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Hello and good morning, Joanna.
How are you. I'm great, how

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are you? Absolutely fantastic and very
proud of your brand new book. This

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is not just a great story,
this book is a work of art.

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Thank you so much. I mean, I mean you as an adult.

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I go from page to page and
I'm just blown away. I want to

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see this in a live gallery scene
is what I want to do with your

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physical words written on the pages.
I would love that so much. Amanda

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Pumoapakis art is just stunningly gorgeous.
How did you guys even team up?

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Yeah, that's that's a great question. It's actually a really unique story for

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most picture books. So the idea
for this book really came from my editor,

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who, in the middle of the
pandemic, at the height of you

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know, very modern day anti Asian
violence and reveretic she said, you know,

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I think we need a book that
kind of tells our his and just

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something that's really powerful in this way. And she didn't give me any direction

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than that, but she said,
I'd love you to write it, and

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I would like amand up home Goo
to pocket and illustrate it. And up

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until that point, a man I
had never done a picture book she's a

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multidisciplinary artist. She does murals and
installations and like public works campaigns all over

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the world. And so I met
up with Amanda's in New York and I'm

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in California, and she happened to
be in Oakland painting a mural. So

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I went up and I had lunch
with her and sort of talked to her

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through the idea of the book.
And she was very smart, like,

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that sounds like a great idea,
But why don't you show me the man

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you script for her before I commit
to a project. So after a year,

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at like a year and some change
later, after I finished the book,

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I sent it to her and just
I'm so grateful that she was moved

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by the words and decided to take
on the project, because she just adds

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such symbolism and layers and intentionality in
her art that I don't think anyone else

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could have for this specific project.
And isn't it strange in the way that

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you know, because so many children
and young readers judge a book by how

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thick the book is, and you're
saying that it took over a year to

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put this book together, and yet
it's like, whoa, it takes us

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ten or fifteen minutes to read it, but it took you over a year

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to bring it to us. Yeah, it's true. I mean I researched

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the book for a big majority of
that year. It was just researching all

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of the history that inspired the way
that I wrote the book, and so

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much of which is captured in the
words of the book and included in the

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back matter. I actually not so
much. There's like a fraction of the

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history I learned that's included in the
back matter, but it's there, hopefully

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as an invitation for people to continue
learning about the history, so much of

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which has really been erased and just
made invisible in our history books. But

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that inspires every word and all of
the art on these pages. Being a

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martial artist, one thing that my
taekwondo instructor made us do. He says,

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before you even learn this art,
you have got to learn the history

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of Korea and and that and that's
the one thing that has always been so

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heavy on my heart, because I
mean, you're doing that exactly here.

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You are showing people the history before
we got to this moment of right now,

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right And I think it's so important
to learn that. I love that

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that's what your taekwondo teacher taught.
Because I the more I learned, Because

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I feel almost unrooted up until I
wrote research and wrote this book, I

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feel like I've gained roots and a
connection to shoulders that I stand on,

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that all of us really stand on, and just a deeper understanding of who

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we are as Asians but as humans
and who we always have been, and

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also who we can be and must
be in the future. Being an educator

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that's helped you out when it comes
to making that connection with readers, hasn't

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it. I think it has.
I mean in this book in particular,

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the educator part of me really comes
too strong in that back matter, where

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it's like several pages of lots of
for every single page of the book,

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there are guiding questions to help readers
continue their learning, and then bullet points

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of things quite literally that were included
in my draft that I sent to my

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editor, that sent to manage to
show this is all the history that inspired

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each word or each line, so
that they would know the significance. And

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I just matter for me, like
the majority of readers probably also don't know

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the history because we don't learn it. I don't know the history. So

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my hope is that people will flip
through the back to look at that history

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and then to go back into the
text and see what all the deeper meaning

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in the layers in the text are. And I think that back matter really

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comes from my experience as an educator
and my desire to have people continue to

