Poem Response

The Mah-Jong Players

under the halo
of a hanging lamp

Yellow ivories
clacking in the night

Tobacco fingers
build walls of China

Circles birds flowers
swirling through the game

The poem I chose to write about is titled “The Mah-Jong Players” from the book Crazy Melon and Chinese Apple – The Poems of Frances Chung. In this poem she is writing about people playing a game of Mah-Jong, which is like the Chinese version of the card game “Jin Rummy”. The poem paints a picture of a group of smoking men playing MJ at a table under a dim light one Friday night. They are probably playing to de-stress from all the work from the day and sit down to a good time. All the jade colored tiles clacking around while they build their walls and then, while the game plays out the different tiles come out – the circles, birds, and flowers. As they are playing I can just hear them talking in Chinese about their lives and also yelling about the cards that are out and what tiles they should’ve kept or not.

I chose it because the game Mah-Jong touches close to home with me. My family and I play weekly after our Friday night dinners. We also play on holidays and any other time we are either at my grandparents’ house or all get together on a Sunday. Although, it is usually just the women in the family who play, every now and then my grandpa, dad, cousins, or uncles will join in. I always look forward to good old family bonding time at the MJ table, but nowadays work and school has not allowed me to go to many of the Friday dinners so I don’t get to play as much – which makes me a little sad.

I can recall many funny memories from games that were played throughout the years. Like this one that involves my Pau Pau (grandma), who really only knows Cantonese, but she has picked up a little English with time. So, one night, we were playing and when she dropped out the bird tile, she said “birdie-ah, cheep cheep.” That made us all laugh and now she always says birdie. Also, it’s funny how my grandpa can play without organizing any of his cards and still win. One time, he was playing and I was standing behind him mid game and noticed all his cards were jumbled, but then all of a sudden he just peeked over at my aunt’s cards and said “oh, nice.” Everyone was saying “hey! No cheating Gong Gong,” but then he plops his cards down with the win. Now I like to peek over at the person next to me’s cards when I pick my own tile and win. Oh how I love the hilarious things my grandparents do!


This is a pic of three "Fat Choy" tiles (and two 4 of circles), where this character is for good luck. You can also see the tile walls in the background and a couple playing hands.

Frameless Windows, Squares of Light

The poem I chose to write about is "Humble Jar", from Cathy's second book of poetry titled "Frameless Windows, Squares of Light," published in 1988. This poem is about her mother, a seamstress, and how she's always resourceful.

She had a button for every emergency,
the way she just happened to have
a band-aid in her wallet
or some chewing gum in a back pocket
she'd bring these out as if by magic,
waving a tootsie roll like a wand.
(14-19)

Cathy's mother didn't have a cool job that she could brag about to her friends, but it didn't matter. She is proud to have a mother that saves the day when something goes wrong. She always has the things that are needed at exactly the right moment, even if it seems unlikely that anyone would have it. Cathy never thought of these small tasks as important when she was young, but now that she thinks back, she appreciates all that her mother has done for her.

The buttons that her mother kept in a jar were not only useful in emergencies, but also a trip into the past.

A dip into that humble jar
repaired a shirt,
but it also retrieved a moment
out of a cluttered life
(77-80)

The buttons were kept even though they were never needed for the original shirt it came with, and long after the shirt is donated, the buttons were still in the jar. Cathy shows that everything has a story behind it, no matter how insignificant they might seem at first. Anything can be a relic into the past, not only photographs.

Poem by Nellie Wong

Mama, Come Back Mama, come back. Why did you leave now that I am learning you? The landlady next door how she apologizes for my rough brown skin to her tenant from Hong Kong as if I were her daughter, as if she were you. How do I say I miss you your scolding your presence your roast loin of pork more succulent, more tender than any hotel chef's? The fur coat you wanted making you look like a polar bear and the mink-trimmed coat I once surprised you on Christmas morning. Mama, how you said "importment" for important, your gold tooth flashing an insecurity you dared not bare, wanting recognition simply as eating noodles and riding in a motor car to the supermarket the movie theater adorned in your gold and jade as if all your jewelry confirmed your identity a Chinese woman in America. How you said "you better" always your last words glazed through your dark eyes following me fast as you could one November evening in New York City how I thought "Hello, Dolly!" showed you an America you never saw. How your fear of being alone kept me dutiful in body resentful in mind. How my fear of being single kept me from moving out. How I begged your forgiveness after that one big fight how I wasn't wrong but needed you to love me as warmly as you hugged stranger

