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Author Talk: You Cannot Resist Me When My Hair is in Braids

Author Frances Kai-Hwa Wang

MLK Library welcomes journalist, poet and author Frances Kai-Hwa-Wang for a special virtual conversation on her latest “You Cannot Resist Me When My Hair is in Braids."

In the aftermath of a messy divorce, Frances Kai-Hwa Wang writes in the hope of beginning to build a new life with four children, bossy aunties, unreliable suitors, and an uncertain political landscape. The lyric essays in You Cannot Resist Me When My Hair Is In Braids deftly navigate the space between cultures and reflect on lessons learned from both Asian American elders and young multiracial children, punctuated by moments rich with cultural and linguistic nuance. In her prologue, Wang explains, “Buddhists say that suffering comes from unsatisfied desire, so for years, I tried to close the door to desire. I was so successful, I not only closed the door, I locked it, barred it, nailed it shut, then stacked a bunch of furniture in front of it. And now that door is open, wide open, and all my insides are spilling out.”

Full of current events of the day and #HashtagsOfTheMoment, the topics in the collection are wide-ranging, including cooking food to show love, surviving Chinese School, being an underpaid lecturer, defending against yellow dildos, navigating immigration issues, finding love in a time of elections, crying with children separated from their parents at the border, charting the landscape of frugal/hoarder elders during the pandemic, witnessing COVID- inspired anti–Asian American violence while reflecting on the death of Vincent Chin, teaching her sixteen-year-old son to drive after the deaths of Trayvon Martin and George Floyd, and trusting the power of writing herself into existence. Within these lyric essays, some of which are accompanied by artwork and art installations, Wang finds the courage and hope to speak out for herself and for an entire generation of Asian American women.

A notable work in the landscape of Asian American literature as well as Midwest and Michigan-based literature, You Cannot Resist Me When My Hair Is in Braids features a clear and powerful voice that brings all people together in these political and pandemic times. Click the link below to join!

Author Bio

Frances Kai-Hwa Wang is an award-winning poet, essayist, journalist, activist, scholar focused on issues of Asian America, race, justice, and the arts. Her writing has appeared in online publications at PBS NewsHour, NBCAsianAmerica, PRIGlobalNation, Center for Asian American Media, and Detroit Journalism Cooperative and in Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Kartika Review, Drunken Boat, Joao Roque Literary Journal. She co-created multimedia artwork for Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, and she is a Knight Arts Challenge Detroit artist.

Moderator Bio

Katherine Reynolds Lewis is an award-winning journalist, author and speaker based in the Washington D.C. area on topics including parenting, children, education, race, gender, disability, mental health, technology, work, entrepreneurship, and science. Katherine is a co-founder of the Center for Independent Journalists, supported by a Northwestern Medill-Garage media entrepreneur fellowship, and the Parenting Journalists Society. She’s a 2021-22 O’Brien Public Service Journalism fellow and 2020-21 MIT Knight Science Journalism fellow, reporting on the science of racial bias in pK-12 education. Her award-winning book, The Good News About Bad Behavior (PublicAffairs, April 2018), explains why modern kids are so undisciplined and tells the stories of innovators who are rebuilding lost self-regulation, resolving family conflict and changing the trajectory of young lives. Based on the most-read article ever published by Mother Jones, the book documents a new model of discipline for a generation of children who are out of control.  Katherine is a certified parent educator with the Parent Encouragement Program in Kensington, Md., and a co-founder of the Parenting in Place masterclass series.

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