Asian American Writers’ Workshop Lyceum: Ice Cream & Ideas

How Does It Feel to Be A Problem?

Date: Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Time: 4PM to 5:30PM

Place: 25 West 43rd Street, 18th Floor
between 5th & 6th Avenues, Manhattan

Free Admission

Ever wanted to meet a famous writer? The Asian American Writers’ Workshop presents LYCEUM: ICE CREAM & IDEAS—it’s a special workshop series where the lesson begins with ice cream and ends with writing your own stories.

Featuring: Moustafa Bayoumi and Terrence Cheng

What does it mean when the people that the TV says are the enemy happen to look like you or your parents? After September 11th and the rise of China, many Americans imagine Asian Americans as the bad guy. Maybe the bad guy looks like Park51, which was never intended to be located at Ground Zero or be a mosque. Maybe the bad guy looks like the Chinese businessman threatening U.S. businesses. Come meet writers and professors Moustafa Bayoumi, whose book How Does It Feel To Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America caused a national anti-Muslim controversy, and Terrence Cheng, whose first novel tells the fictional story of the famous and anonymous protester who stood in the way of Chinese tanks at the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests.

Moustafa Bayoumi is the author of How Does It Feel To Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America (Penguin), which won an American Book Award and the Arab American Book Award for Non-Fiction.

Terrence Cheng‘s first novel, Sons of Heaven(William Morrow, 2002), was chosen as a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick as well as a Borders Original Voices selection. He is currently Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of English at Lehman College-CUNY.

Cosponsors
Asian American / Asian Research Institute – CUNY
Asian American Writers’ Workshop
Chinatown Ice Cream Factory
Teachers and Writers Collective