Reflections on my Vietnamese roots, anti-Asian violence, bi-racial, and our common humanity.
I wrote an essay for Washington Monthly magazine that I’d started writing at the beginning of Asian American Heritage Month. I had a lot to say so it took a while to finish. Three thousand words later, I feel like I’m still not done plumbing these depths. Maybe there’s a book in here somewhere….
“What Joe’s friend did reminded me of all the times I’d been told I spoke English well, mistaken for Asian women who looked nothing like me, fetishized by men who “preferred” Asian girlfriends. Reminded me of one Halloween night when teen-aged boys, back home in Richmond…
Our conversations could be frustrating, but they also gave me hope. Was I a fool to think we were getting somewhere?
Three days after the 2016 election, I posted an invitation on Facebook. I was looking for Donald Trump voters who wanted to come over for dinner at my house, which is just a short walk from the White House in Washington, D.C. I wanted to understand why over 62 million people voted for someone who I thought was wholly unqualified for the job and entirely lacked the moral character befitting the office. I wanted to ask my own questions without the filter of media or political punditry.
No one accepted my dinner invitation at first. Even though only 4% of…
Looking For America
How this half Asian kid learned how to fit in and still be herself
“She’s not like other people.” That’s how a friend’s dad recently described me and he meant it as a compliment and I took it that way. I don’t want to be like everyone else. That hasn’t always been true, though. Growing up as the only Asian-looking kid, apart from my little brother, in a small Southern city, I desperately wanted to be like the other people I saw around me. I wanted to feel like I belonged.
Our hometown was clearly divided between black and white people. I looked neither black nor white, so I belonged in neither group. My…
I’m starting to feel like a real Parisienne with my new pass sanitaire and a navigo card
I was standing in a portico of the newly renovated Hôtel de la Marine waiting for a heavy rain to stop along with a few other smartly dressed Parisians and a couple less smartly-dressed tourists. The Eiffel Tower loomed in the distance on the other side of the river. In front of us, the Obelisk of Luxour rose from the center of the Place de la Concorde, the largest square in Paris. …
The French seem to have mastered the art of conversation
Le Pré aux Clercs had been a favorite haunt of Hemingway, along with others of the Lost Generation and writers ever since who search for inspiration, or maybe just a strong drink. I imagine they went there to take a break from the grind and frustration of writing, or to find company in their misery. Maybe they critiqued each other’s work, or encouraged one another through the inevitable slumps and blocks. I’d hoped to capture a little of that magic by meeting my new friend and fellow writer David there for writing sessions. …
Life in Paris isn’t all spritzes during the golden hour in front of the Odéon with lovely friends old and new, and then a party in a top-floor apartment overlooking the Luxembourg Garden on the front side and a straight shot view of the Eiffel Tower at sunset on the back side. I spend a few hours each day hunched over a laptop in my little studio apartment struggling to write words that don’t come easily. I am often paralyzed with self-doubt. …
Is it possible to be disappointed in a place like Paris?
I attended an art event in a 17th century Parisian mansion, called the Hôtel de Coulanges, that vaguely reminded me of the dozens of art activations I’ve organized over the years in raw spaces around DC, warehouses in various states of disrepair, a former brake repair shop, and long-deserted retail spaces waiting to be leased. I’ve upgraded electrical boxes without permits on more than one occasion. I’ve worried over uneven concrete floors screaming for trip-and-fall litigation. Grumpy neighbors have called the cops when exuberant art lovers spilled into the street in front of their homes. The rawness of those spaces…
Report from the first week in a Paris writing residency
I may have made a huge mistake coming to Paris. I came here because I wanted to shift my perspective as I think and write about what it means to be American. This part has been successful. Back home, I rarely say, “I am American.” I often think it, though, particularly when I have written about being a bi-racial person who has been told she is not American because of her Asian face. Here in France, I say, “Je suis Americaine” multiple times a day. I say it when I meet someone new. I say it when I show my…
A reckoning with what it means to be an ambitious American in Paris
I had lunch on Sunday with a new friend who moved to Paris early last year, just before the pandemic. I asked her what it means to be American. She said that she felt she didn’t fit in back home, that she wasn’t very American. Then when she moved to France and experienced a different way of life, she began to understand how very American she really was.
For example, in Paris, there is a concept called flâneur, which is a city stroller who observes life, an urban explorer who is on the hunt for ideas, inspiration, and insight. A…
Following in the footsteps of the great American writers in Paris
My studio apartment just down the street from the Museé d’Orsay is on the ground floor of an elegant 19th-century building in the Haussmann style — pale stone facade, wrought iron balconies, and tall windows. A large, round bronze knob, polished by generations of hands, protrudes from the middle of a heavy wooden door, which opens into what was once a carriageway that leads to a sunny inner courtyard. This will be my home for a six-week writing residency.
My goal is to produce the first three chapters of a book about what it means to be American. My plan…
Philippa Hughes
Creating space for conversations to transform society. Exploring what it means to be American. Recovering lawyer, public speaker, art fanatic philippahughes.com
