MidWest Mixed Community Spotlight: Sherry Quan Lee

The MidWest Mixed Community Spotlight Series features local artists, educators, and leaders reflecting on their Mixed or Transracial identities.
Sherry Quan Lee
Author of Chinese Black Bird, How to Write a Suicide Note: serial essays that saved a woman’s life, Love Imagined: a mixed raced memoir (Minnesota Book Award Finalist); and editor How Dare We Write: a multicultural creative writing discourse; forthcoming 2019 And You Can Love Me: a story for everyone who loves someone with ASD-all LHP/Modern History publications.
Oh So Wild and Oh So Beautiful
I am Sherry Quan Lee, formerly known, in my 30s, as A Little Mixed Up which is also the title of my book of poems published in 1982. Today I am 70 years old and still writing about my mixed-race identity. I believe identity is defined by intersectionality and is ever changing. In other words, who I am is more than race (which is a social construct). It is culture: family, home, environment, education, economics, gender, sexuality-oh so many things. I don’t like labels because labels confine us. Perhaps that is why I write. Narrative offers discovery for both the writer and the reader. Narrative allows more than a singular perspective. Instead it relies on descriptive detail and introspection.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.