many sacrifices for their family. You also discuss how they experienced extensive downward mobility when moving to America from Vietnam. In your childhood, what extra responsibilities did you have to take on to help support you, your sister and Dad?

I became the third parent to my four younger siblings. I took care of them, cooked and cleaned for them, and did their laundry. It was loving them in all these ways that made me know early on that I wanted to be a mother someday. I loved my siblings like they were my own children. To this day, we are still extremely close and are very supportive and protective of one another. They are some of my life’s greatest gifts aside from your sister and dad.

In Southeast Asian culture to this day, mental health is still heavily stigmatized. How do you help your patients, and those in the community to work through these stigmas in your work with them?

I tell my patients that mental health is just as important as  physical health, that they are interconnected, so we need to take care of both in order to be healthy. If we have diabetes or heart disease, we need to treat it. It’s the same with mental health. Also, some clients resist going to therapy because they think it’s only for people who are “crazy.” I emphasize to them that therapy is one of the most responsible and loving things we can do for ourselves and others. When we get therapy, it improves our quality of life, and in turn helps everyone we come into contact with.   


About Interviewee: Dr. Tran is the author of “The Gifts of Adversity: Reflections of a Psychologist, Refugee, and Survivor of Sexual Abuse.” She also has a segment in the documentary series My Vietnam War Story, produced by PBS station KVIE, and aired in conjunction with Ken Burns’ The Vietnam War documentary. Her segment of the documentary was nominated for a Northern California Emmy in 2018.  She was also featured in a 2022 documentary by Retro Report entitled How the U.S. Has Treated Wartime Refugees. You can learn more about her work at caroleetran.com.


About Interviewer: Carina Kimlan Hinton is a mixed race, Vietnamese American poet and writer who explores issues of identity, cultural belonging and intergenerational trauma in her writing. Her mother’s family are Vietnamese refugees, and she grew up hearing stories of their escape during the Vietnam War. She seeks to understand this journey and legacy in my writing. In 2020, she graduated from UC Berkeley with a major in History, and concentration in Post Vietnam War Vietnamese Amerasian History. As part of her program, she completed a senior thesis exploring the experiences of Vietnamese Amerasian children born in Vietnam during the war. She is a regular contributor to publications such as Project Yellow Dress, Vietnamese Boat People and Diacritics/Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network. She was a finalist for the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) Digital Storytelling Contest.

Posted on Leave a comment

Good Girl, Best Girl

From the day I was born, like many other little girls, I learned how to be good. 

I said Thank you too much, too eagerly and apologized when outcomes were not my fault. I did not complain when I felt sad and I did not complain when I felt mad. 

Frankly, there is nothing inherently wrong with the idea of being good. To be good means you’re polite. Kids like you and grownups like you. You dress to impress. You’re invited to exclusive spaces where you pretend you’re part of that world. At the end of the night, you lie on your bed, your cheeks sore from smiling at any and all jokes, but happy that you’re liked. More importantly, you’re happy that you’re welcomed back. 

When you’re a good girl, American society rewards you, but when you’re a good Asian girl, American society forgets you and Asian society doesn’t want anything to do with you.

I was lucky though.

Being third generation, my family was supposedly past all this “good girl, bad girl” bullshit. In my family, there were girls who went to school and graduated with the highest honors. They rebelled against bound feet and ran away from arranged marriages. They lived longer than their husbands. They fixed their own floors and car engines. Anyone who has met the girls in my family knows that they’re a force to be reckoned with because while most stand at an average of 5 feet, they demand to be seen and they demand to be heard. In fact, they are so above the “good girl” title that they want to be the “best girl.”

And when you have a family striving to fill the “best girl” role, even “good girl” becomes a low hanging fruit.

As a child, I participated in numerous sports, art classes, summer camps, and tutoring sessions. My mother drove me from practice to practice, our commute taking us all around the city. Every day started at 8AM and ended at 6PM. Excelling was a job within itself.

By twelve, my parents saw that I was no Einstein. Not even close. Unlike my 4.0 younger sister, my GPA hovered around a 2.9 and my grades depended on extra credit and good relationships to get me into high school. When our teacher called for students with honors, 95% of the class stood up while a handful of us sunk low into our seats.

In sports, I lined my participation trophies, medals, and ribbons by the window. Volleyball, basketball, tee-ball, swimming, gymnastics, and soccer. My mom called me the one hit wonder for all the one year commitments.

It took a bit of stumbl

i

   n

      g, 

          but I eventually found my stride.

IstartedcollegeandworkedwithnumerouscommunityorganizationsanddidsummerinternshipsandtookonleadershippositionsandstudiedabroadandhadmyfirstkissandcofoundedafilmfestivalanddoublemajoredandgraduatedwithaMastersdegreeandhadateachingjobrightoutofgradschoolandmovedoutandgotengaged.

I’m sprinting an endless race.

Three. Good girls don’t rest, they stretch.

Two. Good girls jog and they stay focused.

One. Best girls focus and then, they run.

The gun goes off.

My feet are sore, calluses hardened at the touch. My arms limp at the side of my body. My breathing is ragged, hot and there’s tightening in my stomach. My legs, though, keep running and running. They are numb to the pain. They know no end.

