what is required of me?
i just remembered i had this newsletter
I’ve been repeating to myself that everything will be okay.
It doesn’t quite feel that way, most days. Things are difficult. Everything is under attack, all the time. I want to crawl into my bed, put ten blankets over my head, and sleep for a long time.
Sometimes, in response to this feeling of dread, people ask, “What’s giving you hope in these times?”
Some people say things like, their kids, or an organizing win, or raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. I think this is just an okay question. Hope will not get me out of bed. Maybe it will get you out of bed, but not me.
But, I read somewhere (and I honestly cannot recall where I read this, so if you know, please tell me) that I should start asking myself, “What is required of me?”
And I don’t mean, like, what is required of me for my job. I mean, what does my community require me to do? This led me to, “What do I owe my community? What do we owe each other?”
And, this also helps me identify things that, if I don’t have extra energy, I can stop doing. So now, it’s something as mundane as responsibility that motivates me to get up and take a little step. Knowing that there is something required of me, knowing that people depend on me (and that I depend on you) gets me out of bed.
So, I do think everything will be okay. But we all have to make it okay.
✨ book stuff ✨
And now for a sudden topic change — it’s been about almost half a year since NOODLE & BAO came out.
I’m completely floored, and so very moved by the support for the book. 🙇🏻♀️ It means so much to me, and I just feel so very grateful that the book has touched others.
✨ ALA 2024 Best Graphic Novels for Children’s Reading List
✨ Bookshop’s Best of Kids Graphic Novels, 2024
✨ Boston Globe’s 75 Best Books of 2024
✨ 2025 Little Maverick Graphic Novel Reading List
✨ 2025 CBC’s Children’s Favorites Award List
However, a tiny little insecure gremlin part inside me, which is very hungry for ✨EXTERNAL VALIDATION ✨ is never satisfied.
I understand that external validation is not a good metric to determine my self worth. No amount of outside praise will ever fill any sort of empty holes inside us.
BUT.
Some kinds of external validation really feel great. I can’t help but cling onto these small crumbs for myself.
A little group of Chinese elementary school students came up to me and asked me detailed questions about the book (in Chinese!) after my school visit in Brookline.
In Texas, an Asian American girl drew a picture of me, handed it to me shyly, and then emailed me the next day, writing “Your book inspired me a lot to stand up for what I believe.”
A parent emailed me photographs of her daughter’s sweet handwritten letter and drawing.
I guess I can be okay with these little things. 🥺
✨✨✨
Want to support Noodle & Bao? Buy it from a bookstore! Request it at your local library. You can also give it a (positive? lol) review on Amazon or on Goodreads.
Want a signed book? You might find a copy in Boston at Narrative Bookshop, Comicazi, Porter Square Books, and Brookline Booksmith. If you’re in Southern California, Pasadena’s Vroman’s Bookstore!
a few updates 🍓
I’ve got two new books in the works this year. One is a picture book about small revolutionary things, looking through the (real) actions of (fictional) sisters improving their city in the Detroit Summer program (Penguin Kokila), and one is a fantasy graphic novel, about friendship (duh) but also greed and environmental devastation (HarperCollins Quill Tree Books). They will not be out this year. Or even next year. But maybe you will see them on shelves the year after!
I started teaching my first university level course at MassArt this year! It’s been super fun so far.
I’m volunteering with LUCE to support with ICE watch efforts in my own neighborhoods in MA. In MA and want to support? Sign up here! Far away, or don’t have the time/capacity? You can donate here.
🌱 upcoming events 🌱
April 18 (Cambridge, MA): AAAS Spellbound vendor.
April 22 (Zoom): Illuminate: Contextualizing Asian American Women’s Stories through the Archives Opening Event (Zoom, with Harvard Radcliffe Institute)
May 3rd (Acton, MA): Silver Unicorn’s Kids Graphic Novel Festival!
May 10th (Boston, MA): Asian American Lawyers Association of MA (AALAM) Book Club: Noodle & Bao
May 17th (Roxbury, MA): Greater Roxbury Book Fair
June 10th (Melrose, MA): Molly’s Mini Book Club at Molly’s Bookstore.
ok thanks byeeeeeeee
But you are GREAT and magnificent!!