Bunker Hill Community College

BHCC in the News

2008-03-05 - Award-winning Author Gish Jen to Speak at BHCC

Boston, March 5, 2008 – Award winning author and short story writer Gish Jen will speak at Bunker Hill Community College on Tuesday, March 25, 2008. Her presentation will take place in the A300 Auditorium on the Charlestown Campus located at 250 New Rutherford Avenue, Boston, MA 02129.  The program will begin at 1pm and include a lecture and reception. This event is free and open to the public, however, reservations are encouraged. To guarantee a seat, call 617-228-2386 or e-mail speakers@bhcc.mass.edu.

Gish Jen is known for writing books that explore the immigrant experience, ethnic identity and cultural diversity while updating the American dream.  A second-generation Chinese American, Ms. Jen writes stories that are, by her own definition, both autobiographical and fictional.  She defines the mixture of who she is and what she creates as comparable to a recipe for a good soup—a compilation of the right ingredients to get the desired result.  Her stories combine a search for self and the larger search for cultural identity.  She shines a light on her own Chinese-American heritage, but also looks at the experiences of Jewish Americans, African Americans, Irish Americans and other ethnic groups.

Ms. Jen is the author of numerous books including the recently published The Love Wife—which explores the realities of mixed heritage families; and, Typical American, Who’s Irish? and Mona in the Promised Land.  Her work has also been published in the Atlantic Monthly, the New Yorker, the New Republic, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.  She is also featured in the upcoming PBS Masterworks series, The American Novel.  Her name—“Gish” was adopted in tribute to the actress Lillian Gish, with whom she shares her birth-given first name—Lillian.    

The BHCC Compelling Conversations Speaker Series offers diverse guest speakers a chance to share their thoughts and experiences in hopes that they will challenge the thoughts and beliefs of our students and the community at large.  In the past, the series has featured, among others, documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, international journalist and author Marian Pearl, Academy Award-winner Richard Dreyfuss, civil rights activist Mary Frances Berry, best-selling author Barbara Ehrenreich, newscaster Ray Suarez and the former president of Ireland, Mary Robinson.

Bunker Hill Community College is the largest community college in Massachusetts, enrolling more than 8,800 students on two campuses and at five satellite locations. BHCC is one of the most diverse institutions of higher education in the Commonwealth. Six in ten students are people of color and more than half of BHCC’s students are women. The College also enrolls more than 600 international students who come from more than 95 countries and speak 75 different languages.

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