An Afternoon with Youngmi Mayer and Her Memoir, “I’m Laughing Because I’m Crying” with special guest SuChin Pak
Saturday, November 16, 2024
GYOPO Space
801 S. Vermont Avenue #201
Los Angeles, CA 90005
2:00 PM – 4:00 PM PST
Join us for a special event with standup comedian, podcast host, and writer Youngmi Mayer celebrating the release of her highly anticipated memoir, I’m Laughing Because I’m Crying.
Known for her raw wit and fearless honesty, Mayer brings her comedic brilliance to the page in this unforgettable exploration of whiteness, gender, and sexuality in America, interwoven with her experiences growing up biracial Korean American in Korea and Saipan.
The program will kick off with an introduction to Mayer and her work, followed by a captivating reading and a conversation with journalist SuChin Pak where she’ll speak on the personal stories that shaped her memoir: a tumultuous childhood, her role as a parent to her parents, and how humor became her lifeline through the darkest times.
We’ll enjoy a few rounds of games inspired by Mayer’s comedic style before opening the floor to a Q&A session, where attendees can engage with the author directly. The afternoon will close with a light reception and book signing.
Youngmi Mayer has been featured on The Today Show, Rolling Stone, Comedy Central, and more. This is a rare opportunity to meet one of today’s most exciting comedic voices and celebrate the release of a memoir that will make you laugh, cry, and everything in between. Don’t miss this unique chance to experience her insight and humor firsthand!
Skylight Books will be selling copies of I’m Laughing Because I’m Crying on site! Payment options include cash, debit, Visa, Mastercard, and American Express.
Contact us with any questions or accessibility requests. ASL interpretation will be provided upon request (please email info@gyopo.us).
Please be advised that this event will be photographed and filmed and that GYOPO may use such photos and videos in print and online, including in social media. By RSVPing and attending this program, it signifies your consent to be photographed, filmed, and/or otherwise recorded.
Book cover photo (credit: Little, Brown and Company)
Author photo (credit: Fujio Emura)
OXY ARTS 4757 York Boulevard Los Angeles, CA 90042
Join us on Thursday, November 17th, at OXY ARTS for an intergenerational dialogue between author Ryan Lee Wong; Jai Lee Wong, Ryan’s mother, community organizer, and activist; and poet Christopher Soto. This talk will take place at OXY ARTS’s exhibition Voice a Wild Dream: Moments in Asian American Art and Activism, 1968-2022, which highlights collectives of Asian American artists and activists and their work toward social change over the past six decades. Ryan Lee Wong and Christopher Soto will both read from their respective debut publications, Which Side Are You On and Diaries of a Terrorist. The three speakers will engage in conversation between themselves and with attendees.
ASL interpretation will be provided.
This event is co-presented by GYOPO and Stop DiscriminAsian and hosted by OXY ARTS on the occasion of Voice A Wild Dream: Moments in Asian American Art and Activism, 1968–2022.
Japanese American Cultural & Community Center
(James Irvine Japanese Garden and Toshizo Watanabe Culinary Cultural Center)
244 San Pedro Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Please join GYOPO for Korean American Young Adult Fiction Today, a family friendly reading and panel discussion at the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center.
Featuring Young Adult authors Mary H.K. Choi (Yolk, 2021), Sarah Suk (Made in Korea, 2021), David Yoon (Frankly in Love, 2019), and Nicola Yoon (Instructions for Dancing, 2021), the event is a culmination of GYOPO’s collaboration with local youth reading groups organized by Los Angeles partners including the Koreatown Youth and Community Center. The event will include live reading of excerpts from selected titles, a panel discussion with featured authors, moderated by Amy Kahng, followed by small group discussions with authors led by Youth volunteers.
Korean American Young Adult Fiction Today is free and open to the public, and American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation will be available to our audience. Light refreshments will be provided.
Dictee is the pathbreaking and genre-defying magnum opus of internationally renowned artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, whose practice encompassed conceptual, visual, performance, film, and video art and creative writing across three languages. Posthumously published in 1982, the profoundly influential book continues to underscore the urgency of experimental memory work and challenge the boundaries between written text, speech, performance, and image. Dictee is widely taught across fields including literary studies, arts-based practice, American studies, ethnic studies, and gender and sexuality studies.
To commemorate the 70th anniversary of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s birth, USC students and guests will collectively read Dictee in its entirety, both orally and in ASL. The event will also include presentations by Laura Hyun Yi Kang (UC Irvine), Lawrence Rinder (UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive), and John H. Cha (the artist’s brother and biographer); projected images of Theresa Cha’s work; and selected video works, addressing the sobering consequences of colonialism, forced migration, displacement, and violence.
Presented by USC Visions and Voices: The Arts and Humanities Initiative. Organized by GYOPO, Annette Kim (Public Policy), Holly Willis (Cinematic Arts), and Yong Soon Min (Professor Emeritus, UC Irvine).
John H. Cha has written several biographies about Korean and American leaders and is an award-winning translator of Korean literature into English. His titles include Willow Tree Shade: The Susan Ahn Cuddy Story and The Do or Die Entrepreneur: A Korean American Businessman’s Journey. He is currently working on Dear Theresa, a book about his sister Theresa Cha.
Laura Hyun Yi Kang is a professor and former Chair of Gender & Sexuality Studies at UC Irvine. She is the author of Traffic in Asian Women (2020) and Compositional Subjects: Enfiguring Asian/American Women (2002). With Elaine H. Kim, Kang co-edited the anthology Echoes Upon Echoes: New Korean American Writings (2002). She is currently at work on Sallim, a book about women’s labor and social reproduction in the Korean diaspora.
Lawrence Rinder directed the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive from 2008 to 2020. He came to the University of California from the California College of the Arts, where he was Dean of the College and Dean of Graduate Studies. Previously, he was the Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Curator of Contemporary Art at the Whitney Museum of American Art, where he organized exhibitions including the 2002 Biennial.
Photo: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Surplus Novel, 1980. Photograph by Benjamin Blackwell.
Slideshow Photos: Caroline Yoo
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