My Chinese parents are not tigers. They did not rage when I brought home poor grades; they did not resort to corporal punishment, except on the truly rare occasion.
“I’m your father - if I tell you to eat nails, you eat nails” – a close translation of a phrase my father would use on me time and time again during our disagreements...
Emma was a domestic worker in our small town, where even the poor could sometimes afford a domestic. Emma had worked for my mother from before my birth, and continued to do so occasionally even after my father left, leaving Mom destitute.
The Cakeby Bekah Brunstetter ran at The Alley Theatre last year from June 1st thru July 1st of 2018. It's Pride Month now in 2019, and it still hasn't left my brain space...
What do you do when suddenly your life changes at age 70? I found myself and my old dog driving 2,400 miles from Oregon to Houston. And believe me, I love Oregon. I miss my friends, the mountains, the rugged Northern Pacific Ocean 40 miles from my house and my friends of 12 years.
I was kicked out of school in eighth grade. One fine day I decided that hiding a squirt gun under my desk and firing away at our science teacher’s fly was a good idea.
The strength of any community is dependent on shared vision, trust and support. With that in mind, we have formed a Care Response Team. The Oasis Care Response Team is dedicated to overseeing secular celebrations of life as well as being actively present in times of need.
I have always been intensely curious and from an early age read science books from the travelling library van that visited the farm where I grew up....
Everybody has had a “I said this,” “you said that” argument in their life. I would dare to say that it is the most common form of argument that a person has. When we are communicating to somebody, we are confident we formed the clearest possible sentences and that the other person understands us completely...
Mr. Marat, a Muslim coworker, and I had just driven together to an urgent meeting when, as I was impatient to rush out of the car, he asked me to wait for him as he completed his prayer...
Several community moment speakers have described their experiences growing up in a family strongly committed to a particular religion such as Southern Baptist or Christian Science.
As far back as I can remember, the wonders of the universe have fascinated me. Whether it was learning about dinosaurs and their ultimate but uncertain fate when I was 7-years-old...
I recently finished a biography of Georgia O’Keeffe, and my creative spirit was fed and nurtured by the amazing artist known now as the mother of American modernism.
The Humans by Stephen Karam played at The Alley Theater in Houston on March 1-24. This complicated family drama follows the Blake Clan, an Irish-Catholic family, on a Thanksgiving holiday as they help their youngest daughter, Bridgid, move into her new Chinatown duplex apartment in New York with her boyfriend, Richard.
I consider myself an accepting person and approaching things with an open mind is important to me. But even I was nervous having a conversation with a man who was addicted to a PCP...
“I don’t believe in god…” is not what people say when ending a conversation, but it can be if you then immediately jump out of your father’s parked car and sprint into your friend’s house. I had built up to the confession intentionally.
It is amazing how many ideas seep in from the past that we aren’t fully cognizant of. It is, of course, easy to point out the negative ones: the racist, xenophobic, sexist, and tribalistic habits of the past can dog us when we’re unaware, and a greater understanding of them can help us more readily guard against them.
