Speaker Spotlight: Abigail Hing Wen


Note: This interview was transcribed and edited for clarity. You can find the full interview on Instagram here.

Annie Wang: To get started, I wanted to ask what does Asian American or Chinese American identity mean to you?

Abigail Hing Wen: Oh, that’s a great question. So I grew up in Ohio, where I was one of a small number of Asian Americans. As a result, I became much more conscious of being different. People would ask me: “What are you? Where are you from?” so I had to think about it. And I think over time, my identity as an Asian American has developed. So in Ohio, it was something I was trying to run away from: it was something that was more about my family, the way I looked, and the fact that we would go back to Asia every so often to visit other relatives. And then as I grew older, going on Love Boat, which is the subject of my story, was an opportunity [to meet] other Asian Americans who were really proud of being Asian American. And I think then it was an opportunity to connect with the food that we eat in my home, [which] actually comes from somewhere – it’s not just like a quirk of my parents. Going to Taiwan, my character sees dragon fruit and salted eggs and platters of fried eggs, and those are all things that remind her of her family, and she realizes [that] it has an origin, and it has roots. For me, I studied international relations at Harvard and did my thesis research in China. Those were more formative opportunities for me to dig into the history and the politics, and the different value systems of the United States and China. To come to a more of a fused sense of my identity, I get to draw from the best of both my worlds or multiple worlds, with my parents being from the Philippines and Indonesia. I think, to me, that today what being Asian American is, it’s being someone who lived at the margins. But in a creative way, I was able to see multiple different issues, from multiple points of view; I bring an inheritance of resilience, coming from an immigrant family that has survived a lot of trauma over the years. Now, writing the stories that I’m writing and making the films that I’m working on, these are all opportunities to kind of solidify, you know, different stories around that Asian American experience.

Annie Wang: That’s great, thank you for the answer. I definitely relate to a lot of what you’re saying. Growing up also as a Chinese American, second [generation] in the Midwest, there’s similarities there. Great. My next question actually came from one of our programming coordinators because she’s recently read your book. She wanted to ask about wondering if you could talk about your approach to destigmatizing mental health by having an Asian character in your book who seeks out help and resources?

Abigail Hing Wen: Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s something that’s very close to my heart, I think there’s a lot of people who don’t get help with things like depression, anxiety, or other cognitive disorders. There’s learning differences that I also write about in my book. These things were just brushed under the rug. People kept them secret; they didn’t want anyone to know about them. This is true in non-Asian cultures, as well as Asian culture. Really, there’s so much wonderful modern medicine today, there is wonderful talk therapy, and different ways of managing these things in our lives that can just lead to a much higher quality of life, and also a lot more peace and happiness. Even taking that first step of acknowledging, there is something here, and then getting help can go so far in improving all our lives. So yes, very important to me.

Annie Wang: Yeah, definitely. What was the experience like? Were your parents open about talking about mental mental health? What was that experience like growing up for you? 

Abigail Hing Wen: Yeah, it’s not something that we talked about very much. I think it’s something I explored more when I went to college. Harvard did have a lot of therapy. I have repetitive stress injury, so I would go to my physical therapy, and I remember my physical therapist would just talk to me all the time about things. I think they’re seeing so many people who are struggling with depression, and then going and getting help; those are good examples to me. And then when I joined the workforce, the first thing – this could be seen as positive or negative –  they do is hand you this brochure: if you need counseling help, here’s the number to call. And I think that was actually a recognition that this work environment can be very stressful, which I think is a problem in itself. I think we should actually address the stressful work environment in conjunction with the mental health needs. I think having that resource there, and [going] [to] talk to a therapist, you realize that they see a lot of people who are struggling with the same things. Once you have someone who has walked the path ahead of you and can say: “These are ways that you can think about your worries: you can contain your worry, worry about the things you can control and don’t worry about the things you can’t control”. Having that wisdom injected into my own life was so valuable. I think I just wanted more of that as I grew older and older. 

Annie Wang: Yeah, definitely. It was not a conversation I had growing up at all. Awesome. So I also know that your book has some exciting things in the works for the movie adaptation that you’ve been working on. Any sneak peek insights for what we can expect whenever it hits Netflix?

Abigail Hing Wen: Yeah, so I can talk about what’s public, which is that we have cast, and we did film in Taiwan. We wrapped filming in mid-January, and we’re now in post-production. Ashley Liao is playing Ever Wong, Ross Butler is playing Rick Woo, Chelsea Jiang plays Sophie Ha and Nico Hiraga plays Xavier Yeh. They’re wonderful, fabulous people. I cannot wait to share this movie with the world. We also have Lionsgate attached as our global distributor, and Ace Entertainment, the creators of the Netflix adaptation of Jenny Han’s work – To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before – [are] our producers.

