The Coolidge-Wagner Anthology of Recorded Poetry Volume 7: Frances Kai-Hwa Wang

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Artist's Statement
"When I was on my high school’s speech and debate team, I read Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News every week. I came across an article about how Asian Americans were good at math and science but were not good leaders. I believed it without question because I thought that if it was published, it had to be true.

My father simply said, “China has a 4,000 year history — who do you think was leading it?”

I suddenly realized that because I come from a different background, there are things that I can see, connections that I can make, stories that I can tell that others cannot. Slowly, I came to trust the questions that only I was asking.

Over time, I realized that because I am privileged to be educated, English speaking, and a U.S. citizen, I should use my privilege to speak up for others. I push back because I can, because someone has to. I write the stories that no one else is writing. And I always stop to translate for lost Chinese grandmas.

I am one of a handful of writers who has been writing consistently for and about Asian American, Pacific Islander, and Arab American diasporic communities for over twenty years. I have written as a journalist, essayist, and prose poet. My next project is a book called, “Writing to Save the World.”

In these political times, especially with the new Republican administration, the war in Gaza, and increasing anti-immigrant hate and violence, we must find commonalities and ways to better understand each other. Through writing and creating art, we can change hearts, lift up communities, and move people to action." - Frances Kai-Hwa Wang

Artist Bio
Frances Kai-Hwa Wang is a poet, essayist, journalist, and scholar focused on issues of Asian America, race, justice, and the arts. The child of immigrants, she has worked in philosophy, journalism, ethnic new media, anthropology, international development, nonprofits, and small business start-ups. Her writing has appeared at PBS NewsHour, NBC Asian America, PRI Global Nation, Angry Asian Man, Cha Asian Literary Journal, Kartika Review, Drunken Boat, and several anthologies, journals, and art exhibitions. She has taught Asian/Pacific Islander American studies at the University of Michigan and creative writing at the University of Hawaii Hilo and Washtenaw Community College. She was Executive Director of American Citizens for Justice and Asian Pacific American Chamber of Commerce. She is a co-founder of IS/LAND Asian American Contemporary Performance Collaborative. She co-created a multimedia artwork for the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, “Dreams of the Diaspora.” She has written three chapbooks and a book of prose poetry, “You Cannot Resist Me When My Hair Is in Braids,” Wayne State University Press, 2022. In Chinese School, she was often scolded for having the best spoken Chinese in class and the worst written Chinese.

About the Cover Artist
Shannon Rae Daniels is a Cantonese American visual artist and writer whose recent work has explored questions of impermanence, goodness, and beauty as they relate to the self and to communities at large — particularly American Chinatowns, which she is deeply invested in as someone with strong roots in New York City’s Chinatown. In 2023, she was selected for the Emerging Artists Program hosted by The Guild of Artists and Artisans in Ann Arbor, Michigan and then was chosen by a jury to show and sell her work at the Ann Arbor Summer Art Fair. She has taught arts and humanities classes at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Boston Arts Academy. She was born and raised in New York City and currently lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

About the Coolidge-Wagner Anthology of Recorded Poetry
The Ann Arbor District Library, Fifth Avenue Studios, and 1473 are proud to present The Coolidge-Wagner Anthology of Recorded Poetry. This series was created to celebrate and document the art of poetry in recorded form. Featuring poets from Ann Arbor, metro Detroit, and beyond, we hope that this series showcases and archives the incredible poetry scene here in Ann Arbor, metro Detroit, and beyond.

The Coolidge-Wagner Anthology of Recorded Poetry is named after and dedicated to two of my high school teachers, Judi Coolidge and Tom Wagner (RIP) of Bay High School (Ohio), who encouraged in me, as well as thousands of their other students, a lifelong appreciation and open-minded love of the arts.
-Chien-An Yuan, 1473

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