About this Event
Elaine will be in conversation with fellow Bay Area author Dr. Nancy Liu.
About the book: When Elaine Hsieh Yu arrives in Hawai‘i from Hong Kong at the age of four, her family’s hopes for stability quickly unravel. Her father, rigid and demanding, drifts in and out of her life. Her mother, loving but volatile, is at times neglectful. From an early age, Elaine understands that adults are not always able to protect or provide.
Ugly Dumpling follows Elaine’s journey from growing up poor, Asian, and largely invisible in Honolulu and East Los Angeles to raising her children in Silicon Valley. She shares vivid memories of family, survival, and love, tracing a childhood shaped by public assistance and undiagnosed illness into an adult life spent trying to give her children everything she never had.
Honest, emotional, and at times funny, Elaine’s story touches on relationships across three generations, revealing how the past shapes us but doesn’t have to define us, and how the unexpected paths and broken pieces can become something whole and beautiful.
About the Author:
Elaine Hsieh Yu was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Hawai’i and Southern California. She went on to build a career in Silicon Valley after graduating from Stanford University with degrees in Electrical Engineering. She wrote her debut memoir, Ugly Dumpling, to shine a light on mental health and intergenerational healing within Asian American families.
She currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, where they raised their two children, while continuing to care for her elderly mother. As an empty nester, she devotes her time outside her tech job at Apple to writing, keeping her houseplants alive, and socializing with friends, sometimes talking and laughing a little too loudly.
About the conversation partner:
NANCY H. LIU, Ph.D., is a Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. Previously a Fulbright Scholar, National Institutes of Health Fogarty Scholar, and Consultant with the World Health Organization, her current work focuses on contextualizing evidence-based psychosocial interventions to increase their efficacy and effectiveness.
Event venue & nearby stays
Books Inc. Palo Alto, 74 Town & Country Village, Palo Alto, United States
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