Of my book is from chapter three. So biting the hand is a memoir and its about, you know, sort of figuring out how to navigate the black white binary in this country from the perspective of somebody who doesnt fit into those two categories. So talking about my upbringing and my young adulthood, childhood, young adulthood, a koreanamerican girl daughter of immigrants who grew up in los angeles. So this comes from the third chapter. And talks about an incident that occurred when i was about ten years old. I was going to a Catholic School in, west los angeles, that was predominantly white. And one of my friends at the school. Had a job opportunity for me, her mother. And so it reveals little bit about the racial experience of how i figured out, okay, where do i fit in my first school up my first friend at my Elementary School was an irish girl named erin, who was born prematurely, had a large scar on her arm, the result of an i. V. Mishap when she was an infant erin lived, with her mother near the school in a duplex that of cigaret smoke and had large signed posters of mash hanging on wall. Erins mother had been a script supervisor on the series, ended its run in 1983, and she was on unemployed cement while trying to get started on a new show. Id never seen mash before, but vaguely knew it was about the korean war. My parents, who had actually lived through the war, had never seen an episode either. Erins mother eventually a new job on a sitcom called women, another show that i did not watch. I was now ten years old, and my favorite sitcom was punky. I watched show every week with my dad and my sister. As punky dealt with the aftermath of the challenger disaster or learned the dangers of hiding in abandoned refrigerators. Although my family lived in los angeles, aarons mom was the only person we knew who was in the industry. When she asked if my sister and i wanted to audition for a part in designing women, i was thrilled. I thought i was to be the next soleil moon. Frye, my mother on, the other hand, was dubious. She thought tv was a bad influence. Writing brain. When i could be practicing the piano or, doing my homework. She also believed actors were one step removed from prostitutes, parading themselves in front of strangers for money and attention. Aarons mom was persistent, though her, that the casting director was having trouble finding enough asian child actors audition for the role. She assured my mother that it would be a wholesome experience id never acted before, not even in a school play, in the car on the way to Warner Brothers studio in burbank, my sister and i rehearsed, the audition script, the part was for a vietnamese boat child named leasing whom ex beauty Queen Suzanne sugarbaker delta burke agrees to foster for a few weeks, i didnt know any vietnamese and i wondered if i was supposed to have an accent. I couldnt even imitate a korean accent. I talk like a valley girl. The scene took place susanns quote powder room where lee played with the fancy Bath Products and bantered with suzanne. Whats a powder room . I asked my mom from the backseat. I have no idea, she snapped. She was in a bad mood. Burbank, on the opposite end of the freeway, opposite of the city across four major freeways. At the height of afternoon hour. An hour later, we pulled into the studio lot and the guard in the kiosk dress directed us to a bungalow as we waited to be seen by the casting director, i saw another girl in a party dress and frilly socks holding a headshot in her hands. She looked like a pro, skipping into the casting room when called her mother i us while we waited my sister and i did not headshots. Wed come straight from school. Were still wearing our plaid jumpers my mother had on her Pioneer Chicken uniform of brown pants, bay shirt and srs shoes. I kept my eyes down trying to memorize the script feeling increasingly nervous. A short time later, the girl bounced out looking pleased and telling her mother she thought, went well. Its now my turn. I was ushered into a small office where a white woman and white man greeted me and seated themselves on director chairs. They asked for my headshot and i told them i didnt have one. No problem, they said. The woman explained it was a big role with lots of screen time in the episode leasing. And suzanne become fast friends and leasing would even get to where suzannes a pageant tiara and dress like her and big hair and makeup and a 1980s power suit. I said id seen a picture of delta burke and thought she looked a member of whitesnake. The woman began running through the lines with me playing Suzanne Sugarbaker my leasing. It was over in minute. Four days afterward, i pestered my mother. Did i get it . Did i get it . Eventually aarons mother broke the news. Say my sister. I didnt quote look vietnamese enough and that the casting director i decided to go with a professional actor. I was crestfallen. So much worse child stardom, but in with my disappointment was a dawning that my race itself required a kind of performance. I knew leasing was supposed to be a ham like any other child actor in a sitcom. But i also understood i was supposed to perform a stereotypical asian ness, which meant speaking in broken english, marveling at american novelties like bubble bath and southern belles, and becoming suzannes doll plaything, lee sing wasnt even a vietnamese name. She might as well have been called oriental girl number one. I wish i could say i felt degree deterred by this realization or. Angry at the white screenwriter for writing such a caricatured role. But i was mostly annoyed at the other asian girl id seen at the audition, the one in the fruit fruit dress. I was certain that had landed the role and that shed been able give them the performance they wanted. She was my competition for white attention and approval, and she had won out. Shorty. Thanks for thanks for being here. This is your first book event. It is. My gosh, my first meeting. Thank you for your first. I mean, im a teacher i read a lot, but that was great. So well talk for a little bit and then at a certain point well open it up to q a. But thanks so much for having do this. Its funny because weve known each other for quite a long time. I never heard that before. And im, you