You don’t realize how much you love someone until that person is gone from your life. You don’t realize how much you take someone for granted until the day they are gone. You don’t realize how much you miss someone until the day you realize they are never coming back. And this is all very true. We are so into our own lives and our own interest that we take people around us for granted. We boss people around for our own pleasing. We say things to people we don’t really mean. We get mad at people when things don’t go our way, but its not until they day that person has left our lives that we realize what a terrible friend or family member we are. But usually by then it’s too late. We want to take things back but we can’t. We want to apologize but we can’t. We want to see them one last time to tell them we love them, but again we can’t. A lot of times, I know I can say so for myself, we are blinded by our own interest that we don’t see how much of an impact others are in our lives. We don’t realize that by our selfish acts we push the most important people in out lives away. And we finally do realize it. It is too late. So, by thankful for those around you don’t go anything you’ll regret later. Tell those you love how much you love them and how thankful you are for them before it’s too late.

I found this poem really inspiring. And it just makes me think about how much my mother has done for me and yet I fail to thank her. I can’t even imagine how my left would be if my mother was gone. This poem actually reminded me of a poem I wrote for my great grandmother when she left us. Just acknowledging and realizing how much she impacted my life and just not being able to thank her for everything. It just reminds me that life is too short. Live life to the fullest and again to just remember to tell those you love you love them and how thankful you are for them to be apart of your life.

Poet: Bio of Nellie Wong

On September 12 1934, Nellie Wong was born in Oakland, California to Chinese immigrants. During World War II, the internment of her Japanese American neighbors left a huge impact in her life. It brought to her attention the issues of racism and the concerns of Asian Americans. In her mid-30’s, Nellie began studying creative writing at San Francisco State University. She was inspired by her feminist classmate who encouraged her to write ad publish her poetry. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Nellie co-founded the Asian American feminist literary and performance group “Unbound Feet”. She traveled to China on the first U.S. Women Writers Tour and was also a speaker for many national and regional conferences. She has taught Women’s studies at the University of Minnesota and poetry writing at Mills College in Oakland, California. Now, she is currently residing in San Francisco, California.

I wasn't able to get a book of her poetries, but I was able to find a couple of her pieces online that I can work with. I'm excited to read her work and hear what she has to say about being a female Asian American living in California.

I decided to pick Nellie Wong as my poet because in some ways she reminds me of myself so i figured perhaps I would be able to relate to some of her writings. As I was reading her poems, one of her poems was about her going into a Chinese Bakery and encountering a white man speaking Cantonese. The way she responded to him is exactly how I would have reacted. Her poems also reminded me of the book The Dim Sum of All Things by Kim Wong Keltner which I really enjoyed reading so I figured I would enjoy Nellie’s writing too. Another reason I picked her was because she went to SFSU which I found really surprising. It's not everyday where you find out you went to the same school as a writer or any other famous person.

Justin Chin

Justin Chin at Progressive Reading Series - March 2008 Save Rent Control
Originally uploaded by Steve Rhodes

Justin Chin was born in Malaysia, raised in Singapore, moved to Hawaii, and now lives in San Francisco. In an interview with Frigatezine, he explains that, as a kid, he wanted to be a mad scientist "driven not by evilness, but by some sense of wanting to be saved and redeemed and converted to goodness by the hero," but his parents wanted him to be a doctor. He strayed from both aspirations, obviously, and is now a poet and performance artist, claiming to have stumbled into poetry by accident—"mostly by way of rock music and top-forty pop." His writing spans numerous topics and themes, including childhood experiences, queer life, consumerism, and immigration—all with a touch of wit and brutal honesty. To date, he has published three poetry books (Bite Hard, Harmless Medicine, and Gutted) and two collections of non-fiction essays (Mongrel: Essays, Diatribes & Pranks and Burden of Ashes). As a performance artist in the 90s, he created eight full-length solo works, which are all published in his book, Attack of the Man-Eating Lotus Blossoms.