In only the past two years have I begun to take breaks and drink water. I’ve made boundaries a priority and worked to keep a solid group of friends around me. There are days I feel lighter and other days where my shoulders sag from the weight.

Still, I must throw my teachings and values against the wall again and again until they’ve been glued and taped again and again. In the mirror, I watch tears stream down my face uncontrollably, allowing my sobs to evolve into hiccups. The pieces shatter onto my beautiful wooden floors like the start of a Picasso.

I’m left searching for pieces under couches and rugs. I crouch down on the floor and a large “Ugh” escapes my lips. Sometimes, they’re so small that they blend in. It may take at least a week to vacuum this mess. 

As I glue the pieces together to form this new version of my own values, I see that good girl holds nothing. It’s practically useless.

Best girl, too, holds nothing. 

Reluctantly, both are tossed in the trash.

My arm stretches behind the couch towards the corner of the room. Covered in dust and other questionable particles is a small, oddly shaped piece. It’s been ignored for years. The piece belongs in the middle. I squint and hold it up to the light.

It’s me.

And it holds the world.

Born and raised in San Francisco, Katie Quan (she/her) is a third generation Chinese American. She is an illustrator, comic artist, educator, and artivist. As a descendent of a paper, doctor, grocery store owner, and librarian, her life work centers around Asian American narratives, moments, and spaces. Her comic web series, GenerAsian, has been exhibited at SF Zinefest, Kearny Street Workshop, and Chinese Historical Society of America. She founded REALSOUL, a curriculum-based organization, aimed to make Asian American history accessible and intersectional.

Posted on Leave a comment

Dear Mom and Dad,

I understand why I can’t go to protests, but I just wanted to express why I feel strong enough to risk my safety. I am not questioning your support of the movement, but I am questioning how you choose to show your support. Yes, my safety is important, but I believe that the effect my presence can have is worth the risk. I have been following news of other protesters and I understand how dangerous it can be especially now, but I would take all precautions because my presence and active voice is what’s more important to me. I understand that I won’t be able to go to this particular protest because of how dangerous it really is. 

I always hear you talking about how ridiculous the racism that we, and other communities, face is. I want you to understand that the movement is part of the solution for the future and I want to be able to be a part of that. I have been supporting the movement from home for a while now through petitions and spreading awareness and resources and I will continue to do so. 

I completely understand the concern of being exposed to large groups right now. However, when I talked to 哥哥 and 姐姐 about how I should start this conversation, they already knew that there was a low chance that you would let me go. We recognize that you take a more passive and safe stance on topics like this and that is where I see the problem. To support the movement, but not do anything to actually make a difference is not actually supporting it. Especially because this movement is a battle against centuries of systemic racism, any and every thing that we do as individuals is essential to the fight. We can’t just sit back and watch what happens to the people who are risking their lives for this movement and say, “Wow, that’s a shame” while getting back to our lives. Can’t you see that if we do everything that we can we will see a future where people’s livelihoods will no longer be threatened by the very system that is meant to protect them? 

A starting point is reflecting on your own prejudices against the black community. Historically, Asian communities hold anti-black sentiment and I have seen this from you first hand. This will make you uncomfortable to read, but it is true. I know that you will avoid the predominantly black neighborhoods because you’re afraid of how dangerous it could be. I know that you will quicken your pace as you walk by a black man. I know that you hold these prejudices whether you realize it or not. And I know you won’t discriminate against a black person intentionally, but this behavior has shown me that you do so unintentionally. So, within yourself is where you can start to make change. Read books, listen to podcasts, go online and learn about the experiences of people who don’t look like us. Just because we are also people of color, it will never mean that we understand what any black person faces on a daily basis. But we can do our part 

and educate ourselves on how the system fails black and brown communities at a disproportionate rate so that we can inform our everyday decisions. 

I know that you support the movement, but I’m asking you right now to reevaluate how you show that support. Recognize that it takes being uncomfortable to actually grow and change. If at any point reading this you felt offended or attacked, sit in that and ask yourself why that is. I don’t want you to focus on the various risks that using your voice can hold. I want you to see how valuable one person’s voice can be because when more people actually show up for the black community, our voices will be heard and changes will be made. 

With a hopeful heart,

Christy

Christy is a Chinese American San Francisco native who loves to read, bake, and draw.

Posted on Leave a comment

Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder

In early 2020, I spent 6 weeks in Asia. This was my first time there for such a long duration and I had no idea how drastically the world would change in a few months. As I wandered blissfully through Ho Chi Minh City, Bohol, Taipei, I felt something in me relax that I hadn’t realized I was holding so tightly. 

Although I had grown up in a predominantly Asian community, I experienced a nasty culture shock when I moved to Boston for college. Boston was the first place where I was made to feel like an outsider, where “friends” made fun of the smell of my cooking and strangers on the street yelled “Konichiwa”. After graduating, I fled back to California but my new perspective on race endured. As I became a therapist, I started working in primarily black and brown communities where I was simultaneously accepted as another person of color and still held at arm’s length.

