Tag Archives: Ekaterine Xia

SAPAHM Guest: Ekaterine Xia On the Portrayal of Mothers … and then Confucius!

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Hi friends! I’m glad to welcome back Ekaterine Xia to ALBTALBS! She’s going to be out APAHM hero this year, and has written other really thoughtful posts before, which  I hope you’ll check out of you missed them. (Lime, WTF are all those letters and what do they mean? SAPAHM = Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Heritage Month!) So without further ado… another incredible post by Ekaterine!

On the Portrayal of Mothers … and Confucius!

I have mommy issues.

Specifically, I have issues with how mothers are portrayed in fiction, particularly science fiction and fantasy.

Even within Romancelandia, SFFR has a lot of mommy issues. Contemporary does much better, and I have to ask if it’s because contemporary wasn’t influenced by men and their favorite tropes in the same way science fiction and fantasy romance was.

It took me a long time to put that niggling unease into concrete examples, but once you start the list, things start to look pretty bad really quickly. Continue reading →

SAPAHM Guest: Ekaterine Xia Redux The Prequel: The Flatness of [Western] Romance

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Hi friends! Do you remember the first 2018 APAHM post we had? Ekaterine Xia was our guest and I talked about how I’d messed up? So I found the emails from 2014 – she agreed to let me use the first post as a comparison, since she piggybacked off of it to write the May 5th one! (Are you confused yet?) In 2014 she said she’d tell me which book covers she wanted me to use … but that didn’t happen so I’m going with my picks. 😀 The most important thing though, is of course the post. Enjoy! N.B. I came up with the ~title. Because I think it’s accurate.

The Flatness of [Western] Romance

So it all started when Limecello tweeted with:

New quest! Any African American, Asian American, Hispanic, or Native American romance readers around? 😀

So I responded with: “Chinese person who reads romance over here. …I think I qualify as As-A?”

Not Just Human by E. Xia CoverThe thing is, it isn’t that easy. It’s the short answer.

The long answer is that I’m a third-culture-kid, aka global nomad, aka syncretic mutt of a first-gen fresh off the boat kind-of Asian American.

I was born in Taiwan, but we moved to the US when I was two. So technically Mandarin Chinese is my first language, but not by much. I grew up mainly in the US and it’s where I call home, no matter how much border control seems to disagree. Continue reading →

SAPAHM Guest: Ekaterine Xia on Circles and Cycles and Sometimes Spirals

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Hi friends! Oh my gosh this blog post has been four years in the making. Ekaterine Xia first sent me a post in 2014 for APAHM and well, if you’re a “long time reader” you’ll know my life has been in shambles for pretty much this whole time but there was some extra going on then and ALBTALBS was pretty much on hiatus. And I do my utmost to avoid doing this sort of thing but – if there’s a someone else (which I think there might be but oh god for the life of me I don’t know/can’t remember) whose post I never scheduled or that I missed I am so very sorry. I’m sorry, please know I am truly deeply sorry, and it’s my fault.

… I already had this “conversation” with Ekaterine, so I wanted to share that. Anyway! This time WE’RE LIVE! Please give Ekaterine a warm welcome!

Circles and Cycles and Sometimes Spirals

Past Love's Triumph by E. Xia CoverFour years ago, I wrote a post about myself, the boundaries of romance, white privilege, and where a Chinese American third culture kid stood amidst the noise.

Now, Romancelandia is still dealing with privilege, erasure, and people fighting against those who want to keep the too-narrow gates shut.

Still the same issues, the same fights, but there’s more awareness, so I want to talk about happy endings and how my definition has shifted over the years instead of beating that drum further. For now. Continue reading →