I first discovered Justin Chin's work while perusing the Asian American section of the SFSU Bookstore with Sharon. Flipping through Harmless Medicine, I came across "Neo Testament," a short poetic prose, which starts off with:

Jesus had a twin named Ted. Ted Christ. Ted was neither godly nor evil. He was just indifferent. Jesus hated Ted. He prayed everyday for Ted's crib death, and God listened. Jesus soon regretted his decision and held his breath until God resurrected Ted, but on a different day, so he would not have to share birthdays.

His sense of humor appealed to me, and I made my decision right then and there to choose him as my poet for this class.

AA POET BIO; Ai

"Ai is the only name by which I wish, and indeed, should be known." - Ai

Ai – a word meaning “love” in Japanese – became the pen name for Florence Anthony. Born on October 21, 1947, in Albany, Texas, she also lived in San Francisco and Los Angeles as a child. “There were good times, but they were always eclipsed by bad times,” Ai recounts for she was impoverished in San Francisco. Ai’s multicultural background – a Japanese father and a Choctaw, Cheyenne, African American, Dutch and Scots-Irish mother – is what keeps her life interesting and is an inspiration for her work. At the age of fourteen Ai began writing poetry to enter a poetry contest, but her family moved back to Tucson before she could submit her entry. Even though she didn’t enter the contest because she had to move, Ai realized that she had skill with the pen. She graduated from the University of Arizona with a bachelor degree in Japanese, and also has a M.F.A from UC-Irvine.   She writes about things that come to her through real life happenings as described by the media or personal experience.  For example, she can be listening to the radio or watching the news and she hears a particular lyric or newscast that catches her interest.

I decided to choose Ai and her poetry book "Vice" for many reasons. The very first aspect of her that pulled me was her ethnicity, with her background there are vast cultural stories that I can be exposed to and i really like to experience different cultures. The next was her style of writing. She writes about "off-the-wall" and unusual topics that are "hard" to talk about; including sex, rape, etc. this dark side is what i like to read about because it's so different than my real life livings, yet i can relate and it comforts me to know that another person feels the same way i do. After these realizations, i researched and came across some of her poems, and i was hooked onto the mysterious and ambiguous words.

There are several poems that i'm thinking about using, yet i still have yet to pick only three. they are called "The Prisoner", "Talking to His Reflection in a Shallow Pond", and "Blue Suede Shoes", "More", and "Elegy." The first prisoner deals with being interrogated as a terrorist and how much freedom means to a person that has been a PRISONER for so long. The next poem of course has to deal with identity and the cultural struggle with finding that identity balance in America. Next, im not very sure if i understood this poem correctly, but the way i see it, Ai is basically touching upon what a "REAL AMERICAN" is and looks like. what personality and what type of job they are obligated to. next, "More" has to deal with WANTING america, and wanting that American dream as someone who is a minority who cannot achieve the full "american experience." lastly, "Elegy" describes a city undergoing a war.

Asian American Poet

Cathy Song is a Korean-Chinese poet born in Hawaii in 1955. She resists being labeled as an "Asian American writer," and instead calls herself "a poet who happens to be Asian American. She currently teaches creative writing at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Cathy Song participates in Hawaii's "Poets in the Schools" program, which allows students from kindergarden to high school to work with poets and learn about poetry. She says the program is very rewarding and she learns as much from the students as they do from her.

Cathy's published books are; Picture Bride (1983), Frameless Windows, Squares of Light (1988), School Figures (1994), and The Land of Bliss (2001). Her first poetry book, Picture Bride, won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award in 1983, and she won quite a few awards thereafter; the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, Hawaii Award for Literature, and the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.

A picture bride is a marriage arranged through the exchange of photographs, which was how her mother and her father met, by way of their parents. She writes about women's issues, motherhood, family, and tries to acknowledge the many roles women play in society. She is inflenced by her own family, and tries to tell her families' stories in her poetry.


I chose this poet because Cathy Song is a female writer that writes about how it is like being female and Asian American. Her poems are easy to read and understand, and I can relate to what she writes about.
Well, that's what I'd like to say but the truth is Katrina borrowed an extra poetry book from the library and I really needed a poet to write about. I ended up liking it quite a bit.

Bio - Pic of AA Poet Frances Chung

For the poetry unit of the class, I choose the Chinese American poet Frances Chung (1950 to 1990). She was born and raised at the border of New York’s Chinatown and Little Italy. Her mother and father are Chee Kin and Wilbur Chung, and she has an older sister Edna. At Smith College, she got a degree in mathematics and after graduating she taught at public schools in the Lower East Side of New York.