In Asia, there was a distinct sense of relief knowing that I wouldn’t be singled out for my black hair or almond-shaped eyes. Even in countries where I didn’t speak the language, I felt a sense of ease that was rare for me in the United States. How grateful I felt to be able to lay down the question that hung over so many of my interactions: “Are they treating me like this because I’m Asian?”

One day at a mall in Singapore, I came across a beautiful dark green jumpsuit that had a collar and sleeves just like a traditional qipao. I reached for it and then felt an internal stutter that stopped me in my tracks. Was it “too Asian”? Did I want to invite this kind of attention? Would I really wear this back in America?

A sequence of memories flashed through my mind: 

trying hard not to be perceived as “fobby”

a constant feeling that I was missing some script at college

a mixture of shame and relief when I ended up with mostly Asian-American friends on campus.

Hypothetical futures also popped up: fielding comments about my outfit from maybe well-meaning but ignorant others, being exoticized by men, feeling out of place at some restaurant. 

How deeply do we internalize racism? So many Asian-American clients come to me in distress at feeling not enough. They talk about getting feedback at work around needing to be more assertive. Men talk about being unwanted when they try to date. Somewhere along the way we become convinced that we are the problem, that if only we looked a certain way or acted differently, we would be accepted. 

We deny parts of ourselves and our heritage in an attempt to “get it right” but the self-blaming doesn’t work either. The mental and emotional fatigue that comes from trying to fit into the dominant culture can be further compounded by the pressure and guilt to live up to our family’s different expectations. 

A lot of my personal healing has happened at the intersection of my identities of being a woman, being a person of color, and being Asian-American. I have had to put in a lot of work around recognizing racist beliefs within me and trying to replace the narratives with something more joyful. At that time in 2020, I had just begun to let go of my fear of being pigeonholed professionally in order to accept that I found it especially meaningful to work with Asian-American clients.

It’s a work in progress. 

It is challenging to find ways to follow my heart and honor my heritage, a process that is modeled all too rarely. 

It is also deeply vulnerable to do so in public, such as by wearing this jumpsuit out and about. 

That day I didn’t even try it on, making some excuse to myself about my budget. 

As I continue to learn and grow, I hope that I can better embrace all of the parts of my identity. While the jumpsuit didn’t come home with me, the memory of it lingers, encouraging me to appreciate the inherent beauty found in all cultures, especially my own.

Naomi (she/her) is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist (CA – LMFT#110092) and Registered Art Therapist (ATR) based in the San Francisco Bay Area and Portland, OR. She is a psychotherapist with Anise Health. She also has a private practice and leads groups/workshops in corporate, nonprofit, and community settings. In addition, Naomi serves on the Advisory Circle for New Seneca Village, a nonprofit network offering restorative retreats for cis, trans and non-binary Black, Indigenous and women of color leaders. 

Anise Health is the first culturally-responsive digital mental health platform offering therapy, coaching, and digital self-service tools that are tailored for the unique needs of communities of color. Our interventions move away from diagnosis-driven, Eurocentric models and towards incorporating culture and intersectionality into evidence-based treatments, which research shows to be 5x more effective.


Interested? Anise is available in California and is currently accepting Asian-identifying adults (ages 18+) and partners/family members as new clients. Get started by filling out the short intake form; you will be matched to culturally-responsive clinicians within 2 business days. If you identify with another community of color or reside in another state, sign up for the distribution list to be the first to know about upcoming launches!

Posted on Leave a comment

On Grief (Part I)

My experience as a Chinese American has been marked with memories that are not entirely mine. Historical trauma can feel so personal and personal trauma can be historical. In these unprecedented times when there is so much social, political, environmental upheaval and turmoil, I felt it was necessary to look inwards and to address some of the feelings that had been bubbling inside of me but are not unique to me. This piece has been cathartic, and felt almost like metaphorical bloodletting – with my keyboard being the leech. Hopefully, it can be the same for others.

Part I

I’m 7 when I see my grandmother for the last time. She wraps her thick, wizened fingers around my little hands. I don’t remember what she says, my ears blocked by the flurry of thoughts in my head. I’m adamant that I’ll see her again. I tell her that I’ll come back for sure. I’ll go to college, I pledge. I’ll get rich and buy you a BIG house. Just you see. She nods. I’m not sure if she’s sad, looking down at me without smile or frown. I’m not even sure if I’m sad, sweat dripping down my neck in the heat of all that is a Hoisan summer, wanting to go back to America where my head doesn’t have to steam with heat.

She waves when I get into my uncle’s truck. I watch her grow smaller until I can no longer see her. I whip my head back around to the front and look forward.

I feel a tiny pang in my chest that I don’t understand.

 ////////////////////////////////////////

I’m 8 and we have the same conversation over the phone over and over again for a year. She says are you doing good, Little Puppy? I’m good, Popo. I’m being good. I miss you. Do you want to talk to mom? 

The phone calls are less frequent. Mom says Popo is busy, and I find that it’s okay. Because it scares me. Popo scares me. Chee ngoy. Alzheimer’s. I don’t get really get it. I’ve only ever seen it on TVB. Old people just forget. right?