know, throughout memoir, there are all of these moments that are probably processed differently as a child. Like, i think so natural what you describe that scene, you project your grievance toward this rival girl, right . I guess at one point did that story kind of become really meaningful to you as this like not an origin story, but just something that kind of had a broader resonance for who you were . I think, you know, the sense of rivalry of seeing yourself competing with other people of your racial or your Identity Group and feeling like you have to fight with them for the spoils is something that ive been thinking about a lot and you know, i can see the way that it ends up becoming distorted in lots of other ways, too. I mean, i was talking to a friend of mine whos koreanamerican, shes about five or six years younger than me. And its interesting because within that five or six years, you know, she actually, you know, actively pursued a career in acting and modeling and she told me that at that point could tell that the the the things had changed, shifted and now people wanted to have a more diverse and multicultural cast of characters. And so when she would go to auditions and saw that she was the only asian person she knew, she had a better shot of getting the job because she knew she filled that quota. But again, if there had been another asian girl there. She would have known that she was fighting with that same girl for that one asian spot. And i just thought, god, thats so up and so twisted. And its something that so many of us who come from minoritized identities completely get. If weve never talked about it. And it creates such tension within people who should be our allies. Right . These are people who are in the same situation as us. And instead we end up thinking of them as, our rivals. And i, you know, we fight them and we see them as the enemy rather than as the friend. So, you know, you prefer that passage to plan your chicken, your mom wasnt particularly interested in pushing towards this dream of becoming a representation and being on the silver screen. Those for those of the people here who havent had chance to read the book yet like can you tell us a bit about kind of where you grew up, what your horizons were like back then of what success look like within your family . I think that and i still feel this way, i think for my parents, they wanted me to have my parents were korean immigrants. They owned a liquor in inglewood, which is predominantly and brown neighborhood in los angeles. They owned that for a short period of time. And then they purchased a pioneer, which is Fried ChickenFast Food Restaurant, which was subsequently i mean, it went bankrupt and then it was purchased popeyes. So you guys probably already know ill know about popeyes which is a lot cooler now than pioneer was in the nineties, eighties and nineties, but so for my parents you know, they definitely did not want me to take over the business and know be running a Fast Food Restaurant and so they busted their so that i and my sister could have professional where we wouldnt have to, you know, get our hands dirty, quote unquote, and we could have a steady paycheck and not constantly vulnerable to, you know, the economy. And whether people were buying know Fried Chicken or whether there was enough corporate advertising so that people came in and all of these sorts of things and still feel that way today. I mean, im a professor. Im a College Professor like you are. And i still feel a of gratitude, sadly, because im like, well, actually, this might be changing, but honestly, for a long time i was like, oh, this job is great because. I get a steady paycheck and i dont have to worry about being shot at work, which sadly is changing. But honestly, when i first got into teaching, i was, you know, my parents worried every day that they would go to work and they might be shot to death. And at least i dont have to worry about somebody trying to steal money from the register and, losing my life. But as you all know, nobody is safe from that now. So so, you know, when you were when you were a child growing up, obviously, i mean, we now sort of i think it applies a lot of people are you understand your struggles very much in retrospect like it becomes this narrative that you can, you know, assimilate who you are, but also just recite but like when you were a kid. What did you think about all of this . Like because it sounded, though, there was some sense of, you know envy for other forms of childhood or other forms of of other models of parenting at the schools. You went to. Yeah. I mean it would have been nice to get some affirmation at home like that would have been nice, you know, it would have nice to not have to go to the store every weekend. You know, other people would like i remember just wanting to go to birthday parties, not being able to go because my parents had to work and there was nobody to bring me the birthday parties. And so, you know, sure, those of you who are restaurant kids, you just live at the restaurant, thats where you do your homework, where you take naps there. Thats where hang out on the weekends. So for me, school was really a space where i could actually socialize and hang out. And i did envy, you know, those friends of mine who didnt have those responsibilities or those obligations and who could just yeah, in some ways be innocent you know, just be kids. Yeah. You know i a story in my book about my friend sharon im sorry thats her real in the book. Her name is eileen. Just kidding. Eileen. I mean, shes cool and ivy, whatever. Anyway she would be cool with it. I probably was her last name. Okay. And whats her Social Security . Okay, so, eileen in book, so i talk a lot about her. Shes my closest and in high school and, you know, she had this incident where, you know, she was, you what speech and debate nerd. And she went to this tournament and she had a great time. It was out of town. It was the time leaving los angeles and she came back from this trip and couldnt wait to tell her parents about it. And then her mother picked her up. She started, you know, just bubbling over with all of this excitement. And her mother says, stop, were going to the hospital because