Messy Roots: A Graphic Memoir of a Wuhanese American

November 2, 2022October 26, 2022 By Laura Gao

Wednesday, October 26, 2022 | 12pm to 1:30pm

This lecture is part of the 2022-23 Harriet and Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Center (KHC) and National Endowment for the Humanities Colloquium entitled, “Trauma, Remembrance, and Compassion.”

Author & illustrator Laura Gao will present on her debut graphic memoir, Messy Roots: A Graphic Memoir of a Wuhanese American. Gao will present her own experiences around the themes of trauma, remembrance, and compassion. What are some things that inspired the creation of Messy Roots, and how might readers be able to draw inspiration from her journey and story as presented in this debut graphic memoir? In Messy Roots, Gao illustrates her coming-of-age as the girl who simply wants to make the basketball team, escape Chinese school, and figure out why girls make her heart flutter.

Co-Sponsor
Kupferberg Holocaust Center, Queensborough Community College/CUNY
Asian American / Asian Research Institute – CUNY

Author Bio

Laura Gao

Laura Gao is a queer artist, author, bread lover, and nomadic traveler. Originally from Wuhan, China, Laura immigrated to Dallas, Texas, and began their art career by doodling on Pokémon cards, and later featured in NPR, the MOCA in New York City, and most notably, their parents' fridge. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Gao worked as a Product Manager in San Francisco before April 2020, when in response to anti-Asian racism and rampant misinformation about Wuhan, Laura published a webcomic, "The Wuhan I Know", on Twitter where it went viral and attracted attention from several book publishers. The comic inspired their bestselling debut graphic memoir, Messy Roots: A Graphic Memoir of a Wuhanese American (HarperCollins, 2022). Besides drawing and fighting off early-onset back pain, Gao enjoys biking, jamming out to music, and watching SNL.