The Strength of Water: Book Talk with Karin Jensen

In this slideshow presentation, Karin K. Jensen will discuss her debut book, The Strength of Water, an Asian American Coming-of-Age Memoir. This reverse-immigration story tells of her mother, King Ying, who begins life in 1920s Detroit in her father's Chinese laundry business, where she longs for a real home and struggles to reconcile what passes for normal in Jazz-Age America with her father's vastly different cultural values.But when her mother dies unexpectedly,

Ba brings her and her siblings back to his ancestral village, where he leaves them with a new stepmother while he returns to the U.S. to work.There, she must survive hunger, dangerous superstitions, and the start of the Sino-Japanese War until she can be the first to return to the U.S. to pursue her dreams of home and belonging amid the cultural dissonance and racial challenges of mid-20th-century California.

Author Karin Jensen will discuss her research and how the story reveals history from fascinating perspectives: a woman's, an immigrant daughter's, and a life on the margins.

ADMISSION

$15 for general admission, includes a buffet reception after the book talk)
$30 includes, buffet and copy of the book if paid at time of registration.

Book will be sold at $20 on the day of the event.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Karin K. Jensen is a local news writer for the Alameda Post and the author of The Strength of Water, an Asian American Coming-of-Age Memoir, which was named to the annual Kirkus List of Top 100 Indie Books. She has also written for AsAm News and NewsBreak, winning editorial awards on the topics of #StopAsianHate and #AAPI Voice. Authority Magazine named her a Social Impact Author for her work.

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Host or Publisher Chinese Historical Society of America