My journey into an attempt to understand how my ethnic identity was formed led me to write a memoir that I eventually published in 2005 as Southern Fried Rice: Life in A Chinese Laundry in the Deep South. Most people I know in California are puzzled when they learn of my southern roots, wondering why my parents settled in Georgia where there were so few Chinese. I soon realized from response from readers and audiences where I gave book talks/signings that here was an important story to preserve and share but no one was recording this bit of the Chinese American experience. Several people, for example, shared that they too grew up in cultural isolation where they were the only Chinese people in their communities and/or they also grew up helping in their parents' laundry.
Writing my memoir opened a new world for me after I retired from teaching psychology for 40+ years because I learned so much about the history of Chinese in America that was never c0vered in school textbooks. Before I realized it, I became a public historian of Chinese American experiences, writing 3 other books about major forms of Chinese self-employment such as laundries, grocery stores, and restaurants. Opportunities to make over 50 book signing events about these 4 books all over the U. S. enabled me to meet many other Chinese Americans who shared their experiences with me.
