I’m excited to be part of Disability Intimacy, the follow up to the groundbreaking anthology Disability Visibility, edited by writer and activist Alice Wong. I’m one of 39 contributors to this collection by Vintage Books that explores caregiving, community, access, friendship, and sex. My essay is about an intergenerational friendship. Grateful to Alice for asking me to be part of it.
More than simply a “myth” or a stereotype, the model minority is a racial form that brings with it very real expectations and consequences for Asian Americans. What kinds of harm are done when Asian Americans too often and too readily invest in the idea of the model minority? What will it take to undo this devastating ideal altogether? This panel brings together authors whose work examines the relationship between the model minority, health, and Asian American well-being.
Thursday, May 4, 2023, 6:00 – 8:00 p.m.
Presented by the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU
20 Cooper Square, 4th floor New York, NY 10003
Free | Register (Registration required)
Panelists:
* Melissa Hung
* erin Khuê Ninh, author of Passing for Perfect: College Impostors and Other Model Minorities
* James Kyung-Jin Lee, author of Pedagogies of Woundedness: Illness, Memoir, and the Ends of the Model Minority
COVID-19 & NYU campus access guidelines: All attendees must be able to present proof of being fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and boosted with an FDA-authorized or WHO-listed vaccine. Non-NYU guests may be asked to present a government-issued photo ID. NYU guests must present their NYU ID. It is strongly recommended that audience members wear a well-fitted mask during the event.
Accessibility note: This venue has an elevator and is accessible for wheelchair users. There are single-stall, all gender restrooms available. If you have any access needs, please email apa.rsvp@nyu.edu.
Update: A recording of the event is available here.
Food brings us comfort and memories. It tells the stories of family, friends, culture, and history. Join us for a virtual event as Ruby members share tales from the table.
Tuesday, November 1, 2022, 5:30 – 6:00 p.m. PT
Free, Online, RSVP here
Featuring: Aya Brackett, Breena Nuñez, Faith Adiele, Grace Hwang Lynch, Melissa Hung
This event is made possible through a grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission.
I’m thrilled to be part of Body Language, an anthology coming out on July 12, 2022. My essay about swimming and chronic pain is included.
Selected from the archives of Catapult magazine, the essays in Body Language affirm and challenge the personal and political conversations around human bodies from the perspectives of 30 writers diverse in race, age, gender, size, sexuality, health, ability, geography, and class—a brilliant group probing and speaking their own truths about their bodies and identities, refusing to submit to others’ expectations about how their bodies should look, function, and behave.
Featuring essays by A.E. Osworth, Andrea Ruggirello, Aricka Foreman, Austin Gilkeson, Bassey Ikpi, Bryan Washington, Callum Angus, Destiny O. Birdsong, Eloghosa Osunde, Forsyth Harmon, Gabrielle Bellot, Haley Houseman, Hannah Walhout, Jenny Tinghui Zhang, Jess Zimmerman, Kaila Philo, Karissa Chen, Kayla Whaley, Maggie Tokuda-Hall, Marcos Gonsalez, Marisa Crane, Melissa Hung, Natalie Lima, Nina Riggs, Rachel Charlene Lewis, Ross Showalter, s.e. smith, Sarah McEachern, Taylor Harris, and Toni Jensen.
Saturday, February 20, 2021, 2-3:30 p.m. PST
Free, Details on Facebook
Featuring: Melissa Hung, Paul Flores, and La Poeta Violeta
Open Mic limited to 5 readers, 4 min max, first come first serve
Hosted by Adela Najarro & harold terezon
2020 was not an easy year, so each one of these pieces of writing is a little victory.
I started the year off thinking I had cleverly tricked myself into writing on a regular schedule because I convinced Catapult to give me a column. It’s called “Pain in the Brain” and it’s about my chronic headache.
For the first column installment, I wrote about the meaning of keeping a headache diary. In the second, I wrote about my uneasy relationship with a body in constant pain and learning a meditation called the body scan. In the third, I wrote about weathering chronic pain in the pandemic without the one thing that consistently helps me, swimming. It’s also about how chronic pain has given me a kind of resilience.
For the San Francisco Chronicle, I wrote about a place I love, San Francisco Chinatown, and how the community is faring in the pandemic.
I also contributed to Resy’s Chinatown USA series with an essay about my love of honey walnut shrimp.
Lastly, my flash nonfiction piece about aunties at the YMCA found a home at Jellyfish Review. I think about the aunties often. I hope they’re doing OK.