There is not much about her online, but I gather that most of her poetry is for her to let out her thoughts and experiences. The book I found is Crazy Melon and Chinese Apple – The Poems of Frances Chung. The titles “Crazy Melon” and “Chinese Apple” are from two unpublished book manuscripts that were found in Chung’s papers. These poems show and describe her living in New York’s Chinatown in the 1960’s and 70’s. “Crazy Melon deftly sketches the streets, fantasies, commerce and toil of Chung’s neighborhoods, while the later Chinese Apple offers new themes and cityscapes – delightfully understated eroticism, tributes to poets, impressions of other Chinese diasporic communities around the world.” From the Commentary by Walter K Lew, Frances also really liked the bookmaking process and was passionate about authenticating her work to get it out in the world for people to read. She would even make her own paperback books with folded sheets of paper and the “Crazy Melon” manuscript was kept in a clear box where she taped a plum candy wrapper to the lid and stamped her red Chinese seal.

I found Frances Chung just by chance landing in the Asian American aisle at the SFSU Bookstore. Katrina and I were on break in-between classes and we were originally looking for a food book that I heard about, but we were a little lost and just so happened to be standing in front of the AA section. Then a light bulb went off that we should look for our poets and see if we could find any poetry books here. We ended up finding this book full of Asian American poets, called Yobo - Korean American Writing in Hawai‘i. When I got home I looked up some of the poets that wrote poems that I liked online and found Walter K Lew. Then I saw that his book was at the SFPL so I went to check it out, but it was missing and then I found Frances Chung’s book. I thought the title was cool so I flipped through it and read some of her poems and there you go – my poet.

Poetry assignment- "most political form of art": Suji Kwock Kim

Suji Kwock Kim is a Korean American poet and was born in Milton, New York in 1969. She attended Yale University where she received her bachelor’s degree in 1995 and received her master’s degree in fine arts from the University of Iowa’s writing program in 1997. Kim was also educated at Seoul National University and Yonsei University as a Fullbright Scholar, and at Stanford University as a Wallace Stegner Fellow. When she was twenty-one years old, she began writing poetry after she attended a poetry writing workshop in college. She was motivated to write poetry because she was intrigued by its structure. The rhythm and music of inspires her and she loves to write poetry even though it may seem tough at times because she has a hard time containing all her intense feelings and emotions. She wanted to write about her Korean heritage, which is very important to her so she writes many poems based on aspects of Korean culture. Kim explains her roots online and not in her poems. In her poems she talks from her ancestor’s perspective and point of view.

I decided to choose Suji Kwock Kim and her poetry book “Notes from the Divided Country” for three main reasons. First of all, I wanted to choose an Asian American poet of who was not of Chinese descent. Being a Chinese American, I know Chinese culture very well with all of its aspects, traditions, values, etc. I wanted to learn about a different Asian American culture because I felt like I needed some change in my learning of Asian American culture. Seeing the perspectives of other Asian American cultures is important in order for me to understand what the big picture of Asian American culture is about. Secondly, I wanted to hear a woman’s voice instead of a man’s voice. No offence to men or anything but men have dominated and had advantage over women in the freedom of expression through poetry and other forms of art. We have seen throughout history that women were forbidden to express themselves in any way. When women were eventually allowed the freedom of expression, they poured their hearts and soul into their writing. The beauty in the poems is something that I wanted to read and be able to relate to because I am of the same gender as them. Third, I read the summary for the poetry book “Notes from the Divided Country” and I was interested in the plot and poetry presented in the poetry book. I knew that if I used this poetry book for class I would not be bored and that I would learn a lot about Korean culture.

