AACP January 2024 Newsletter

Hello Everyone,

Happy New Year AACP Newsletter Readers!

We made it through another year and are almost done with the first month of 2024.

One of the nice things about the Lunar New Year (this year it’s on Feb. 10) is that the Holiday Season isn’t over for those of us who celebrate it. If you count Halloween as being part of the Holiday Season, then you could reasonably say that the Holidays last for around three months of the year. Wow, if the Holiday Season is the most wonderful time of the year, then that pretty much covers a quarter of every year.

For those of you who may be going through some tough times, it may not feel like a time to celebrate, but if possible, do try to enjoy and appreciate the little things like the warm rays of the sun, the pitter-patter of rain drops, the chirping of some birds, some good music and food, the laughter and smiles of the people around you, breathing, and so much more. In the Carly Simon song Anticipation, she ends it with the refrain “These are the good old days.” There’s no time like the present – make every moment your good old days.

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This month is our special annual poetry feature. For this newsletter, we have an interview with author and poet Frances Kakugawa. Her new book “Can I Have Your Pearl Bracelet?” is an interesting blend of a memoir and thoughts of gratitude for things that happened in her life. Frances’s wonderful poetry is interspersed throughout the book. With eleven months to go, I can comfortably predict that this is one of my favorite books of the year.

For our other article, we have an interview with Curtis Chin the former executive director of the nonprofit organization Asian American Writers’ Workshop. We were hoping to get this interview in for our newsletter last fall when Curtis was making appearances in the Bay Area, but were unable to get it in. Apologies about that, but now we finally have it for you and it was well worth the wait.

Curtis Chin’s new memoir “Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant” is another excellent book and we hope you will enjoy our interview with him.

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For our featured books this month, we have ten books for the Lunar New Year (eleven if you count Curtis Chin’s book). The other nine books, including Frances Kakugawa’s book, are poetry books.

One of the Lunar New Year’s books is by award winning graphic novelist Gene Yang, called “Lunar New Year Love Story.”

In our web based newsletter’s featured books section, we’re trying something new – we’ve added a very short descriptive note with the book’s connection to AAPIs. What this note will indicate is whether the book is written by an AAPI, about AAPIs, and the possible ethnicity of the author(s) and or the book’s character(s) or subject matter. The notes will be seen when you hover the mouse cursor over the image of the book.

I’ve kind of resisted adding notes to the featured books because of the extra amount of time it would take us to include them, but I thought it would be helpful to at least have this connection note.

The other reason for my resistance is the chance for errors. We will most likely make mistakes with these notes. Oftentimes we may only have the title, book creators’ names, and descriptions found online to go by. If you catch one of our mistakes, please let us know. Your assistance with this is appreciated.

As stated earlier, our notes will be very brief because of the space that we are working with. If we have enough time and space, we’ll try to include better notes. Please give us your feedback on this. We’d love to know if you think this is useful and whether you think we should continue this.

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One correction: in our November/December newsletter's events calendar, the date for the Sacramento Lunar New Year Celebration at Luther Burbank High School, in Sacramento is incorrect. The correct date for the event is February 24th.

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Thank you Frances Kakugawa and Curtis Chin for doing the interviews and for writing your wonderful books.

Thank you to our editors Philip, Mina, Susan, and Harrison.

That’s all for now. Have a joyful Lunar New Year Celebration !

February 18, 2024, 5:30-7pm: San Jose Day of Remembrance (marking the signing of Executive Order 9066; we'll be there)

San Jose Buddhist Church Betsuin Annex, San Jose, CA

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February 21-24, 2024: California Association for Bilingual Education Conference (we won't be there)

Anaheim Convention Center North Hall & Hilton Anaheim, Anaheim, CA

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February 24, 2024: Redwood City Chinese New Year Celebration

Courthouse Square, Redwood City, CA

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February 24, 2024: The Sacramento Lunar New Year Celebration

Luther Burbank High School, Sacramento, CA

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March 9, 2024: Stockton Chinese New Year Celebration (we'll be there)

First Baptist Church located at 33 W. Alpine Ave., Stockton, CA

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March 8-10, 2024: California Council for the Social Studies Conference - one of the keynote speakers will be author Viet Thanh Nguyen, Sat. March 9. (we won't be there, but hope you can attend)

Orange County Hyatt Regency, Garden Grove, CA

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

Interviewed by Leonard Chan

For those of you that are new to our newsletter, Frances Kakugawa is a frequent contributor to our newsletter and has even done poetry readings and poetry workshops for us in the past (including a poetry lesson she gave for us when we rebooted the newsletter in May 2020). We first interviewed Frances in January 2009. Her most recent contribution was as a co-interviewer in January of last year when we interviewed poet Amy Uyematsu.

In 2022, Frances’ beloved Wordsworth children’s book series was turned into a musical and was performed at the University of Hawaii, Hilo (Wordsworth the Musical). In addition to being an author and poet, Frances was an educator and a care giver for many years, and still works with people to teach them poetry, including even at her local mall where her friends have fondly dubbed her the Arden Fair Mall Poet Laureate.

With her new book “Can I Have Your Pearl Bracelet?,” Frances Kakugawa has cemented her place as my favorite living poet.

Hello Frances. I am so happy to be communicating with you for this interview.

Your book is a wonderful thank you to and remembrances of so many people, places, and things that have inspired you, influenced you, and made you who you are. Are there any inspirations, people, or places that you wish you could have gotten into “Can I Have Your Pearl Bracelet?” that didn’t make it? If not, could you describe a few of your favorites from the book so that our readers can get a sense for what the book is about?

Interviewed by Leonard Chan

Curtis Chin is one of the founders of the renowned nonprofit organization Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) in New York and was its first executive director. He went on to write for television, journals, and newspapers, worked on advisory committees for the Democratic Party and Barak Obama, makes social justice documentary films, and now is a published memoirist.

Welcome Curtis Chin. Congratulations on your new book and thank you for taking time out from your busy book tour to answer a few questions from us.

First of all, after reading your book and reading some more about you online, I was wondering why you choose to concentrate on your early life in Detroit and the Detroit suburb that you lived in, and your time in college? You’ve had an amazing career, but your book doesn’t have anything on it. Do you plan to write a second memoir? For those that want to know more, like me, I have a few questions pertaining to the rest of your story later in this interview.

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