Join us for this talk and community conversation led by local resident, Phoebe Huang, in connection to this year’s One Book One Region selection: Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu. Integrating her own personal experiences as a Chinese immigrant, research, and current events, her talk explores the differences between ethnicity, race, nationality, and citizenship in order to elborate on the question raised by Charles Yu in Interior Chinatown: “Who gets to be an American?” Her full description and bio is below.

Registration is required to attend this program. You will receive a Zoom invitation the morning of the program.

Talk Description
“Who gets to be an American?” Not only Asians, but almost every immigrant to this country has grappled with where they fit in the national identity.

My family was fortunate to be granted asylum in the United States in 1950. My father, a Chinese diplomat who served as Deputy Foreign Minister, was forced to leave the Mainland when the Communist Regime took power. I arrived at the age of 4; and while I have been embraced by this country, have been proud to become a US citizen, the issue of ‘who gets to be an American?’ truly American, not a hyphenated-American, is still front and center.

This talk hopes to open a dialogue on that important question. The answer is fundamental to who we are as a country, and how we survive ongoing global dislocations of every variety.

Speaker Bio
Phoebe K Huang has held executive positions in major U.S. Financial Services companies. She became a Master Gardener and put that know-how into creating vegetable and flower gardens, a highlight of her life. In retirement, she is now re-exploring her world through writing. She earned her BA from Mt. Holyoke (1967) and her PhD from the University of Connecticut (1977).