The three poems that I chose to use for the poetry unit of this class are “Flight,” “Nocturne,” and “The Korean Community Garden in Queens” from the poetry book Notes from the Divided Country. These poems have themes and certain messages that the author wants the reader to know from reading the poems. In “Flight,” the author wants the reader to recognize the severity of the experience of the journey from a native country to America and realize how dreadful and emotionally painstaking the journey is for all immigrants. The major themes from this poem are oppression, fear, and helplessness because the scene is so sad and scary for those going to America. In “Nocturne,” the author advises the reader to spend as much time with his/her love as much as possible since time is short and there may be circumstances that occur that separate two lovers apart. The major themes from this poem are love and sadness because the lover is sad about wanting to see her love. In “The Korean Community Garden in Queens,” the author is telling the reader that through the tough obstacles and circumstances that occur during the journey to America, it is worth it at the end where the immigrants achieve the life that they longed for. The major themes from this poem are happiness and overcoming obstacles because the immigrants overcame several obstacles to achieve happiness in the end. All three poems connect in the way that they each take part in describing the journey from the native country to America and emphasize the feelings and emotions that go into it. “Flight” talks about the journey at the beginning, “Nocturne” talks about reminiscing love as the journey goes on, and “The Korean Community Garden in Queens” talks about end of the journey of happiness and success. At the beginning of the journey, it seems scary at sad at first and throughout the journey a person often thinks of family members and those who they care about. However, upon arriving in America, immigrants are happy that they finally made it and are able to start a new life.

My creative response is taking the line “Light a lighthouse over these broken spars” from the poem “Nocturne” and writing a poem based on that line. Here’s what I came up with:


A Burning Flame at the Beach

Waves tumbling, crashing into millions of glass shards,
Winds whistling the notes of a flute, as
Clouds rumble and gather together, crying in agony.

Off in the distance a moldy, wooden ship bobbles up and down
Fighting against the evil forces of Mother Nature.
The ship stretches out its hand, ready to grasp the shore
When suddenly BOOM!
A thunder strike sent down from the heavens above
Cuts the hand and sends the ship blundering viciously in circles
Until it is torn and breaks into smithereens
Upon smashing against the rocks near the shoreline.
The fragile pieces of wood and spars land helplessly on the shore of the sandy beach,
Wiped out from their treacherous adventure.
This incident occurs over and over again
For all of eternity.

Not far in the distance stands an abandoned lighthouse,
Perched upon a cliff of moist, eroded rock.
With broken windows and peeling paint,
The lighthouse faithfully sits and stares at the ocean,
Not knowing if its internal flame will ever burn again.
The debris of remains from ships who met their terrible fate,
Spars snapped into jigsaw pieces,
Makes up the gloomy environment that the lighthouse lives in.

This night however, an old man with a shaggy beard appears out of the nighttime fog,
Gruffly walks into the lighthouse, and
Climbs the spiraling stairway to the top.
He lights the Olympic torch and
Sets the night ablaze.
With the lighthouse burning bright and filled with joy,
It turns the whole entire world of sadness and misery upside down,
Shining a ray of hope to people close and afar, while
Overlooking the broken, remaining remnants of the awful past.

Reactions to AA poems

The three poems that I chose to use for the poetry unit of this class are “Flight,” “Nocturne,” and “The Korean Community Garden in Queens” from the poetry book Notes from the Divided Country by Suji Kwock Kim. Each of these poems is outstanding in its own special way and conveys a message that represents the author’s experience as a Korean American along the journey from Korea to America.

“Flight” talks about the author’s perception of the journey from Korea to America. The author talks about the moment of leaving Korea and describes the environment of the surrounding people and setting. A message is addressed to a future family member about the situation that is going on at the end of the poem. After I read this poem, I was immediately reminded of the similar journey that my parents took when they came to America. They underwent the same circumstances. My mom told me about the experiences that she went through and the aspects of the environment she lived in while she made the dangerous and frightening journey. She mentioned that she saw lots of sick people dying and the whole entire experience was somber for everyone onboard. Although she did not tell me more about her experience beyond these details, I could imagine that what she saw was so dreadful that she didn’t want to talk any more about it. The author paints a vivid portrait of the experience with descriptions like “Our son burned into a wing of smoke” and “A girl with her eyes blown away.” I felt sad for my parents and immigrants who come to America after reading this poem because they went through such harsh circumstances but I also appreciate how strong they were to be able pull through from their experience and not let it greatly affect them. I was surprised at the way the poem was presented on the page in the book. The poem is presented in a unique way where each short line of the poem alternates back and forth between the left and right sides of the page. The structure of the poem stands out because usually poems are presented as stanzas but here the poem takes on a different approach, and that makes the poem stand out.

