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One of the exercises in CLP is about identifying and clarifying our own personal values. We each identify our top 5 values, writing one each on 5 index cards. Then we have to drop one… and another… until we are forced to choose our number 1, top value. What is your current One right now and why?

Community: what does community organizing look like for me?

As my parents face retirement from their small motel business in California – a lonely and isolating 40-year tenure – I think a lot about their yearning for community. It motivates me to think about the ways in which I, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, can close the gap between them and the demographics they do not identify with. I think a lot about how to do this in New Haven…

What is one big, burning leadership question you are wrestling with these days?

I’m concerned that I am complicit in perpetuating the impression that the Chinese population is a silent minority in the United States. As an introvert, I’m proud of my ability to adapt and be flexible, but do I risk conforming and appeasing? What happens to my voice and the others I represent when I avoid confrontation and disagreement? I also struggle with the tension of methods for change – do I change the system from within, or create a more immediate agenda?

Building up the visibility and engagement of Chinese people (including those who identify with the heritage and culture) through public service and philanthropy is a starting point for me to explore community. My work as the first arts director of the Yale-China Association enables me to explore new collaborative approaches and opportunities to bridge the misunderstandings I experienced and witnessed as a young child.

What inspires you, gives you hope these days?

My daughter and her constant curiosity. I’m inspired by her confidence, frustrations, discoveries, and most of all, her joy. The ease in which she experiences the world reminds me of how easily we can connect with each other if we reach out.

This work of transformational change is hard. Stepping in, stepping up, over time, can be draining – physically, intellectually, emotionally, psychically, spiritually. How do you recharge, restore, take care of yourself, rekindle your fire?

Time is an incredibly restorative tool. Time with girlfriends who I grew up with in California; time alone with my partner – my husband; time with new friends and colleagues; and time for myself. Also, as someone who has spent a few years teaching in schools, I continue to look for ways to work with students who have creative ideas and unconditioned ways of viewing the world; their perspectives are restorative to me and kindle my hope for a better future.

Introduce us to someone you are/were close with personally (e.g., family, teacher, friend, mentor), who shaped (or shapes) you and how you view leadership and possibility for a better community/world?

My older brother was my best playmate growing up. We built forts made of pillows and blankets and made roller coaster rides for our marbles on Jenga tiles. We danced to music, sang songs, and choreographed 20-foot water shows with the backyard hose, complete with music from Fantasmic! at Disneyland. My brother taught me how to play and lead with heart.

We watched our parents work around the clock to make their small business profitable – which was often not the case for the first decade as they worked to support an intergenerational family of 10 under one roof. We learned the importance of helping out with the business, from charging customers to cleaning up after them. We helped with cooking, laundry, making beds, cleaning bathrooms, and sǎo​dì (sweeping). My parents instructed us on handling chemicals safely and taught us to keep our mouths closed when vacuuming. I often held my breath. We were expected to be ahead of our grades in math, reading, and writing. In third grade, I was told to take ESL while my brother absorbed a book a week. We worked hard and had stellar teachers and mentors who believed in us.

My brother trailblazed his way through school, went to Harvard and NYU. When the time came for me to consider college or music conservatory, my brother said, “college is a place where you don’t just learn about JFK, you get to hear directly from his speechwriter Ted Sorensen.” With that, I left my ambition of attending UC Santa Barbara with its well-regarded piano program, and moved to the east coast to attend Yale, a school my mother read a lot about through their Taiwanese newspaper delivered daily out of Los Angeles.

Both of our adult lives have been shaped by our own soul-searching – my brother traveling the world and discovering like-minded people at Pride parades, and me discovering and embracing my heritage at the foot of the Huangshan mountains in rural Anhui in China.

To this day, I look to my brother because of his ability to navigate the world as his authentic self. As the children of immigrants, we are living the life of freedom that my parents sought in this country. His activism reminds me every day that many minorities in the U.S. are facing injustices and living in fear. Struggling against conformity is my greatest challenge, so I truly admire my brother for living truthfully.

What do you recommend to us, in each of these categories:
  • Reading – “Hyperallergic – Sensitive to Art & its Discontents”
  • Listening – Prelude and Liebestod to Tristan und Isolde – best absorbed live, but also enjoyable through the Berlin Philharmonic’s recording with Herbert von Karajan or Jessye Norman’s moving performance of the Liebestod
  • Eating – Dim sum brunch at Great Wall on Whitney Avenue
  • Watching – Ali Wong on Netflix
  • Laughing – Taylor Mac – An artist who demonstrates the power of theater and art in activism
  • Wildcard – Lunarfest: this is New Haven’s very own Chinese New Year celebration every February, which I am proud to have founded alongside incredible colleagues and partners throughout New Haven. We grow every year. Please reach out if you think there is a way to partner together.

To get in touch with Annie directly at the Yale-China Association: annie.lin@yale.edu

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