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The Strength of Water, an Asian American Coming of Age Memoir, by Karin K. Jensen
Please join us for a conversation honoring Asian America/Pacific Islander Heritage Month with. author Karin K. Jensen.
In 1920s Detroit, the author’s mother, King Ying, stands on a box to iron clothes in her parent’s laundry business and endures taunts on the playground. She dreams of a home and the elegance of her Jane Arden paper dolls. But when her father incurs steep debts during the Great Depression, he sends her far away to live in his ancestral village.
In remote Tai Ting Pong in the Guangdong province of China, King Ying feels as foreign in the land of her heritage as she did in the country of her birth. There, she must survive hunger, deadly superstition, and Japanese invasion. When a guardian angel helps her return to California, it’s a chance to seize her American dream … if she can overcome mid-20th century racism, those who prey on the economically vulnerable, and her family’s expectations about marriage.
Karin K. Jensen is the author of The Strength of Water, an Asian American Coming of Age Memoir from Balestier Press. She writes local news stories for the Alameda Post and participates in the To Live and Write in Alameda writer’s group. Since 2021, she has won NewsBreak editorial awards, one on the topic of #StopAsianHate and one on #AAPI Voices. For her work, Authority Magazine named her a Social Impact Author in 2021.