Posts Tagged ‘Memoirs of a Superfan’

Sara Dosa’s “Fire of Love” is nominated for a 2023 Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. This outstanding film stirred me to think about the fires within our hearts, minds, and societies as we erupt into a new world.

A visit to the Whitney Plantation near New Orleans, Louisiana, reminds me of swamps as alternate geographies of freedom for the enslaved, history as a swamp, and the red threads that connects us.

Hua Hsu’s Stay True is a memoir, but also a cultural and mental health intervention, emphasizing that we stay true to the people in our lives and what truly sustains us. It is of particular interest for Asian American men and those who care about them. This review also contains particular notes for Asian American grief, and some snark thrown at therapists by Asian American memoirists!

erin Khuê Ninh does a stellar cartography of pain points in the Asian American psyche in her two monographs to date, Passing for Perfect: College Impostors and Other Model Minorities (2021), and Ingratitude: The Debt Bound Daughter in Asian American Literature (2011).

November features important new Asian American documentaries on PBS, as well as films at DOC NYC. Plus a look at the dedication of Vicha Ratanapakdee Way in San Francisco on October 1, 2022.

Contempt hangs heavy over us in our psychic skies, a false sun with great gravity, whose purpose is to mislead, and in misleading, lead us to a world of hate, violence, and the death of our human bonds.

Where are our good hearts when our minds and votes are in conflict? We are in “an era of warring mind states” as a friend puts it. This puts enormous tension on our humanity and our capacity to maintain “good hearts.” But what is a “good heart?”

Catherine Ceniza Choy’s new volume, “Asian American Histories of the United States,” is an urgent, necessary, readable, and concise-but-expansive look at our multiple origin stories and contemporary narratives.

Creating a Culture of Peace: Ukraine, Buffalo, Uvalde: We are veterans of a long struggle for social justice in our nation and peace in the world. We are the National Council of Elders (NCOE) and stand alongside legions of elders who work to resist oppression and build dreams of new worlds. Our commitment is to accompany younger twenty-first-century leaders in their effort to bring a greater measure of justice, equality, and peace to our country and world.

Caregivers and caregiving teams in health care, education, and child care have reported increased stress during the pandemic. Burnout and resignations have reportedly increased. Simultaneously, issues of racial justice, and LGBTQIA+ and women’s rights have risen to the forefront of broad public consciousness, triggering both calls to action and reactionary, defensive pushback. Socio-political issues clearly have an impact on caregiving. They can either divide us, or bring us together in service to broader, essential, critical, indispensable duties of caregiving. This essay is an attempt to offer insight, clarity and allyship from my position as a psychiatrist and writer for all those impacted by these tensions, and thus assist affinity, study, support, and action groups that continue to form.