As the pandemic subsides, I cannot help thinking about the tragedy and loss of lives. It is painful to think that during the pandemic, about 18.2 million people died worldwide, including about 1.13 million Americans. These are startling numbers, and…
Why I wrote a book about Asian Americans being invisible
My new book, Invisible, came out during the pandemic in November 2021. Since then, I have done numerous presentations and talks on Zoom and podcast interviews as well as a few in-person book talks. One of the most frequent questions…
The invisibility of women in the Bible
Taking a look at our world today, we find that while the profile of Asian Americans may rise in the popular American imagination, the Asian American woman is still shrouded in obscurations created by the white dominant society. The visible…
Thoughts on Jesse Jackson’s 80th birthday
For two years, we have been living through the age of COVID-19 which, as we all know, has spread through numerous and ongoing waves across the world. Vaccinations have made a difference. But from time to time, COVID-19 infects individuals…
Introducing the Madang podcast inspired by a desire to understand
Six months after my mother had passed in 2011, I was at my sister’s house in Toronto, going through the relics of her life in her bedroom. While most people typically conjure an image of a cluttered, archaistic, clandestine room…
Why I wrote about hope in disarray
Three years ago, when I first started to write Hope in Disarray, the world was a very different place. It seems that the world back then was churning through time at rapid speed, unaware and untroubled by the destined forces…
‘This Land Is Your Land’ sounds different as an adult today
The music of elementary school never left me. I remember the tinkering incoherence of band instruments, high whistles of the recorder, the school piano at assemblies. But most vividly, I remember the hum of children stirring when my grade six…
Diaper need: The silent crisis intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic
Before the pandemic, 1 in 3 families across the U.S. struggled to afford diapers. Now, with more than 56 million families with children losing their household income since March of this year, diaper banks trying desperately to assuage escalating demands…
Life lessons from speaking with a foreign accent
What we know today to be the traditional “Asian accent” tells the story of Asian American assimilation in essence. The generation of Asian immigrants before us possessed the accent that white Americans saw as the most foreign in comparison to…