Celebrating Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month
By: The Collective Book Studio
Tags: Aapi Heritage Month, Pacific Islander, Writing, Asian American, Publishing

REGINA SHKLOVSKY

Illustrator of Little Loon Finds His Voice

Regina Shklovsky is an illustrator and graphic designer based in Sonoma County, California. She illustrated the 2018 picture book, Fun in the Mud, which was a 2019 Moonbeam award winner and a 2018 Nautilus award winner. She is passionate about bringing stories to life with pictures and thoughtful design. Her work is rooted in traditional drawing and painting, mixed with vector graphics. She collaborates with local entrepreneurs and authors, as well as independent publishers.

What are ways you celebrate your heritage?⁠

At the age of five my father discovered fishing in the freshwater lakes of Massachusetts. He continued this hobby into adulthood, giving our family a tradition of camping in the summer and spending the whole day on the boat fishing for bass and swimming in the cool lake water. Having summers like this in my childhood gave me a strong connection to the outdoors that has carried forward to today. I celebrate this part of my heritage with my own family, spending time exploring nature whenever and wherever possible.⁠⁠

How do you channel your identity into your work?⁠⁠

My mother is Mexican-American with roots in Zacatecas, Mexico. My dad was born to a Japanese mother and his father was half Cherokee Indian, half African-American. I am all of these colors and also none at the same time, often checking the box of “other.” My identity these days is unattached to race. So, as in my youth on the lakes, I return to nature. I channel this part of my identity by using plants, animals and landscapes in my visual storytelling.⁠

MISASHA SUZUKI GRAHAM

Co-author of Dear White Women: Let’s Get (Un)comfortable Talking About Racism

A graduate of Harvard College and Columbia Law School, Misasha has been a practicing litigator for over 15 years, and is passionate about diversity, equity and inclusion in the legal profession as well as in her communities. She is a facilitator, writer, and speaker regarding issues of racial justice and children, and co-host of Dear White Women, a social justice podcast. Misasha, who is half-White and half-Japanese, is married to a Black man, and is the proud mom of two very active multiracial young boys. They live in the Bay Area of California with their largely indifferent cat.

⁠What are ways you celebrate your heritage and how do you channel your identity into your work?⁠

Growing up biracial, your identity is a key part of who you are — as others try and define it for you, you are forced to stand strong in who you are. For me, being the daughter of a Japanese immigrant, growing up culturally both Japanese and American, and spending time in both countries is central to who I am. I celebrate who I am in the names I’ve given to my kids, in lifting up voices and stories of people who look like me, and in making sure my family’s story is always part of my decision making process in how I move in this world. It is this deep love of my own identity that makes me so proud to co-author a book about how we see and show up for each other in this world, especially for those who have the privilege of being able to look away from questions of race and identity. I hope that my doing so will continue to encourage other Asian voices, especially Asian female voices, to share their own stories.

SARA BLANCHARD

Co-author of Dear White Women: Let’s Get (Un)comfortable Talking About Racism

Sara helps build community and connection through conscious conversations, which she does as a facilitator, TEDx speaker, writer, and consultant. After graduating from Harvard and working at Goldman Sachs, Sara pursued the science and techniques of well-being and is a certified life coach, author of Flex Mom, and co-host of Dear White Women, a social justice podcast. Sara is half-White and half-Japanese, married to a White Canadian man, and is raising their two White-presenting girls to be compassionate, thoughtful advocates. They live in Denver, Colorado, with their incredibly lovable dog.

What are ways you celebrate your heritage?⁠

We celebrate my Japanese heritage in the house in two main ways. One is the Girls Day celebration on March 3, which starts a few weeks earlier when we set up the Hina dolls to wish for the growth, happiness, and prosperity of my two young girls. On the day itself, the girls love the tradition of getting dressed in kimonos and taking photos to commemorate the occasion, and we finish up with a small in-house celebration. Two is the annual deep clean, or “osouji,” right before the new year. The way I grew up, it’s understood that the way you usher in the new year sets the tone for the entire year ahead, so we clean to purify the home (and in tradition, welcome in the Shinto deity of the new year) and set up kagamimochi decorations, and enjoy some traditional Japanese food. ⁠

How do you channel your identity into your work?⁠

Reflecting on it, the first half of my life was spent embracing my Japanese identity; the second half of my life was spent really diving into my Whiteness. Now that we’ve been doing social justice work for several years now, I feel comfortable owning that my life and values are a healthy mix of both of these traditions, and that I need both actively in my life to feel at home in my skin. As for work, having grown up in a bicultural home, I’m able to understand from deep in my DNA that there are many stories and perspectives in the world, and I naturally offer a bridge to help share these truths.

CHERYL YAU CHEPUSOVA

Author of Noodles, Please!

Cheryl Yau Chepusova is a designer, writer, and author of the Big Cities Little Foodies travel series. As a Hong Kong native and city dweller, she has traveled around Asia and also lived and worked in Toronto, New York, and most recently San Francisco. Her writing has appeared in Design Observer, Metropolis, Print, and others. She spends her days designing apps and software for companies like Slack, Pinterest, The New York Times, and Squarespace. She enjoys picnics with her two children, teaching them multiple languages, and learning about the world together through picture books.

What are ways you celebrate your heritage?⁠

I try as much as I can to maintain my culture for myself and my two children with frequent visits to my family in Hong Kong (pre-pandemic we would see them every 6 months) and continuing to teach my children my native languages and traditions. We are a mixed race family and both my husband and I speak in languages other than English, so my children regularly speak 4 languages at home. From my side of the family, we speak Cantonese and Shanghainese, and both my children go to a Mandarin immersion preschool as well, where they support our language learning and teach them a lot about overall Chinese culture with nursery rhymes, foods, poetry, and activities. At home I cook a lot of foods I’m familiar with and a lot of family recipes are Shanghainese, so my children are really used to eating various Chinese regional cuisines and using chopsticks from a young age. I didn’t move to the US until I was in my mid-twenties so it feels really natural for me to continue sharing this part of my background with my family. Language and travel experiences especially are a gift I can give them and enable them to stay in touch with my heritage.

How do you channel your identity into your work?⁠

I write about things I am familiar with, things that are special and unique to cultures outside of America, and hope that it will resonate with my young readers who don’t feel represented in mainstream media. I didn’t grow up with a lot of American traditions like the tooth fairy or Thanksgiving, and I generally miss a lot of cultural references simply from not having lived in the US for long enough. It’s easy to feel like an outsider, even around Asian Americans who look and speak like me. I love that we are beginning to see and celebrate more Asian representation in books and movies, and I try to bring a different angle to the dialogue. Having Western storylines with Asian faces in the illustrations is not enough for me. I imagine there are children who currently live in the US like myself, who identify with Asian culture more than American, and still want to feel a sense of belonging and acceptance in this country. My identity as an expat definitely shapes the stories I want to tell and how I tell them.