Welcome to another episode of the Willoughby Hills podcast!
On today’s episode, I speak with author, educator, and speaker Sarah-SoonLing Blackburn. Sarah is mixed race Malaysian Chinese and white, who was born in Thailand and raised in Tokyo, Beijing, and the United States. She is the author of the new young reader book Exclusion and the Chinese American Story, part of the Race to the Truth series.
In the book, Sarah dives into the histories of Chinese Americans who contributed to the gold rush, the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, and sharecropping in the Mississippi Delta, while also looking at stories of discrimination and racism surrounding laws like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
Even though the book targets younger readers, I found it to be a fascinating and illuminating read, with many stories about American history that I had never heard.
In this conversation, Sarah and I discuss her research process, her upbringing as a mixed race child in several countries, her life as an Asian-American adult in Mississippi, and the philosophy behind her time as a classroom teacher.
Please check out Exclusion and the Chinese American Story wherever you buy your books and follow Sarah on Instagram.
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125. Author Sarah-SoonLing Blackburn on the Story of Chinese-Americans