////////////////////////////////////////

Popo stars brightly in the first chapter of my life. I’m her youngest grandchild, and she moves to America to look after me. She takes me everywhere.  She teaches me how to count, first in Hoisan-wa, then in Cantonese. Out of all her grandchildren, I know she loves me best. I’m her Little Puppy.

I used to have nine children she says sometimes. Now I have six.

I wonder if she can see any of them in me.  

My father yells at her all the time. Probably too much. She asks me why he does that. I hear the pain in her voice, and it fills me with rage. I tell her not to listen to him.

 ////////////////////////////////////////

My mother doesn’t tell me my grandmother dies until years after it happens.

I only figure it out when I see her grave for myself and do the math. I’m 24. I don’t confront my mom. It occurs to me that I had stopped hearing from Popo gradually until I don’t hear from her at all.

 ////////////////////////////////////////

I remember Popo turning on the faucet in our house.  The water in the tub rises, billows over the rim. Aiya, I forgot. She says. 

Everyone gets upset at Popo. They yell, and I don’t want them to. I don’t get it. It’s okay, everyone forgets sometimes. Shouldn’t we respect our elders?

Melissa Chen really is like any other ABC who grew up with a bowl cut and can’t swim. On occasion, she writes.

Posted on Leave a comment

A Story of Intersection

One of our former YIP interns, Christy, reflects on her Chinese American identity and the importance of each culture coexisting within her when society will only focus on each culture as separate aspects.

On the first day of my 11th grade English class, we were asked to share one aspect about ourselves that we thought was important for our peers to know. By then, I had enough experience in predominantly white spaces to know that my ethnicity would always be of speculation. I look Asian, with my straight black hair, “eyes that kiss in the corners,”  and lack of a nose bridge to hold my sunglasses, but what type of Asian? Where are my ancestors from? Am I Korean? Japanese? Filipino? All of which I’ve been ignorantly asked and all of which I’ve laughed off and said “no” to. I wanted to eliminate this confusion that somehow always arose as people took it upon themselves to try and guess my ethnicity, almost always complete strangers or people I barely spoke to. So, to get rid of all the speculation and apparent curiosity of my ethnicity, I stood up knowing exactly what I would share that day. 

I felt very lucky to be in one of the few English classes that was mostly people of color. Had I been in a predominantly white classroom (like most of my other classes) I would have felt very different, less understood, sharing my ethnicity to my classmates. I turned to my first partner and said, “I am Chinese American.” As another woman of color, she empathetically nodded and snapped in agreement as I explained how many times people had questioned my ethnicity and how uncomfortable it made me feel. Then, I turned to my next partner and explained the same thing, but as a white man who could not empathize with my experience, I got a slow head nod and a single “right.”

To my first partner, I felt understood and empowered sharing this aspect of my identity, but to my second partner, I felt heard, but perhaps not fully understood. I had proclaimed my Chinese American identity to these two classmates so that they would know how I identify, but what does being Chinese American actually mean for me?

Chinese American. 

Not just Chinese and not only American, but Chinese American. 

This distinction is important. 

I grew up immersed in my Chinese heritage. Everyday, for eight years, I sat in a classroom surrounded by posters filled with bright bubbly cartoons and Chinese poems we learned to recite. I (mostly) spoke to my classmates in only Cantonese, otherwise we wouldn’t get a gold star for the day. And practiced brush strokes and sentence structures that we used in our own short stories. In middle school, Mandarin classes were tacked on to our schedule where we read, wrote, and recited common phrases we may need in conversation. All of this was to prepare for our class trip to China where we would stay with a host family for four days. 

When we arrived in mainland China, I quickly felt out of place. Having to use a translator to speak to my host family, feeling accomplished when I could order my own meal, being too afraid to bargain at the market, I had never felt further from home in a country where I claim parts of my identity originate from. I thought that my Chinese heritage, and maybe my eight years of Chinese immersion, would be enough for me to blend in with the locals. But when I confidently replied to a question that my host father asked, he was shocked that I answered in Mandarin. Granted, my Mandarin is far from perfect, but it was clear to me that my host family only saw me as American. In China, my Chinese identity felt invisible, and my identity felt stripped to just American, but I know this wasn’t true.

When I take walks to stretch my legs during this pandemic, I can’t help but worry that I’ll be spat on again or be blamed for bringing in COVID-19, even though I’ve only been to China once. It’s obvious to people here that I’m not “American” enough to be treated with the dignity and respect all people deserve, no matter their nationality, citizenship, language, sexuality, etc. As I saw in my trip to China, it was clear to everyone else that being American is part of my identity, just like being Chinese is. What’s more important is how this intersectional aspect of my identity has shaped me. 

When I go to order a drink with my mom and the non-Chinese barista musters a 谢谢 as we pay or when my brother and I are taking the elevator up to our hotel room and complete strangers strike up a conversation about the best Chinese restaurant around, it becomes clear to me how obvious it is to people here that I must be more than American. 

And, well, I am more than American. 

