Our very own Karen Tei (KT) Yamashita, ever brilliant and wonderful, will be presenting from her latest book, Sansei and Sensibility, a collection of short stories, this Thursday evening at 7 p.m. You can register for this zoom event (jointly sponsored by The Humanities Institute and Bookshop Santa Cruz) here.
Also, please check out Scott Rappaport's recent article on KT's book. On what inspired her, KT states:
"The inspiration for this collection is my sister Jane Tomi. She has been a longtime reader of Jane Austen and a Janeite, a very conscientious and active member of the Jane Austen Society. Truth is, I hadn't really read Jane Austen, so I finally did, all of the novels, and wondered why my sister, a Japanese American sansei, would become a fan of this literature. I still don't really know why she's a fan, but as I read Austen, I began to think about my sister and me, growing up as we did in a tightly knit provincial Japanese American community in Los Angeles. And I transferred our experiences into that world."
Also, KT closes her interview with Scott Rappaport with a powerful point about ethnic studies teachers as essential workers:
"Now I think about our teachers in ethnic studies, American history, critical race and gender studies, all across the nation, how what they've had to say in their classes has been so necessary and essential to American education. They too are essential workers. We need to support and to give them space."
