Category: Features

Encouraging words

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Busaba Yip Douglas poses for a portrait on Friday Jan. 15, 2016 after making an offering of orchids at the Wo Hing Museum, where she serves as the Cultural Director in Maui, Hawaii. While the upstairs temple is part of the museum and not generally in use, it remains a place to honor ancestors and Taoist deities. Photo | Sara Hayden

Last week I met a woman who traveled from Thailand to Canada and the U.S. where she pursued her education 25 years ago. She had no intention to stay, but did. It was overseas that she ended up connecting with her Chinese roots.

Now a cultural director at the Wo Hing Museum in Maui’s historic town of Lahaina, Busaba Yip Douglas offered this: “I don’t need Ancestry.com. If we have a good relationship with your ancestors, we don’t have to search for them. They will come to us at the right time, and with the right people.”

– Sara Hayden

 

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Regular Blend: Trials, triumph and trivia about growing up in a multicultural community

See here: Regular Blend: Trials, triumph and trivia about growing up in a multicultural community.

This is a story from Cupertino, Calif., a slice of school life. I worked on it for my master’s thesis when I was studying journalism at Stanford and held on to it and didn’t really share it outside of school — I’m not totally sure why. Because I’m embarking on a journey to share more tales from Asian America, I’ll kick it out the door now.

The students featured in here have likely advanced, graduated from middle school or high school or college. Their parents may have retired, switched jobs, something else. I wonder what the community is like now?

In any case, the stories here were recorded in the spring of 2014. The Atlantic published an article called “The Silicon Valley Suicides” by Hanna Rosin last month, and because Cupertino is next door to Palo Alto, where her article is centered, I think it’s relevant to take another look at the various experiences of students in an area exceptional for its multicultural makeup and academic experience.

– Sara Hayden