COMMUNITY NEWS Issaquah’s Barba Higuera receives top literary awards 

■COMMUNITY NEWS

Issaquah’s Barba Higuera receives top literary awards

By Samantha Pak

NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY

Donna Barba Higuera

A few years ago, Donna Barba Higuera’s youngest daughter came home from middle school, upset about having to square dance in physical education.

Her daughter’s horror at having to dance—and with a boy, no less— sparked the idea for Lupe Wong, a young Chinacan/Mexinese (Chinese and Mexican) girl Barba Higuera describes as a stubborn troublemaker and social justice warrior. She’s also the title character in the Issaquah resident’s 2020 debut middle grade novel, “Lupe Wong Won’t Dance” (Levine Querido, 2020). The book went on to receive a number of awards and honors, including the Pura Belpré Honor Award and the Sid Fleischman Humor Award.

At the end of January, Barba Higuera’s latest book, “The Last Cuentista” (Levine Querido, 2021), the story of a 12-yearold girl who is an aspiring storyteller in a world hundreds of years in the future when stories of humanity’s past are being erased, received the Newberry Medal and Pura Belpré Award.

Barba Higuera received news of both honors within the span of one weekend. The annual awards are sponsored by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association (ALA). According to the ALA website, the Newberry Medal is awarded “to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.” The Pura Belpré Award—co-sponsored by the Young Adult Library Services Association, and ALA affiliate, REFORMA—is presented to “a Latino/Latina writer and illustrator whose work best portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth.”

Since the announcement, Barba Higuera’s life has turned into a hurricane of happy chaos. Within a week, hard copies of “The Last Cuentista” began selling out everywhere, from Barnes & Noble to Amazon—a good problem to have, she admits. She’s also received more interview requests than she can handle without assistance.

When asked if she imagined receiving these awards when she began writing, Barba Higuera, who still works as an optometrist in Bellevue (although she’s going to start cutting back on her hours as her writing career becomes more demanding), said, “I don’t think any writers imagine any awards at all,” pointing out that there are also amazing books that haven’t received any recognition.

Barba Higuera, who has also published a children’s picture book called “El Cucuy is Scared Too!” (Harry N. Abrams, 2021), has always been a writer. Before she began writing seriously, she wrote short stories, often with alternative versions of things she saw as mysterious. She started her first novel in 2011, after taking online writing classes at Bellevue College. For about seven years, she wrote several “practice” novels before getting an agent and writing “Lupe.”

Although she’s been in Washington since 1995—living in Kent before moving to Issaquah about 18 years ago— Barba Higuera, who is half Mexican American and half white, grew up in Taft, California. Back then, it was a predominantly white community and throughout her childhood, there was only one other Latino boy in town. Despite their small number having just one other person with a similar cultural background helped.

Being biracial, she understands how it feels to be considered by others as “not enough” of either race. This is something her two daughters—one of whom was adopted from China, and the other is half Chinese American on her father’s side— have had to navigate as well.

Barba Higuera works hard to give kids what she didn’t have growing up— representation. But she tries not to be preachy in her writing. Instead, Barba Higuera likes to present situations that will have readers questioning how they would feel or react if they were in her characters’ shoes.

Whether it’s kids who haven’t seen

see HIGUERA on 14

HAPPY LUNAR NEW YEAR 2022!

I am proud to join Seattle’s Chinese Community in celebrating the Lunar New Year and in ringing in the Year of the Tiger! I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank the sta and volunteers of the Northwest Asian Weekly for more than four decades of service to our community. I also commend the sta of its sister publication, the Seattle Chinese Post, which has provided critical news and information to readers since 1982. I encourage all King County residents to join me in celebrating the Lunar New Year, and in recognizing the contributions of these esteemed community institutions.

Dow Constantine

King County Executive

■LUNAR NEW YEAR Smooth like butter: Link between Korean American foods, culture

By Joshua Lee

NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY

In a packed home kitchen, the sounds of sizzling pajeon (scallion pancake) and the smell of doenjang jjigae (soybean paste stew) fill the house. Generations of family come barrelling into the kitchen, eagerly awaiting the feast before them.

This is the reality for millions of Korean Americans, many of whom are second- or even third-generation immigrants, who come together to bond over the “foods” of their labor. Moreover, with seollal (Korean New Year) upon us, those families will undoubtedly be coming back together once more for festivities and celebratory tteokguk (rice cake soup) for the Lunar New Year.

This further begs the question: how does food, such a seemingly ordinary element of life, hold such extraordinary power?

“I definitely think there’s a strong link between food and heritage and cultural connection,” Erin Kim, a Korean American living in Seattle, said. “It’s a huge part of Korean culture that keeps me connected … I grew up eating Korean foods at home, and then being away from home, I’m starting to learn how to cook it for myself, and [I’m] realizing that it really is a big part of me.”

Kim, whose mother and father are first- and second-generation Korean Americans, respectively, uses food to deter both hunger and homesickness. While she started out by simply pan frying pork and kimchi, Kim has moved on to larger and more ambitious culinary endeavors.

“I have a good bulgogi (seasoned grilled beef) marinade, and I make a giant pot of dakdoritang (braised spicy chicken) for my housemates,” Kim said. “And then we reheat it throughout the week … When I went home for winter break, [my mom] made kkori gomtang (oxtail soup). I’ve always wanted to try making it, but it takes so long to make.”

Nowadays, Korean food (and Asian food in general) has gone worldwide. What was once an almost diasporaexclusive culinary sect in the 20th century has, with the advent of K-pop and K-dramas, exploded into the mainstream.

According to “Hallyu 2.0: The New Korean Wave in the Creative Industry,” an article by professor Dal Yong Jin at the University of Michigan’s International Institute Journal, in the late 2000s to 2010s, the second Korean Wave, called Hallyu 2.0, social media and the rise of smartphones have played a significant role in the popularization of Korean culture in the West.

Continuing into the 2020s, Hallyu is experiencing its third wave, according to Sooho Song, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. In their paper, “The Evolution of the Korean Wave: How Is the Third Generation Different from Previous Ones?” published in the Korea Observer, Song notes the immense popularity of groups like BTS, the proliferation of Korean media on Netflix and other western outlets, and the rise of mukbang, where viewers watch others eat, talk, or cook—a trend that began in South Korea.

On the social media app TikTok, one of the most popular cooking accounts, with 2.9 million followers as of January 2022, is thekoreanvegan, an author and home cook who preaches the importance of good food and cultural pride.

Thekoreanvegan, whose name is Joanne Molinaro, often speaks on the cultural dissonance of growing up as an

Banchan (side dishes), braised short ribs, rice cake and dumpling soup, and kimchi pancake) spread out across a table on Jan. 1 2022 in Seattle, Wash.

Photo by Erin Kim

see KOREAN AMERICAN FOODS on 16