your father was shot a robbery this weekend. And my parents owned a liquor store. Koreanamerican immigrants. Sharon just started god. Eileen just started crying because she was wanting to, like, tell her mother about this awesome trip and share with it. And, you know, there was a moment where she just felt such because here where her parents risking their lives so that she could have this nice education in this nice trip. And yet she couldnt even really enjoy it because meanwhile, they had almost her father had almost gotten killed. So i think that tension was always, always there. Couldnt fully enjoy it because you knew much your parents were sacrificing. Allow you those gifts. What was their vision of of success like what did they want for you at that in period of time . I think they a steady paycheck. They wanted physical safety. If i could have health, that would be amazing. Yeah, thats the health and Health Insurance is huge. I mean, i cornerstone asianamerican parenting. Oh, my god. And like i talk a lot about Health Insurance in my i realize but im telling you it like when youre not insured, it is always youre always thinking, how am i going to pay for, you know, my root canal . How am i going to pay if i get shot at work, you know, how am i going to i dont like its something that, you know, is one of the reasons why i believe in universal health care, because i know that the decisions i made in terms of career were very much based on whether or not i would have coverage and i guess im astonished when i meet people who are like, but what do you mean you took that job even though you didnt want to do it . And im like, do take it without insurance. What are you talking about . So yeah. So i think a huge, huge part of it too, you know, so throughout the book are these themes of like anger, grief, rage, shame. Im wondering, like, you know, because when were when were kids, were sort of processing everything and ill say, like kids up until maybe like your twenties, youre just sort of processed ing things in the moment, like where you at what point did you get the to think about like, oh, what ive been feeling all of this time is rage or what ive been feeling this time is shame. Does that make sense . I got the language i think happened much, much later. I mean, in the moment. I think that you just feel those emotions. You dont have a way of translating them or articulating. You just feel terrible. And, you know, i think about how anger is so primal and shame is so primal. And i think all of us right. Thats i think its one of the preliminary emotions that you feel. Its like, what is it . The lizard brain or something . Before right before. Executive functioning comes in and all of that stuff. So i just think its super primal and so, you know, i think it really took until i mean, im like 46 now and i really think it took up until this age to finally come up with ways explaining what i was feeling without trying to you know, punch somebody in the face, you know, i dont know, hurt myself like all of those ways in which you try to cope with feelings of rage and feelings of shame. Well, how did like how did that come about then . I mean, i think its age think its also a lot of therapy, believe so wholeheartedly in therapy. I also believe in psycho pharmaceutical. So i think that you know finding a good antidepressant, i im sorry. Yeah, thats right. I also think just. Yeah. Older i think having children. Mm. Because think some of these things that i didnt want to deal with, i could kind of repress and then when you kids and you see your kids replicating the exact same coping mechanisms and grappling with shame and anger and thats the moment where youre thinking, oh dude, like, i have to, i have to confront this, i have to deal with this because its being passed on to the next and i cannot watch that happen. What role did writing this book have play and sort of like process some of this or sort of being able to kind of understand your own as like these interlinked episodes . So i, i teach black and Asian American literature and we talk a lot about, you know, how does one process trauma, how does one process terrible things that happen in ones life and one of the things that ive determined or that my students have helped me determine is that it really is through the act of storytelling through writing, through committing to sharing ones stories with others that you figure out a way of moving beyond the trauma. Theres. One of my favorite authors is Toni Morrison, and Toni Morrison talks lot about this, about how storytelling and telling stories, revisiting memories, horrible, traumatic memories from the past, historical trauma that many people just want, repress it and forget about it because its so painful that you trying to do that in order to survive. Anybody who has dealt with ptsd the aftermath of some horrific experience understands that sometimes you have to out you have to forget it, order to move on. But that thats just a bandaid because its still there and its still waiting to come at any moment, which is why you have to revisit it. And you have to it and you have to talk about it, which is simultaneously act of re traumatization. Its so painful. And yet you have to retraumatize yourself in order to get to the other side, to heal it. And i have to say, like even, you know, i was talking to somebody about how i had to i had to narrate the or to i was invited to narrate audiobook and i was shocked at how i was reading sections. And i still like sobbed in sections and i thought i had processed it, id written it it was published or not published almost in published and just retell the story made me feel like the wounds had reopened and i had take time and like saw in another room before. I could continue narrating, but i think each time i tell the or each time somebody reads the story and can understand it. That is one step closer to that sense of healing. To writing about it. I because it sounds like a very painful process to write this book. Right . Did did it . I dont know like provide any sense of or a vision of what it would be like to move on to it. Did it feel like you were putting it on the page and sort of cultivating different relationship with these feelings. Or i