Suzhou China, ancestral home of legendary architect Ieoh Ming (I.M.) Pei, is known for its rock gardens. Lion Grove Garden (Shizilin Yuan) is one of the four great classical gardens of Suzhou, famous for its Taihu limestone formations, which are said to resemble the animal namesake. Pei’s great-uncle, a merchant, bought the then-abandoned garden in 1917 and spent the next decade restoring it. Pei spent childhood summers there and credits those visits with shaping how he thou

“Being Filipino in America means you fulfill your destiny and become a nurse. That was never going to be me.” Ever since I was a little girl I made a promise to my parents that I would become a nurse when I grow up so that I can take care of them when they get old. For some reason being a Filipino in America means that you have to fulfill your destiny and become a nurse. It's the American Dream for most of us. Not for me though, I always knew that I wanted to be an artist. I

Leaving Home I was seven years old when my family moved to Odessa, Texas, after my mother was recruited from the Philippines to work as a nurse at a local hospital. The move was originally intended to be temporary. The plan was to spend a few years in the United States, experience life in America, and eventually return home. My father remained in Manila and would visit a few times each year. It wasn't until our second or third year in Texas that my family decided to stay perm

The Museum of Asian Texans does this thing where the crowd doesn’t sort itself the way academic panels usually do — no clean line between historians in the front row and community members drifting in after work (well, sometimes!), no seam between people who read the flyer and people whose cousin is on the DAAFF/DAAHS board. Vo's talk keeps the community engagement flexible and in fact, Vo asks us to get to know each other more in parallel rather than as modeled as the sage on

Setting the Scene in the Sunbelt South In previously published work, I mentioned my grandparents moved from the Philippines to the Texas Hill Country in the mid 80s. A part of the Sunbelt South, my family has lived here for mostly 30 years as time pulled us in different directions across the state but especially into the North Texas area. From what I can remember, my aunts lived in different areas of Denton, Fort Worth, Arlington, Burleson, Cleburne, and the Hurst/Euless/Be

Writing is difficult. In fact— more than difficult, writing is painful. What then, does it matter that another writing platform gets surfaced in the internet aether? A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of hosting a writing workshop for an organization focused on cultural preservation and community building. Through this workshop, I was meant to talk briefly about the mission of Kultura Dallas and the ways that community members could contribute to the platform. I described