I can’t help but see eight as a lucky number and four as its forbidden counterpart. I crave mooncake all year round, but I don’t like the egg yolk like the rest of my family. We eat our dim sum while we watch Jeopardy, celebrate Lunar New Year with red envelopes and Mitchell’s ice cream, and even drink the 7-up and Coca Cola set at our favorite Chinese restaurants’ tables. I wouldn’t be who I am today if I didn’t learn how to count in Chinese before I did in English (always using Chinese to count in fives even to this day) or if I didn’t learn the correct strokes of my Chinese name while I ate my chicken nuggets. Being Chinese American is a part of who I am and it’s a piece of my identity that I’m proud of. 

After finally realizing that there isn’t only one narrative to follow as a Chinese American, I began to claim the title Chinese American because I get to create my own narrative of what that’s “supposed” to look like. I now know it is valid for my Chinese and American identities to coexist within me. There are certainly times when holding this identity brings hardships. Especially during this pandemic with the increase in anti-Asian American crimes, but it pushes me to seek communities that advocate for positive change and growth. 

As I navigate the world as a young adult, I am learning about the vast and loving broader Asian American community that constantly breaks stereotypes about us in the fight for change. I am constantly inspired by this community to be my authentic self because that is exactly what being Chinese American means to me.

Christy is a Chinese American San Francisco native who loves to read, bake, and draw.

Posted on Leave a comment

Adult Doesn’t Equal Effortless

On writing this piece: I brain dumped a ton of ideas, then whittled it down to this. It took a very long time, not sure how long, at least six hours total. This was going to be a rant about how harmful the “just work harder” refrain has been for me, but I surprised myself when I found more peace than anger.

I don’t know how others will perceive my ADHD-friendly daily routine. Will it be mindbogglingly different to them? It’s just my everyday life. What I’m taking from this is that I am able to accept my ADHD tendencies, rather than force myself to work ever harder to be some “competent adult” that was never really me. 

My ADHD brain is all I’ve ever known.

I find grocery shopping, getting a chai latte at a cafe, and any sort of cooking confusing and overwhelming.

Well-intentioned adults reassured me that all this would eventually get easier. Maybe it did for them, but adulting is still a daily struggle for me, even four years after graduating college and entering “real” adult life. In therapy and on my own, I’ve spent countless hours devising strategies and systems to help me do these tasks in the first place, rather than try to avoid them forever.

“Adulting” actually demands a lot of executive function (the ability to set and work towards goals), which I don’t have much of, thanks to my ADHD. I’m never going to coast through life with the dutiful ease and unflagging attention that I attempted to achieve for so long. This brain is all I’ve got, so I might as well give it what it needs to do its best.

And guess what? I have finally brought wellness into my life, not by following the perennial Chinese advice of WORK HARDER, but rather with acceptance and carefully selected strategies I know work for me.

Here’s the gist of my day:

I am asleep in bed. 

My phone alarm rings and wakes my unsnoozable dog Odie, who then steps on me to wake me up. 

“Okay, okay, I’m up!” I sit up. “Wait a sec, let me take my meds.” 

I get out of bed. 

“Okay, Emily go pee.” 

I go to the bathroom and come back. 

Odie is laying on his mat, utterly bored.

We head downstairs and don our walking gear.

“Walk time! Let’s go!” 

Odie is the gym I actually use. (On my own, it can take me more than a week to summon enough executive function to walk around the block or do 20 minutes of yoga, if I somehow don’t give up or forget.)

After our walk, I have no idea what I’m doing for the rest of the day. (My calendar knows, but I haven’t bothered to check it.) 

I always go sit at my desk after our morning walk though, so I do that. 

I’m not entirely sure what I do between sitting down at my desk and realizing multiple hours have passed and I should probably bring Odie out to pee. These days, my desk is probably the site of some meandering combination of emails, writing, watching YouTube videos, and coloring. (My brain doesn’t keep time accurately, and I haven’t bothered to look at the three analog clocks in my room and therefore have no idea what time it is. It’s an easy summer day, so whatever I do is okay, as long as I’m not hangry—then it’s a mad dash to feed the Emily before she gets even madder.)

After dinner, I mess around at my desk for at least an hour before I’ve gathered the energy to go brush my teeth. 

That process goes like this in my head:

“Gotta brush my teeth…” 

Some time later: “Maybe I should brush my teeth…” 

Even later: “Haven’t brushed my teeth yet…” 

And so on, until, at last, “ugh, FINE, I’ll brush my teeth.” 

Every night. 

At some point, I’ll take melatonin to ensure I get sleepy and not be catapulted by some online article into a late-night reading rampage.

These are my good days, when adulting doesn’t give me overwhelm-induced headaches, panic attacks, and confusion that morphs into self-loathing. These are the days I feel at peace with who I am, that I deserve to give myself the ample time I need to do things at a pace I don’t have to sacrifice my sanity for. 

Perhaps the way I go through life is more circuitous, slow, and effortful than for most. I’ve absorbed more than my fair share of messages urging me to work harder, hurry up, remember better, and contort myself into someone more “prepared for the adult world.” Whose adult world?

In my adult world, it is okay to forget, be confused, and take days, weeks, even months to do things many people could do in an hour. These things need to be okay, because however much I work to avoid them, my tangles of executive dysfunction are a core part of who I am, and I need–and what a relief!–to be okay with being the real, unadulterated (pun intended) me.

