#we were dreamers: an immigrant superhero origin story

[ashleybenlove]

So, here's the books I read in May.

Blurred Lines: A Reverse Harem, Dad's Best Friends Romance by Ajme Williams – May 2

What's for Dessert: Simple Recipes for Dessert People by Claire Saffitz – May 4

I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Yong – May 5

Liquid Rules: The Delightful and Dangerous Substances That Flow Through Our Lives by Mark Miodownik – May 5

Black Girls Must Have It All by Jayne Allen – May 8

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein – May 11

A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall – May 11

Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto – May 11

Instructions for Dancing by Nicola Yoon – May 14

Human Errors: A Panorama of Our Glitches, from Pointless Bones to Broken Genes by Nathan H. Lents – May 15

Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert – May 16

Cat on the Hero's Lap Vol. 1 by Kosuke Iijima – May 16

Tentacle Alien Party by Beatrix Steam – May 17

What's A Girl Gotta Do To Get On The Naughty List? by Kimberly Lemming – May 17

How the García Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez – May 18

Frankly in Love by David Yoon – May 19

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams – May 20

More Than You'll Ever Know by Katie Gutierrez – May 21

An Earthling's Guide to Outer Space: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Black Holes, Dwarf Planets, Aliens, and More by Bob McDonald – May 22

We Are Here: 30 Inspiring Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders Who Have Shaped the United States by Naomi Hirahara – May 24

We Were Dreamers: An Immigrant Superhero Origin Story by Simu Liu – May 24

Beach Read by Emily Henry – May 24

Double Tentacle by Beatrix Steam – May 25

Murder on the Orient Express: The Graphic Novel by Agatha Christie** with Bob Al-Greene – May 26

The United States of Cryptids: A Tour of American Myths and Monsters by J.W. Ocker – May 30

My only reread is marked in **. (I read the original novel last October. This is the graphic novel, so I figured it still kinda counted as a reread.)

Since May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, I made a point to read some books by Asian authors.

Favorites from this month include

More Than You'll Ever Know (the lady has two husbands in two countries!!! and it's set in Texas and Mexico!!!),

A Lady for a Duke (a Jane Austen style romance with a trans woman heroine!!!),

Simu Liu's memoir (great read; still think his parents suck even though he seems to be on better terms with them),

Dial A for Aunties (HILARIOUS!!!!!!!!!!! She accidentally kills a guy who was threatening her and then her aunties and mom help her out),

Instructions for Dancing (teenager dealing with her parents divorce gains the ability to see how a relationship ends when she sees couples in love kiss),

and Frankly in Love (fake dating, real dating, polyamory gets mentioned which is nice).

[art150class]

Tumblr Blog Summary: Working Towards a Better World for All

There was a lot of information I learned in writing these blog posts. For my TV blog post on And Just Like That, I learned the importance of depicting ones’ experiences in an authentic way (which AJLT is NOT doing). For my movie blog post on Shang-Chi and the Legend of Ten Rings, I learned more about Anti-Asian racism in America and what we can do to combat it. Simu Liu’s essay in Variety was emotionally compelling and I would be interested in reading his book We Were Dreamers, which goes more in-depth about his experiences as an immigrant. For my social media blog post on the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), I learned about pioneering African American figures throughout American history. Given that I am involved in undergraduate research researching the traits of geniuses throughout history, I had a lot of fun going through the Smithsonian archives for my post on the NMAAHC and I feel like I have some ideas for who I could research for my next project (for example, Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald were both pioneers in jazz and I would love to dive more in-depth into their lives by reading biographies about them). Through this project, I have learned that while the power in the United States is widely given to a heteronormative, cisgender Caucasian patriarchy, there are people who are breaking barriers and telling stories that give rise to equality. It is important to hear these stories so they do not go untold and so we can become educated on why diversity is so crucial. Deborah Willis’ book Picturing Us and documentary Through a Lens Darkly have further emphasized the importance of showing the history of our nation through the eyes of all different ethnicities, races, and genders. Just like an ecosystem, without diversity, we would not be able to thrive and survive. Through the different mediums I viewed and researched, I realize the importance of advocating for equality and diversity to make the world a better place. 

Some books I am interested in reading after working on this project.

John Edward Hasse, Beyond Category: The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington (Cambridge: Da Capo Press, 1995), https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Category-Life-Genius-Ellington/dp/0306806142/ref=sr_1_1?crid=M0LCWIGSWC6H&keywords=duke+ellington+biography&qid=1689789262&sprefix=duke+ellington+biograph%2Caps%2C184&sr=8-1. 

