Our Laundry, Our Town: My Chinese American Life from Flushing to the Downtown Stage and Beyond

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Friday, May 20, 2022 | 5:30pm to 7pm

Our Laundry, Our Town (Fordham University Press/Empire State Editions, 2022) is a memoir that decodes and processes the fractured urban oracle bones of Alvin Eng’s growing up in Flushing, Queens, a neighborhood of that singular universe that was New York City in the 1970s. From behind the counter of his parent’s Chinese hand laundry and within the confines of our household that was rooted in a different century and culture, he sought to reconcile this insular home life with the turbulent yet inspiring street life that was all around them–from faux TV martial arts stars to punk rock. By the 1980s, Flushing had become New York City’s second Chinatown.

As a theatre practitioner and professor, Alvin discovered the under-chronicled Chinese influence on Thornton Wilder’s seminal Americana drama, Our Town. At the City University of Hong Kong, Alvin and his wife, director/dramaturg Wendy Wasdahl, led a Fulbright Specialist devised theatre residency on Our Town. Subsequently, the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou invited Alvin to perform Our Town-inspired solo, and The Last Emperor of Flushing, in his family’s ancestral Guangdong, China. Learning to proudly tell his own story on stage and now on the page, Alvin now feels whole through this psyche-healing pilgrimage.

In-person book launch to follow AAARI’s online talk at City Lore, 56 East First Street, Manhattan, from 7pm to 9pm.

Purchase Book: https://www.fordhampress.com/9781531500368/our-laundry-our-town/

Co-Sponsor
City Lore

Author Bio

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Alvin Eng is a native NYC playwright, performer and educator. His plays and performances have been seen Off-Broadway, throughout the U.S., as well as in Paris, Hong Kong and Guangzhou, China. His memoir, Our Laundry, Our Town: My Chinese American Life from Flushing to the Downtown Stage and Beyond, was published in May 2022 by Fordham University Press. Eng is the author and editor of the oral history/play anthology, Tokens? The NYC Asian American Experience on Stage. No Passport Press recently published Three Trees, the first of his Portrait Plays series of historical dramas about artists. He was awarded a 2022 LMCC Creative Engagement grant for a “Hong Kong Handover: 25 Years Later” symposium in conjunction with his acoustic punk raconteur solo show, Here Comes Johnny Yen Again (or How I Kicked Punk).