Emily Chen (she/her) 陳怡君 is a Taiwanese American mental health activist, writer, and singer based in Newton, Massachusetts. Check out DisOrient, her YouTube series on Asian American mental health!

Posted on Leave a comment

The Search for Asian Pride

“We didn’t think you’d be very happy with us if we made you go to Chinese school on the weekend,” my white mom explained when I confronted her about how not speaking the language of my ancestors feels like a giant missing piece of my identity as a third-generation biracial Chinese-white woman.

To be fair, I probably wouldn’t have been happy. I hated being Chinese as a little girl. The less I stood out, the better. I was thankful I didn’t have an accent. Proud my name was something everyone could pronounce. Glad I ate PB&J for lunch so no one made fun of the way my food smelled. Even though I still got the question “What are you?” or “Where are you really from?,” as soon as I explained myself in perfect English, people backed down. When I found myself in white-majority spaces, which was most of my childhood, I’d be quick to defend myself with, “Yes, I’m half-Chinese…but no, I don’t speak the language.” As if to say, Don’t worry, I’m more like you than you think. On the rare occasion I met another Asian person, I’d be quick to say, “Yes, I’m half-Chinese…but no, I don’t speak what language.” As if to say, Don’t get too excited, I’m less like you than you think. 

Thinking back to how deeply I rejected my Chinese heritage makes me ill. Even as I write this, the creases of my eyes have formed tiny pools of water, my breath has quickened, I’m twisting and turning in my wicker chair wondering how I can escape the grief that is two seconds away from swallowing me whole. The way I fluffed up the fact I can’t speak Chinese and the way I downplayed my Asianness is a sick reminder of white supremacy at work, the person I was taught to privilege and all that my family has lost in doing so. 

“You’re fantasizing what it would be like to live where there are more Asians,” my husband, Andrew, who is a first-generation Chinese American, told me a few months ago in the middle of a heated argument about where to live. We were in Asheville, NC at the time. He loved it there, could picture us there, having a family, settling down. Each time I tried to join him in this dream, pictured it for myself, I would cry, stomp around, secretly plot how I would make a run for it if he made me live there. We could count the number of Asians we saw in our month living there on one hand. We ordered a DIY boba kit from Boba Guys to make boba at home because there were hardly any spots in town. I couldn’t for the life of me find an Asian acupuncturist even though acupuncture is a form of Traditional Chinese Medicine. I went to one lady who I thought might be half-Asian but it turned out she was just tan in her pictures. 

“Why does it even matter to you?” Andrew once asked. It’s true. Being surrounded by Asians hasn’t always been important to me. But that was back when I thought I was white. What most people don’t understand about racial trauma is it not only instills fear in being yourself but it robs you of all the good things too: community, food, traditions, celebrations, joy. In healing my racial trauma, I’m opening the door to a whole new feeling: pride. 

I am proud to be Asian. And, to me, that matters a lot.

Elizabeth Su, MA (she/her) is a writer, perfectionism expert, and the founder of Monday Vibes (www.elizabethsu.com), a personal growth newsletter and network for women named “12 Newsletters Actually Worth Opening” by Zoella, on a mission to change the narratives that women have been told about success and happiness.

She left a six-figure salary at a hot Silicon Valley start-up because she realized she was trying to win a game she didn’t want to play. She has since dedicated her career to empowering women, teaching about emotional and spiritual wellness, and changing the rules of the game. She’s currently working on her first book around these topics.

Posted on Leave a comment

It’s All Relative

One of our YIP interns, Luna grapples with the differing degrees of “Asianness” she holds in the worlds of public, parochial, and independent schools, and what constantly navigating those worlds has taught her about her own identity and the broader Asian American community.

The day after high school acceptance letters came out, my middle school friend, also Asian American, turned around in class and told me, half-joking, half-serious, “Don’t turn too white.”

What was that supposed to mean? Did the existence of “too white” imply there was such a thing as “just enough white?” My middle school was a predominantly-white private school and my high school would be, too. If I were to “turn white,” wouldn’t it have happened already?

Well, it turns out things were more complicated than I’d imagined. When I transferred to my parochial middle school, a mere five blocks from my public elementary school, I’d had to adjust to a world that was mostly Catholic and Irish, although most people grew up in the Sunset District like me. In high school, located just 2.5 miles away, I discovered yet another world, full of people who were atheist and Jewish and lived in Pacific Heights and Palo Alto and Piedmont, in the kinds of houses I’d only ever seen in magazines. There’s a sort of cognitive dissonance around high schools like mine—selective, expensive institutions with application processes mirroring college admissions that market accessibility and diversity. 

This dissonance spilled out into me as I tried to find my place in this new environment. 

Here I was, learning to take pride in my culture at affinity clubs and reading school books written by Asians, still embarrassed when my parents came to school and I realized how unpolished their English sounded next to other parents with their medical and doctoral degrees. 

Here I was, befriending white people for the first time in years, still overthinking every fashion choice, song selection, and pop culture reference to prove, maybe to them, maybe to myself, that I fit in. 

Here I was, placing into Chinese 3, still knowing that if I were truly fluent in my first language, I wouldn’t have to take a class on it at all. For all my outward embracing of Asian-ness, a million insecurities lurked in the corners of my mind.

