A dare became a love letter to Her history.
Years ago, a woman whose creative work I admired, but who came from outside my culture, questioned whether there were enough historic Asian American and Pacific Islander women to fill an entire deck of playing cards. I understood the question came from a different perspective. But I also knew something she didn’t yet see: the stories were there. They were everywhere. They simply hadn’t been gathered, celebrated, or made visible in the way I imagined they could be.
What began as a challenge became a love letter to the women whose stories deserve to be learned—and the beginning of a body of work that continues to evolve. Now, I’m returning to these illustrations, bringing together the women that I’ve been studying while reimagining the series for a new chapter of DimSumLove. This video is the first glimpse of that process: a collection of past work coming together, and a foundation for what I hope to create next. Because our history isn’t a footnote, and there was never a shortage of stories. We just needed to tell them.
HAPPI women