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learn. Can you imagine if you
would have walked in the library and spotted

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this book as a child, Oh
gosh, I can't. I mean,

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even just the pictures alone, the
way Amanda drew such a diversity of Asian

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people and the way that they look, but also the expressions, the strength

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and the power and the softness on
their faces. They're not It's just so

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different than the ways that Asian people
are typically depicted in the media and in

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Hollywood, And so just that the
images alone, I think would have been

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game changing for me as a kid. Probably one of the biggest ones that

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touched me the stories when they came. Oh my god, my heart continues

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to swell on this one. Yeah, when they came for that which was

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not there as that page I think
really speaks to so much of the history

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of imperialism and colonialism, of the
ways that the West has gone into Asian

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countries and you know, really done
a lot of things and taken things and

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effective systems. They are such that
many people were either literally forced in Chaine

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to come or forced by circumstance to
come here because of the pillaging and ramaging

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of the homes and cultures and ways
of life that they knew. And I

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think that that connection was also really
new for me and understanding even my own

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personal history of why my family came
and how connected that is to the systems

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and the histories and patterns in the
world. One thing that listeners need to

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understand, especially the YA readers that
want to be writers as well, and

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that is is that you said something
a few minutes ago that was very important

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the research that you put into this
product. And the thing is is that

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that for and readers need to understand. This isn't just going to Google or

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Yahoo. You physically went out there
and dug in to get the stories.

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Yeah, I really did. I
mean I read. I mean it's like

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the pandemic, so I couldn't go
anywhere and physically interview people. But I've

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read tons of books. I reread
some books and just took notes. I

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watched documentaries, I did do interviews, and I try to visit as much

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as I could historical sites that were
accessible to me, and I just for

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me as an author, I owe
and even in a fictional silly book,

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I always do research. It just
helps to ground me and help me find

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the through line and the heart of
the story that I want to tell.

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I mean, because you give them
an identity, but it's in your words.

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There's no cut and paste here.
These are your words, and you're

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giving them an identity. That's right, right. I think it's loss about

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me giving an identity and me trying
to capture, yes, like the community

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and who we are and who we
always have been, but in ways that

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speak from our hearts instead of ways
that other people want to portray us.

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Is this a book of declaration?
Yeah? Absolutely, I mean it's I

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think it's a call to action.
It's a declaration. It's a call to

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unity and solidarity. It's a call
to just use our voices and rise up

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together in our community, but also
in connection with other communities as well.

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My hope is that you know that
this does speak to the Asian community,

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but also that as other people outside
that community read it, they can find

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also shared points of history, of
experience, of feeling and just recognize like

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a greater common humanity and need for
all of us to be more united.

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I wonder how many elders are going
to pick this book up and are going

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to be blown away by it because
because of your truth and your transparency in

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it. Yeah, I think that's
such an interesting question. I find that

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because of the ways that other generations
have processed, or have been raised,

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or have found ways to survive,
something that feels so distinctly like a call

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to action and change and revolution and
resistance is sometimes dying in a way that

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has shaken, you know, out
of a space of assimilation and fitting in

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and climbing the ladder. My hope
is that it's drying in a good way

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that helps people rethink the ways they've
always thought and will shift the ways that

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they act so that you know,
we can all feel that greater light together.

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Yeah, where can people go to
find out more about you and to

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give you lots of love? Because
you've got so many books out there that

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need to be in people's personal libraries. Oh, thanks so much. I

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mean, my website is Joanna Horight
dot com. You can find all of

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my books on there. You can
find most of my books in almost any

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anywhere you find books, And I
would always support people to check out their

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local indie bookstores and if they're not
there or at the library, you can

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always request and then people will know
that there's interest. Oh man, you

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got to come back to this show
anytime in the future that you know,

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the door is always going to be
open for you. Thank you so much.

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It's such a pleasure to be here
today. Will you'd be brilliant today?

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Okay, okay, you too.