Artwork by Jeannie Phan for Resy
Thrilled to be reading at Kearny Street Workshop in celebration of two new books: Little Gods by Meng Jin and Last of Her Name by Mimi Lok. This reading honors powerful stories about Asian women that bend time and place in their journeys to seek answers and connection in the aftermath of grief, displacement, and diaspora.
Friday, February 7, 2020, 7:00 – 9:00 p.m.
KSW Presents: Meng Jin & Mimi Lok
Arc Gallery & Studios, 1246 Folsom Street, San Francisco
$8 – $20 | Get tickets
Readings by: Emily Yamauchi, Melissa Hung, Rowena Singer, Grace Li, Sheri Park, C.E. Shue, and Lia Dun.
Featured artists: Meng Jin, Mimi Lok
Curated by: Michelle Lin and Kazumi Chin
It has been a goal of mine to be published in Longreads, and it happened this year! I wrote a personal essay about my relationship to Cantonese, my mother, and Chinatown.
For the San Francisco Chronicle, I wrote about the myth of authentic cuisines and how Tex-Mex is my comfort food.
For Pacific Standard (RIP), I wrote about how the People’s Kitchen Collective preserves cultural memory and carries on the legacy of the Black Panthers’ Free Breakfast program through free community meals.
It was also my pleasure to interview two authors: Tayari Jones and Esmé Weijun Wang.
Artwork by Olivia Waller for Longreads
August 31, 2019, 2:00 – 4:00 p.m.
Interdisciplinary Writers Lab 2019 Fellows Reading
Asian Art Museum, 200 Larkin Street, San Francisco
Free with museum admission, RSVP at Facebook or Eventbrite
2019 Instructors: Tongo Eisen-Martin, Elaine Castillo, Marga Gomez
2019 Fellows: Amber Butts, Cesar Cadabes, K-Ming Chang, Paula Mirando, Naihobe Gonzalez, Melissa Hung, Sarah Matsui, Jenna Peng, Damali Robertson, Dena Rod, Golda Sargento, Karthikraman Sethuraman, Maya Sisneros, Raia Small, J. Xiang
October 19, 2019, 6:30 – 7:30 p.m.
LitCrawl
Wabi-Sabi, 888 Valencia, San Francisco
Free, Details here
Potluck Club: Women writers of color reflect on the idea of home.
Featuring: Grace Hwang Lynch, Michelle Villegas Threadgould, Shikha Malaviya, Sabina Khan-Ibarra, Melissa Hung, and Jenn Chen
October 24, 2019, 6:30 – 8:30 p.m.
Five Ruby Readings: Works in Progress by San Francisco Arts Commission Grantees
The Ruby, San Francisco
Free, RSVP required
Join Ruby writers and San Francisco Arts Commission Individual Artist Commission grantees Celeste Chan, Melissa Hung, Shruti Swamy, Virgie Tovar and Michelle Wallace for an intimate reading of works in progress.
Image is of Connection: Tanabe Chikuunsai IV at the Asian Art Museum
A look back on some of the things I wrote this year:
I wrote about my grandparents’ immigration story (and their grocery store that sustained our family) for Southwest the Magazine.
Shondaland let me write about various obsessions, such as why I have a soft spot for the Filet-O-Fish, the only fast food my immigrant family would eat. I also wrote about the calming experience that is shopping at Muji and how pajamas help me feel like I’m properly adulting.
Journalism-wise, some of my favorite stories were food-related. The new publication Popula published my story about a local farmer, culture, and climate change.
For the San Francisco Chronicle, I wrote about three immigrants who opened up a hole-in-the-wall Uighur restaurant. They way they put everything into their business reminded me of my grandparents putting everything into theirs.
I also wrote about Chef Chu’s in Silicon Valley, how it began as a take-out counter and became the power-lunch establishment it is today. The story, for Eater, touches on the migration of Chinese food in America and ideas of authenticity.
Not a fun story, but an important one that ran in Pacific Standard: How Airbnb is contributing to gentrification in Boston Chinatown.
Another Chinatown story, this one in San Francisco. I learned so much about the history of the Chinese New Year parade and how it’s a story of immigrant survival in the face of discrimination and racism.
I also interviewed novelist Celeste Ng, director Jon M. Chu, journalist Bernice Yeung, and Hollywood legend Nancy Kwan.
Photo by Michelle Min
Melissa Hung 