The summer after my freshman year, I spent a month at an intense STEM program run by the University of California. I was in the math cluster: the nerdiest of the nerds. Given the STEM focus and Bay Area campus, most kids were East and South Asian. I felt like I’d entered a parallel universe; an alternate reality where I spent my weekends at Chinese school and math competitions instead of soccer games (actually, I was my middle school’s one-woman math team for two years, but that’s beside the point). I was a fish out of water. Not just because geometry was the hardest math class I’d ever taken and I was one of eight girls in a group of twenty-seven. At school, I was the overachieving East Asian kid with perfect grades. These were the real tiger babies,* taking Calc BC as fifteen-year-olds and whizzing through computer science olympiad questions like they were nothing. They went to the same competitive public schools as the children of my parents’ friends’. All I had to do was move a few cities south, and I could’ve easily been one of them. 

They thought I was cool. I had music taste that stretched beyond the Billboard Top 40 that all our parents played on a constant loop. I wore loud, colorful earrings and embroidered mom jeans. I could take public transportation downtown and eat out with friends (almost) any time I wanted.

In the context of that summer camp, all those traits made me feel really, embarrassingly, whitewashed. 

But wasn’t that what I’d wanted my whole life? 

Even in elementary school, surrounded by other children of immigrants, I was careful to distance myself from any “fresh off the boat” signs in my outfits, my books, my word choice. By the time I finished a year of high school, those tendencies increased tenfold. 

It had been a long time since I was surrounded by so many people whose backgrounds almost perfectly matched my own, yet we came from vastly different worlds, if only separated by a forty-minute drive. Sometimes I still feel like an impostor no matter who I surround myself with, and not just white and Asian people. Because I’ve grown up conforming to mainstream American culture—one steeped in classism, colorism, and anti-Blackness—there are endless experiences under the broad category of “people of color” that I can’t claim, more than not knowing a single RnB throwback. 

Here’s one thing I remember from that summer math program: every theory exists within a specific axiomatic structure, or set of rules. That means the “correctness” of a theory is relative. If you change the axiomatic structure, a theory that used to be true might become false. 

Similarly, what my middle school friend told me about “turning white” was relative. For some, I’m “too Asian”; for others, I’m too “white” or “American.” Even within Asian America, with so many ethnicities, immigration stories, educational, geographical, and socioeconomic backgrounds, I’ve realized there’s no universal or “correct” Asian American experience. 

I’m learning to live with that ambiguity, creating my own set of axioms for being Asian American while recognizing that everyone else is searching for their own, too.

* “Tiger babies” are the children of “tiger parents,” or strict parents who pressure their children into high academic and extracurricular success. Commonly associated with East, South, and Southeast Asian parenting, the term “tiger mother” was made popular by Amy Chua in her 2011 memoir Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.

Luna is a high school senior, native San Franciscan, daughter of immigrants, nonstop knitter, and avid earring collector.

Posted on Leave a comment

Becoming

We had the pleasure of sitting down with Soon Wiley, author of When We Fell Apart, to learn more about his debut novel, his journey there, and the complexities around his biracial identity. 

What was your path to becoming the writer you are today?

Probably like a lot of writers, I was a reader first. I was lucky enough to have parents that read to me every night when I was a little kid, and when they weren’t telling me a story, I was buried in a book. I didn’t seriously consider pursuing fiction writing until I won a short story prize sponsored by my college. Up until that point, I hadn’t taken any creative writing classes, and while I’d worked on some short stories during my spare time, I never really considered what I was doing as writing. Winning that prize was a turning point for me. I enrolled in creative writing classes during my senior year of college, and then I pursued an MFA two years later. I started working on what would become my debut novel when I finished graduate school, and I’ve been writing almost every day since, or at least the days where I can find the time. 

What was the inspiration behind When We Fell Apart?

Initially, I was interested in exploring relationships and how we often think we know people, when in fact we often know very little about them, even in intimate relationships. As I kept writing, that initial seed of interest turned into a larger project that explored questions about identity, family, and cultural expectations. 

Which character did you resonate most with in your novel? Why so?

I share a lot of the same characteristics and biographical details with Min, so I think when I initially started writing the novel, I felt most aligned with him. Like Min, I lived in Seoul, and like Min, I’m bi-racial. A number of Min’s experiences were partially drawn from my own experience, so in that sense, I’d say that I felt the most connected to him throughout the writing process. That being said, I also found myself connecting with Detective Park quite a bit. He’s someone who has very strong ideals and ethics, but he’s forced to conform or break his moral rules for the sake of his job. This isn’t to say that I’ve had to do those types of things, but I think part of becoming an adult and getting a job in some professional arena means doing things you don’t always want to do. 

I was curious to know why Min’s narrative is third person while Yu-jin’s is in first. Can you explain?

This is actually something that changed quite a bit during the drafting of the novel. Initially, Min’s chapters were written in first-person, but at some point, it became very limiting to use first-person, especially when I was trying to build suspense. During the third draft of the novel, I decided to change it to close third-person, which gave me a lot of freedom. In my head, Yu-jin’s chapters were always in first-person. I’ve always thought of her chapters as being a confession of sorts, and so it made sense to have her speaking from the “I” perspective. I also wanted to give Yu-jin a voice in the novel. Because she’s dead when the novel opens, I wanted to find some way to still emphasize her presence in the novel. 