“Nocturne” depicts a nighttime scene at the beach in order to dedicate the poem to someone that the author loves. The author describes the scenery of the beach with the waves, sand, wind, and sounds and yearns for her love through touching metaphors and descriptive, expressive phrases and words. After I read this poem, I could imagine the entire scene in my head where the author sits on the sand at the beach and looks off into the distance, thinking about her true love. It looks like the romantic scene in some movies where the girl is alone while her love is off somewhere in another location such as another country fighting a war. I felt sad after reading this poem because the author must be going through turmoil of emotion just to have her true love with her at the moment. She feels really lonely and needs someone to support and care for her. The descriptions of the beach also help portray the feelings and emotions that the reader has for her love. “In your shirt’s rustling, I hear sailcloth in the wind, ropes lashed and pulling against the mast” tells the reader that the author’s love can be compared to the aspects of the beach. “I cannot see what you see, but I will paint you a world in green, the color you most love” expresses the author’s feelings towards her love, saying that she will do anything for him to especially make him happy. The author gives the most vibrant descriptions to tell the readers what she wants them to know.

“The Korean Community Garden in Queens” concludes the author’s journey from Korea to America with a description of the garden she lives close to and mentioning the immigrants who come to America to seek a better life. The author gives the readers a sense of the aspects of the garden including the grass and the flowers and personifies them in order to relate them to the immigrants who come to America and have the drive to succeed and live more comfortably. At the end of the poem, the author concludes that those who come to America have finally achieved the life and dream that they sought for. After reading this poem, I thought about what my parents saw when they arrived in America. They were unfamiliar with the scenery and way of life that they were so scared. However, they dealt with the situation by slowly assimilating themselves into American society by getting jobs and learning English. Soon they knew how the system in America worked and eventually became experts at it. Also, unlike the other poems that I have read from this poetry book, this poem made me feel happy. The theme of the poem of a brighter future in relation to the beautiful scenery of the garden in Queens is something worth feeling good about. One of the numerous descriptions of the garden is “…syringes and dead weed-husks, tire-shreds and smashed beer bottles, the first green shoots of spring spike through-…” which gives a visual image of the garden. One of the main connections between the garden and humans (immigrants) is made in the line “All things lit by what they neighbor but are not, each tint flaring without a human soul, without human rage at its passing.”

Background on poet

Suji Kwock Kim was born in Milton, New York in 1969. She attended Yale University where she received her bachelor’s degree in 1995 and received her master’s degree in fine arts from the University of Iowa’s writing program in 1997. Kim was also educated at Seoul National University and Yonsei University as a Fullbright Scholar, and at Stanford University as a Wallace Stegner Fellow. When she was twenty-one years old, she began writing poetry after she attended a poetry writing workshop in college. She was motivated to write poetry because she was intrigued by its structure. The rhythm and music of inspires her and she loves to write poetry even though it may seem tough at times because she has a hard time containing all her intense feelings and emotions.

Kim’s first book of poems, Notes from the Divided Country, won numerous awards. Some of the awards include the 2002 Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets, the Addison Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award. Since then she has written a number of works and several anthologies. Her works have appeared in newspapers including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times and have been heard on National Public Radio. 24 of her anthologies have been translated into several languages including Korean, Japanese, Russian, Spanish, Italian, German, Arabic, and Bengali. Her works have also appeared in other works of poetry and anthologies such as Poetry, Paris Review, The Nation, Yale Review, New England Review, Southwest Review, Harvard Review, and Asian-American Poetry: The Next Generation.

Besides being a poet, Kim is also a playwright with music and theatre. Her work Private Property is a multimedia play that showcased at Playwrights Horizons in New York and was featured on BBC-TV. Texts from her poetry book Notes from the Divided Country were sung by choruses, voiced, and had music accompaniment. Poems "hwajon," "Flight," and "Looking at a Yi Dynasty Rice Bowl" were sung at Pablo Casals Hall, Tokyo in December 2007. Poems "Occupation," "Fragments of the Forgotten War," and "Montage with Neon" had voice and piano composition accompaniment. Other numerous awards that she has received are being named a Notable Book by the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Association and the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights and also being a finalist for the PEN USA Award and the International Griffin Prize. Kim is also the recipient of grants from organizations such as the Association of Asian American Studies, Korea Foundation, Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission, and San Francisco Arts Commission.

Suji Kwock Kim now divides her time between San Francisco and New York. She is married to her husband whom she met during her freshman year at Yale University.