Simu Liu, We Were Dreamers: An Immigrant Superhero Origin Story (New York: William Morrow, 2022), https://www.amazon.com/We-Were-Dreamers-Simu-Liu-ebook/dp/B08728NNKQ. 

Judith Tick, Becoming Ella Fitzgerald: The Jazz Singer Who Transformed American Song (New York: W.W. Norton, 2023), https://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Ella-Fitzgerald-Transformed-American/dp/039324105X/ref=sr_1_5?crid=2PXZSZPH1N0CZ&keywords=ella+fitzgerald+book&qid=1689788888&sprefix=ella+fitzgerald+book%2Caps%2C112&sr=8-5. 

[karazor--el]

Supergirl bosses preview 'delicious' Lex Luthor, Alex's 'unexpected' sacrifice

You can expect a bit more levity when Supergirl returns on Sunday.

The CW drama’s fourth season has been pretty dark so far. Admittedly, most of the heaviness makes sense because the season is exploring our country’s very real immigration debate and racial divide via a story about big bad Agent Liberty (Sam Witwer), who is stoking fear against aliens in National City. When we last checked in the show, Supergirl (Melissa Benoist) managed to capture Agent Liberty, a.k.a. Ben Lockwood, and send him to prison; however, the fear-monger’s incarceration only bolstered the xenophobic movement he was leading. Furthermore, in the wake of Ben’s capture, Colonel Haley (April Parker Jones) and the President (Bruce Boxleitner) demanded Supergirl reveal her identity to the world or leave the DEO, which put Kara in a very uncomfortable position.

Sure, we left things in pretty dark place, but showrunners/executive producers Jessica Queller and Robert Rovner assure us that there will be a few breaks in the clouds in the back half of season 4 — especially in the 12th episode, which sees Kara and Nia (Nicole Maines) visit Nia’s liberal hometown and family.

“There’s a lot more lightness,” Queller tells EW. “I mean, it’s very serious themes that we wrap up with, but we have more humor and levity in some of the upcoming episodes.”

Below, EW chats with Queller and Rovner about Nia’s superheroic arc, Jon Cryer’s debut as Lex Luthor, and why we won’t see original cast member Jeremy Jordan — who jumped down to recurring status last year — in the back half of the season.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: I was going to start off by asking you if Supergirl’s current identity crisis would play a big role in the back half of the season, but then the new promo shows Colonel Haley declaring that Kara Danvers’ life is over. Should our takeaway be that Haley does figure out Supergirl’s secret identity?

JESSICA QUELLER: There are going to be some twists and turns to that answer that you’ll have to tune in for that are very exciting and, I think, surprising in the upcoming episode.

ROBERT ROVNER: Keeping Kara’s identity secret becomes a big story point in the second half of the season.

Alex’s job at the DEO is also at stake in this situation. What kind of position does this put Alex in?

QUELLER: What I was just alluding to really is a sacrifice that Alex makes to protect her sister that’s really unexpected and we hope the audience will find very compelling that’s in the upcoming episode.

At this point, we haven’t seen too much of Red Daughter. Will that dangling season 3 thread become even more important in the back half of this season?

ROVNER: Very much more. The Red Daughter story becomes, well not front and center because we have a lot of stories going, but it plays a much bigger role. We’ll get to see a lot more of her and see her origin story in the second half of the season.

What can we expect from that origin story?

ROVNER: It’s cool. We kind of take a different narrative approach to it, so I think that’s exciting. We get to see kind of what is Red Daughter’s core beliefs and why she believes them.

QUELLER: Also, something that you’re going to see is that it may not appear so right now but all of our big bads and storylines are going to dovetail, including Red Daughter. So, they’re all of a piece, and how those pieces fit together are hopefully going to be pretty exciting.

It seems as though the construction of this season is more complicated than previous ones. Have you found it harder to plot out the entire thing?

QUELLER: You know what the funny thing is? It feels like it’s come rather easily because we had a very strong vision from the beginning and we also had a lot to say, a lot of stories we were passionate about telling, and issues that we were passionate about exploring. We knew where we were headed from the beginning. So breaking the stories, although they are ambitious, have happened pretty smoothly.

DIYAH PERA/THE CW

We also know that Nia is moving closer to becoming a superhero in this back half, too. In the most recent promo, Brainy approaches Nia about her destiny. What role does Brainy play in helping her realize who she is meant to become?