Annie Wang: Very exciting stuff. What experiences growing up inspired you to pursue being a writer specifically and to write Asian American stories?

Abigail Hing Wen: I didn’t know I was a writer for many years. I loved books, though. I was a total nerd, constantly reading. I also told stories. My brother and sister remind me of this, but I would tell group stories, which was a world of no adults around, a bunch of us kids. It would define the group at the beginning of the story, which is my brother, sister, and I, our cousins, and then the friends that we’ve made in the community, and we’d go on adventures together. And so I think I have always loved stories. Even when I went to law school, I found it was so much easier for me to actually study the material because cases are all stories, one disaster after another. And the courts trying to parse through who did what and who’s at fault sometimes it’s relative fault. I think it’s just always been what I’ve been drawn to – my head is full of stories. I remember stories, the best about people: if I can’t remember your name or where we met, I will remember the story about you. It wasn’t until years later, you know, I’d been writing for a while. It wasn’t until I went to my MFA program, where I really found the courage to call myself a writer. That was thanks to our faculty who were very encouraging. What they pointed out was, I had an Indian American Dean who said she never saw a writer or read [about] a writer that was anything like her. They were all “dead” white men is what she described it as. She had this terrible imposter syndrome, thinking that she couldn’t be an author. I definitely carried some of that as well. It’s been exciting to realize when you lean into your own stories, that is when you really bring to the world what only you can bring.

Annie Wang: Yeah, I think that’s definitely an interesting thing to think about. When I was writing my thesis at Vassar, I also had a little bit of a portion where I was asking people about Asian American representation [in] their lives growing up. Across the board, generally, the experience [included] very minimal representation. I am curious about what that means for current young people who are seeing so many more Asian faces in [the] media, whether in Marvel or in books. I think it’s really exciting. 

Abigail Hing Wen: It’s a different world. And I love seeing how much more confident the next generation of Asian American creators are. It’s wonderful.

Annie Wang: Yeah, I think I definitely see that this year’s convention too, with the people that we have been able to get on our team for the Youth Leadership Council. They’re all such driven, young people, passionate about AAPI issues. Whenever we were interviewing some of the members, one of them was talking about Asian diaspora or something like that. I was like, wow, I don’t think I even heard this term until I got to college. It’s amazing that you already have this knowledge, and you’re already doing grassroots work, and you’re 16 years old. I think that’ll be really exciting to see what they bring to the table. Speaking of which, I would love to ask, what are you looking forward to at this year’s convention in DC?

Abigail Hing Wen: Well, I love Washington, DC. So I feel like I cut my teeth there as a professional. I went there as an intern [during] my sophomore summer. My first summer was actually on Love Boat, the program for the book. My second summer was as an intern for Senator DeWine from Ohio, and I lived [with] a group in a house with a bunch of other girls from Harvard. We just had the best time. My first love is public policy, and how do we help shape a more just society? How do we legislate? How do we create laws that make people’s lives better? And so I think just coming to DC itself is going to be so much fun. I grew up in Ohio, where my only point of contact and learning about Asian American global issues was these conferences. I still remember learning about the Chinese Exclusion Act at one of these conferences, as well as the fact that Chinese built the railroads and weren’t in any of the photos. Those are stories that I know. I don’t know that I would’ve learned them any other way.

Annie Wang: Yeah, definitely. Do you have specific topics that you’re really interested or excited about discussing with, like fellow panelists or other attendees?

Abigail Hing Wen: Yeah, I think, you know, for me, like some of the big themes are just leadership. Asian Americans are coming-of-age in this country and moving into leadership roles. Some of us have faced bamboo ceilings along the way. How do we overcome that? How do we kind of move on and get to a place where we can make our biggest contributions to our country? I love themes around women’s leadership, implicit bias, the ways that we can all address that. I work in technology, so ethics and technology is a topic that’s particularly near and dear to my heart. In terms of international relations, especially with the state of the world, things in Afghanistan and Ukraine. Like I think we have a special voice to play as people who come from multiple cultures, and I think that that we have a special role to play in helping to bridge differences [and] miscommunications among peoples and so I think that when we lean into those those assets of ours, that’s how we can help the most people.

Annie Wang: Yeah, definitely.


We are thrilled to announce that Abigail Hing Wen, the New York Times Best Selling Author of the novel “Loveboat, Taipei,” will be joining us as a panelist at this year’s convention in D.C.! Hear about some of her experiences growing up Asian American, mental health, storytelling, and what she’s looking forward to at the convention!.

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