AACP June 2023 Newsletter

Hello AACP Newsletter Readers.

Gosh, this month has flown by. Now I have less than two hours to get this newsletter out. So I’ll try to be brief.

This month we have our latest installment of our travel series of articles. Author Cynthia Chin-Lee has contributed a piece on her hometown of Washington, DC.

I wrote about a place I visited in Los Angeles in 2011 called Yamashiro. I was recently thinking about the places that I visited with Mas Hongo (who passed away in March) and thought of this location.

We also have two more places that my sister Sharon wrote about for this article. So please check our travel article out.

Our other article for this month is a wonderful essay that was also furnished by Cynthia Chin-Lee, titled “Thoughts on Being an Asian American Woman Writer.”

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This month’s featured books is the start of our summer reading lists (we’ll have another installment next month, and possibly in August).

Authors Kelly Yang (Room to Dream) and Erin Entrada Kelly (Only Only Marisol Rainey) have new books to their current series.

Author Thanhha Lai has the sequel to her award winning book “Inside Out and Back Again” called “When Clouds Touch Us.”

We’re also featuring one Marie Myung-Ok Lee’s latest books “The Evening Hero.”

For those of you that are interest in reading folktales and learning a new language, check out Thai Stories and Indonesian Stories.

There’s many more. Check them all out.

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If you’re in the San Jose area on July 8 and 9th, please find us at the San Jose Obon Festival. This is one of our favorite events each year.

For those of you that missed the memorial service for Florence and Mas Hongo, here’s a link to a video of the services (just for you subscribers).

It was really great to reconnect with you all, even if you weren’t able to attend the actual service.

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Author Cynthia Chin-Lee was one of those that I was able to reconnect with and she was so kind to help us with this month’s newsletter. Thank you very much for your help. I really needed it.

Thank you to my sister Sharon for your help with our travel article, and thanks to our editors Philip, Mina, and Susan.

That’s all for now.

Bye.

July 7, 2023: Medaka No Gakko (we'll be there)

Palo Alto Buddhist Temple, 2751 Louis Rd, Palo Alto, CA

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July 8-9, 2023: San Jose Obon Festival (we'll be there)

San Jose Buddhist Church, 640 N 5th St San Jose, CA

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July 23-28, 2023: Zephyr Pt. Lake Tahoe Fellowship Retreat (we'll be there)

Zephyr Pt, NV

If you have an event that you would like us to mention and or to participate in, please feel free to let us know.

By Cynthia Chin-Lee, author of Almond Cookies and Dragon Well Tea, Amelia to Zora: Twenty-Six Women Who Changed the World, and other books

(This essay appeared in the book The Lemon Tree: Artists' & Writers' Personal Journeys of Creativity, edited by Nitza Agam, who has given us permission to use it for our newsletter. Thank you Nitza.)

1934, Baltimore, MD

Someone was knocking on the door.

Then seven years old, Nancy was folding clean diapers for her mother, but her father grabbed her arm and shoved her into the closet. Her father warned, “Get in there and be quiet!”

He then calmly proceeded to open the front door and chat with the local truant officer. The officer’s eyes narrowed as he said, “We heard you have a school-age child? She should be attending school. That’s the law.” Nancy’s father invited the officer to look around the house. Only small children were playing in the backyard, all too young to go to school.

While Nancy should have been going to school, she was held back so she could help take care of her younger siblings. She was not allowed to attend school until her brother, a year and a half younger, was old enough to go to school. By that time, it would be useful to have her walk with him as her parents cared about educating him, but not her.

Nancy was my mother, a talented visual artist and a wonderful storyteller...

View full descriptions of all these featured books at Bookshop.org where you'll also have the opportunity to purchase them.