You go into incredible detail about the inner workings of Seoul. With its people and specific locations, it feels like a character within itself. What was your research process like? 

I lived in Seoul for about a year after graduating from college, but once I actually started writing the novel, it had been about four or five years since I’d actually been back. It sounds kind of obvious, but I spent a lot of time remembering and imagining Seoul. In early drafts, I was really stubborn about not looking at photos of Seoul or researching anything on the internet. I did my best to immerse myself in the city through my imagination. I’m a huge fan of writers who really emphasize sensory details in their fiction, so I wanted to lean heavily on that during the writing process. Later on, when I was revising the novel, I did a bit of research on the internet, just to make sure I’d gotten things correctly. When I finally found out that the book was going to be published, I was planning on going to Seoul, just to fact check a few things, but I ended up not being able to go because of Covid, which only led to more Googling. 

What was your experience living in Seoul?

I’d say that my time in Seoul was quite revelatory. On one hand, it was incredible to be surrounded by other Asians. It was the first time in my life where I’d lived in a country where the dominant race wasn’t white. At times, when I was walking around the city by myself, I felt at ease, and I was aware that I felt a lot more comfortable in Seoul than I ever had in America. However, whenever I spoke to anyone or interacted with people outside of my friend group, I immediately became aware that I didn’t actually fit in in Seoul at all, and that people very much viewed me as a foreigner. This wasn’t entirely shocking, but it was very strange to feel like you belonged somewhere, only to have people tell you that you were nothing like the people that lived there.

Without giving too much away, relationships (both family and romantic) can be touchy subjects in Asian cultures. There’s a lot of unspoken boundaries, expectations, and traditions. What was it like writing them? 

That’s a great question. Because I wasn’t raised in a “traditional” Korean household, I think I had a lot of psychological distance from some of the familial expectations that a lot of Asian kids experience when growing up, so that made it a bit easier to write about, in the sense that I could truly be an observer.  I suspect that because I was never really “inside” a Korean community when I was growing up, I felt more comfortable critiquing it or describing it. Another thing I always reminded myself of when I was working on the novel is that Asian parents, kids, pretty much all Asians, are just like everyone else. Yes, there’s certainly that cultural expectation, but at the end of the day, we all have the same fears, desires, and dreams. 

Home and belonging play major themes within every character’s journey. How has this played a meaning in your own life and can you describe how you translated that onto the page?

I think I’ve always felt a bit like an outsider. Not necessarily in some terrible way, where I was excluded or treated unfairly, but I’ve always been aware that in certain places and situations, I don’t quite fit in. Whether it was because of my name or my race, I always got questions when I was a kid. People were curious about where I was from. And again, I don’t think it was malicious, but you become aware, very quickly, that you perhaps don’t belong wherever you are at the moment. This feeling is something that I think everyone experiences to varying degrees. But certainly, when I was writing the book, I was interested in exploring characters who didn’t feel like they belonged, for whatever reason. The theme of home is probably a bit trickier to answer, but I think as a minority or person of color growing up in America, you are acutely aware that some people don’t think America is your home, even if it is. Min’s decision to travel to Korea in the first place is a reaction to this kind of sentiment. 

What did you learn about yourself and/or the process of writing your debut novel?

I don’t consider myself a spiritual person by any means, but you have to have faith to write a novel. Faith in yourself and faith in the work, which doesn’t usually illicit any faith, especially when you’re dealing with a rough draft. I also learned that I write best when I’m writing for myself. 

How did this novel help you understand or further complicate your own bi-racial background?

Writing the novel helped me come to terms with what being biracial means. This isn’t to say that I was somehow conflicted about being bi-racial before my novel, but I think there’s an inherent messiness when you grow up as bi-racial. When you’re younger there are all sorts of questions about who you are and where you come from, but as you get older, you start thinking about how labels and categories aren’t really useful at all, especially to people who defy categorization. Writing the novel helped me accept and understand that it’s really important to have an internal identity, one that is separate from how other people view you. Being bi-racial means that you will often be seen by different people in different ways, so it can be confusing when you can move between different worlds. A strong inner idea of who you are – divorced from your external identity – is really important.  

For readers who are looking for their new book, why should people choose When We Fell Apart?

When I started writing When We Fell Apart, I wanted to give my readers a good story. Above all else, this is the responsibility of the writer. Afterall, we are storytellers, and there is a lot of competition out there, from movies, television shows, video games, and all the other forms of entertainment, so it’s incumbent on us to keep our readers’ interest. So, people should pick up my book if they want to read a good old-fashioned story that keeps them entertained, immerses them in a foreign culture, and maybe prompts them to ask some probing questions about identity, familial expectations, and whether we can really know someone. 

A native of Nyack, New York, Soon Wiley received his BA in English & Philosophy from Connecticut College. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Wichita State University. His writing has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and earned him fellowships in Wyoming and France. He resides in Connecticut with his wife and their two cats. When We Fell Apart is his debut novel. Support his work today at Penguin Random House.