I Am [Hakka] Enough (among other things)
Maybe it was the Pisces lunar eclipse energy, or coming back home to Taiwan after two months of summer travel and spending time in my husband's home of Hawai'i, or facing the horizon of re-opening my Sovereign Storyteller cohort doors—whatever it was, something gave way at a tectonic level for me and I was pulled back into that sub-terranean layer of self-knowing... the one that crisscrosses through ancestry, phenotype, all 20 places I've ever called 'home', and that nagging question of Am I Who I Think I Am?
I found myself crying in prayer at the Taoist temples that, not long ago, I felt too intimidated to set foot into without the guidance of one of my aunties. Felt too much like an imposter. Felt that I looked too much like a foreigner.
But in that same incense-cradling knelt prayer pose, I saw my form tracing the outline of my ancestors, and for once, we didn't look so different.
And maybe my Hakka ancestors could have never anticipated or understood the tears and pain that my 5-year old self and now my 5-year old daughter feel when we cry into our pillows at night, lamenting "Why do I suck so much at speaking Hakka? And how will I ever speak to my grandparents again?"
Yet something stirs within me, reassuring me that my ancestors see our efforts to remember, to carry between our lips the syllables our ancestors rolled seamlessly off their tongue. Reassuring me that they're rooting for us too.
And with this week's upheaval, I spiraled back to a large boulder I've carried on my heart for 37 years: Am I Hakka enough to tell Hakka stories?
Am I Hakka enough to keep a dying language alive?
Am I Hakka enough to find my way home? To belonging? To rest? To safety?
Am I Hakka enough to hold all the other parts of me just as whole… the Irish parts, the "American" parts, the human parts… and not neglect any lineage that flows life into me?
Earlier this week, after sitting with my ah po (grandmother), first care-giver, where she storied in Hakka tender, painful moments of her life to me and finished with a gentle "You know, you're the only person who listens to my stories?"...
Two days ago, after cradling my daughter in bed as she cried about how hard it is to speak Hakka and she doesn't want to try any more, but how will she speak to her ah gong (grandfather) if she forgets all her Hakka?...
Yesterday morning, after a Pandora's box-opening call with my dissertation adviser about, unironically, a chance to write a book with 2 other scholars about our ancestral stories…
…catapulting me back into the memories of refusing my committee's urges to "do research" on my Hakka culture. (I was long resisting the culture-pimping that is academia and also protecting the still-open wounds of a non-Hakka mother who had abandoned our family but was publishing our Hakka stories without our blessing)...
Yesterday afternoon, after a canceled podcast appearance where I was invited to talk about decolonizing stories and my story, but I reluctantly asked to reschedule because I couldn't stop crying...
And finally, after being held throughout it all in the safe space of dialogue with my inner circle of elders, mentors, and friends (3 whole humans)...
I finally landed here:
I am enough.
I am scholar enough. (And one of my Sovereign Storyteller students told me this week that enrolling in my courses feels like a part of designing her own dream Ph.D. program without the toxicity of academia. Mission accomplished.)
My Hakka stories can't and won't be exploited by me, because they are mine. I am a loving descendent. And I don't need to be perfect or get everything right or look a certain way to carry my ancestors stories. They live in me. They are me. My ancestors are watching over me as I grow. They know how much I care about them, their dreams, and their stories.
And, finally, I do look like a Hakka woman, because I am a Hakka woman. My voice is a Hakka voice. My stories are Hakka stories. I am enough.
This breakthrough is exactly why I'm so passionate about the story work I do. The kind of deep excavation and reclaiming that happens when we give ourselves permission to explore our origins with compassion and courage.
This Substack space is my permission to myself to explore and share my stories with sovereignty, with compassion, with curiosity, with love, with humor, and with the kind of creative license that is required for self-determining freer futures.
If these musings resonate with you, I invite you to explore my workbook Find Yourself Here that offers gentle prompts for this exact kind of self-inquiry. It's designed to help you unearth, reclaim, and metabolize your own stories of belonging and humanity.
I also host quarterly Write & Wonder sessions—intimate gatherings where we do this story work together in community. There's something powerful about sharing this journey with others who understand the sacred nature of our narratives.
You can learn more about the Find Yourself Here digital workbook kit and upcoming Write & Wonder sessions here.
Your stories matter. Your voice matters. And you are enough, exactly as you are, to tell them.