Episode #65: Our Asian American Identities -Part TWO
Welcome back to part two of this special episode of The Book Friends Forever where Grace and Alvina recorded this live for the Asian Author Alliance to celebrate Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month! You can find the recording on the Asian Author Alliance You Tube Channel.
As usual, the BFF’s begin each episode with catching up on each other’s lives. Alvina has been doing “quaranfine” but is really tired from all the time spent on her computer and is certainly feeling the quarantine fatigue. Grace has been busy as usual but finding a little more time to do creative work. Her husband thinks she is a much happier person when she’s able to focus on that kind of work. She definitely agrees with him! She feels it would be faster if she learned digital art but doesn’t care for doing it that way. Alvina and Grace talked about especially right now how important it is to just do what you really want to do. She was thinking about running again after being inspired by Alvina’s healthy habits during the pandemic, but she first she will have to start ZOOM physical therapy sessions for her knee issue which should be interesting.
“How else has being Asian American informed your work?”
Grace talks about how when she wrote books like The Ugly Vegetables and Dim Sum for Everyone, she was nervous about people thinking that she was only writing them because she is Asian. She didn’t want to be labeled '‘that Asian author”. She was scared that people were going to think that’s they only reason she was getting published is because she’s Asian. Of course she doesn’t really KNOW that’s true, but sometimes has trouble believing it. Grace wrote animal books for a while because they don’t involve race. One of them was actually named after Alvina, Olvina Flies! One day Alvina had a fax sent to her with the mispelled name “Olvina” adn she told Grace about it.
“What are you grateful for this week?”
Grace is thankful for her rainbow birthday cake from her family and the lovely weather that is making her flowers so amazing this year. Alvina is grateful for the Asian community and connection. She’s also grateful for the silver linings from the pandemic such as connection with neighbors too. She has been composting for 3 years before the pandemic, and she found a neighbor that is able to take her compost now. The woman has a daughter in middle school so she has been dropping off books for her. It just feels good to make that special connection during this time. While looking around her house for books, she came across the novel, The Plague by Albert Camus. It was her one of her late husband’s favorite books and he espeically loved this quote:
“If there is one thing one can always yearn for and someties attain, it is human love. “
Alvina is feeling grateful to be reminded of that.
Q& A for Grace and Alvina!:
Q: Do you feel that publishers are doing enough to tell a variety of stories for any given culture in picture books?
A: What makes a book diverse is more than the skin tone of the character. We need to make sure that happens. Alvina- “It’s getting better but far from where it needs to be.”
Q: How did you decide to go with Grace as your name professionally instead of Pacey?
A: “ I felt more like Grace than Pacey. Now it’s interchangeable.” Pacey lives on in Year of the Dog and Year of the Rat. Plus, her husband and daughter call her Pacey.
Q: What advice would you give an early writer who loves writing but doesn’t know how to take it a step farther?
A: “You have to read everything even things you don’t like.” “Remember that what you’re writing now doesn’t have to be a number one. Your next project will be better.”
Q: Do you think it’s important to try and name Asian characters with an Asian name over Western names?
A: Alvina thinks it depends on the setting and that a mixture would be good. Grace: “The story is always the boss.” She believes it has to work for the story and the personality of that character.
Q: Can you speak more about OWN VOICES and how you feel about that?
A: Grace and Alvina spoke a lot about Own Voices especially when they went live at Simmons University for this podcast. “We disagreed a little bit.” Alvina agreed authors should write their own background but “where I feel differently as a publisher is that…I fall for the story first.” She doesn’t always know about the author’s background before reading. Grace has a view from an author’s stand point. “If you’re trying to write an OWN VOICES story, why are you writing that? You can support diversity in our field by letting others write those stories.”
Q: How do you feel the industry has changed since it first started out with Asian stories?
A: Grace: “ I feel like the first pages of Asian stories are the characters always grappling with their Asian identity….Alvina: “ Now we have room for stories that don’t do that such as fantasy, thrillers, and just not about them being Asian.”
