Process Talk with Jen: Joanna Ho on We Who Produce Pearls
[Posted by Jen Breach for Writing With a Broken Tusk]
In an interview with Caroline Richmond at We Need Diverse Books on the 2021 release of her picture book biography of Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei, author Joanna Ho said, “When you boil down so much of political activism, it often comes down to inviting people to recognize humanity in others and treat people accordingly.” In those terms, Joanna’s newest book We Who Produce Pearls, illustrated by muralist Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya, is a warm and assured invitation to readers to challenge the dominant white-centered version of history that has held sway since the founding of the United States.
[Jen] We Who Produce Pearls is written in first person plural, and a deeply intimate voice that is compassionately and steadfastly inclusive of all Asian-American identities and experiences. The book’s illustrator, Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya once said “We are supposed to be a certain thing or a certain way or fit a certain stereotype, but in fact, we’re not a monolith. We come in all shapes and sizes with a variety of glorious backgrounds, and that means our art will manifest in an incredible variety of ways.” How did you manage this anti-monolith feeling in the book while using a traditionally monolithic voice?
[Joanna] The first person plural reinforces the call toward solidarity and togetherness that is at the heart of the book. While the Asian community is incredibly diverse, we also share so many experiences and have been oppressed using the same repeated narratives. We’ve also shown similar heartbeats of resistance and strength, of beauty and light. My hope is that this voice can help our community come together in even more powerful ways.
[Jen] We Who Produce Pearls is an anthemic poem. Almost every double spread is a new stanza that reflects a facet of Asian-American culture, history, and experience. How did you arrive at this structure?
[Joanna] I researched Asian American history for nearly a year, learning so many things I’d never been taught. I read, and sometimes re-read books, watched documentaries, visited significant sites, conducted interviews. As I processed all the stories and people and events, a few key take-aways stood out to me: Asian Americans are at once incredibly diverse, yet our histories and experiences are parallel in many ways, and despite the dominant narrative, Asians have always stood up, spoken out, and shaped our spaces. We have never been silent and we’ve always fought back against injustice. I wanted to find a way to really highlight these two points in a way that was accessible to readers of all ages.
Before I began writing, I looked through all my research notes and re-organized them into buckets that I loosely named by categories like, “resistance” or “legal battles” or “building community.” The notes included chapters, people and events from multiple waves of Asian migration and across the Asian diaspora. From there I tried to capture the heart each of these stanzas would come to represent, with the idea that these stanzas could show the parallels and share experiences across our diverse communities, but in one unifying text. It was my way of showing our community how connected we really are.
[Jen] And all that research is represented in the thoughtful and thorough back matter, which not only reinforces the themes of each stanza or spread in the book, but invites further exploration, reflection, and discussion. The back matter was clearly not an afterthought. When did you know it was going to be so detailed?
[Joanna] There is just so much history and symbolism on every page, and even in every individual, intentionally chosen word! I realized that if I didn’t include some kind of back matter, people would not know or understand the layers within each page. After all, most of us have never learned any of this history in school; it has been erased almost entirely. I played with many different ways to share some of the history behind each page, initially thinking I would just highlight a few key ideas. But I didn’t want people to just look up a few people or events and stop learning there. The back matter I included doesn’t even cover a fraction of all the history that contributed to this book! So, the teacher in me wanted to write it as an invitation to continue learning, to make it clear that this was just the tip of a very large iceberg, to make the learning more accessible both for educators and parents and students alike.
“Hopefully this book reads like a call to action and also an invitation to continue learning.”
I hope that the questions at the back help readers really think about the ideas captured on each page and throughout the book, that they’ll look through and dive into research, and eventually learn far more than is even captured in the backmatter of this book.
Hopefully this book reads like a call to action and also an invitation to continue learning.
[Jen] It absolutely does–your intention is right there on the page. Your language is gorgeously poetic and full of metaphor. How did you arrive at the metaphor of growing pearls in the mouth for the Asian-American experience? It fits so perfectly, but it is in no way obvious. I read that it is based on a poem from the Angel Island immigration detention center? How did you choose to make it central to your book?
[Joanna] After I had organized all the research into “categories” of possible ideas, I struggled to find one cohesive way to bring it all together. I knew I did not want to write a book filled with historical facts, but one that might stir something deeper. My brain tends to work in analogies and metaphors. They help me understand ideas more deeply and give me a foundation for storybuilding. At a point of struggle and unable to begin writing, I went back into my notes, then I started reading poetry from Angel Island, trying to spark inspiration.
When I saw the translation of a poem that read in part: “Now I gaze at distant clouds and mountains, tears forming like pearls…” I had a moment of inspiration and the book began to take shape in my mind. Each stanza builds around this idea of a pearl, ultimately leading to the reveal in which the reader learns what is created.
[Jen] You use it so powerfully and delicately. Truly, an extraordinary book that everyone should read. I also want to shout out Joanna’s instagram, where she has posted many short videos about her research and discovery, and her 2021 essay for We Need Diverse Books on the release of Eyes That Kiss in the Corners as a must-read: On Beauty, White Supremacy, and Revolution.