ROVNER: Brainy is familiar with her future ancestors and gives Nia some insight into the extent of her powers and, as a good super friend, wants to help usher her into being a hero. But it’s a team effort and we’ll get to explore what’s been keeping Nia from embracing her powers. We’re going to get to go with Nia to see where she came from and meet the rest of her family in 411, and we’re very excited about that. Kate Burton plays her mother, and we get to meet her and her sister, and her father, and get to know much more about the family Nal.

I’m not sure what I was expecting from Nia’s family, but the new pictures from “Blood Memory” definitely surprised me. What is Nia’s relationship with her family like?

QUELLER: We can’t tell you too much about it, but one thing that we’re excited about is going to the town where she was raised, and we’re going to see that it’s a very sort of liberal oasis. It’s a small town that’s always been very welcoming of aliens and where aliens and humans live in harmony. In fact, one of her parents is human and one is alien. Going home and seeing those dynamics and seeing a place [like that] will be a little break from all of the intense hatred and politics that we’ve been experiencing in National City. Then, we’ll focus on the family dynamics and what exactly has been holding Nia back from owning herself as Dreamer.

Did you as the writers enjoy that break from the unpleasantness and bigotry in National City?

QUELLER: It was. It was a very special episode and very relationship-oriented, and it was really, really wonderful to explore Nia’s origin story, I guess, and learn more about who she is and where she comes from.

The midseason finale ended with Agent Liberty behind bars. What kind of threat does he pose now? Are we mostly dealing with his Children of Liberty now?

ROVNER: It’s that, and he’s trying to make himself a martyr to kind of continue his narrative of humans being vulnerable at the hands of aliens. He’s fomenting that fear as we begin the second half of the season, and it continues to escalate all season.

QUELLER: His following just grows and grows. As we saw when he went to jail, he was sort of hailed as a martyr and a leader. Instead of public opinion turning against him, it just grew stronger.

What can we expect from Supergirl’s take on the iconic Lex Luthor, played by Jon Cryer?

ROVNER: We’re super excited about the introduction of Lex Luthor into our world and Jon Cryer’s portrayal of the character. I think that he’s the biggest supervillain we’ve had the show, and his plans will kind of touch every character and impact the entire season moving forward once he arrives.

QUELLER: The character is not that dissimilar to what we’ve seen in canon. He just [has] a sparkle in his eye and is smarter than everybody in the room and 12 steps ahead of everyone, and just a large, delicious villain.

Has Jon shot anything as Lex yet, and if so, what can you share about his portrayal?

ROVNER: He starts shooting at the end of this week. We’ve had wardrobe and makeup tests, so we’ve seen Lex Luthor incarnated, but we haven’t seen the performance yet.

QUELLER: But we’ve had lots and lots of talks with him. We’re all on the same page, and he’s just going to be awesome.

In the fall, it was reported that you working on a plan to bring Jeremy Jordan back as Winn once his Broadway show, American Son, wrapped in January. Were you able actually bring to make it work, and will we see him in this back half?

ROVNER: We love Jeremy Jordan, we love Winn. It looks like, in terms of our storytelling, something we’d like to do at the beginning of next season as opposed to this season. We have a lot of stories that coincided with his availability at the end of the play. We don’t want to short shrift Jeremy or the character. So, we think it’s something that’s better served in season 5.

Supergirl airs Sundays at 8 p.m. on The CW.

EW.

[penelopebook]

(Download PDF) We Were Dreamers: An Immigrant Superhero Origin Story - Simu Liu

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Marvel's newest recruit shares his own inspiring and unexpected origin story, from China to the bright lights of Hollywood.?An immigrant who battles everything from parental expectations to cultural stereotypes, Simu Liu struggles to forge a path for himself, rising from the ashes of a failed accounting career (yes, you read that right) to become Shang-Chi.Our story begins in the city of Harbin, where Simu's parents have left him in the care of his grandparents while they seek to build a future for themselves in Canada. One day, a mysterious stranger shows up at the door; it's Simu's father, who whisks him away from the only home he had ever known and to the land of opportunity and maple syrup.??Life in the new world, however, is not all that it was cracked up to be; Simu's new guardians lack the gentle touch of his grandparents, resulting in harsh words and hurt feelings. His parents, on the other hand, find their new son emotionally distant and difficult to relate to - although

[tales-from-the-collection]

Simu Liu Autograph - We Were Dreamers: An Immigrant Superhero Origin Story Signed Book

Simu Liu Autograph – We Were Dreamers: An Immigrant Superhero Origin Story Signed Book

Simu Liu signed We Were Dreamers: An Immigrant Superhero Origin Story. This book was signed on 5AUG2022 at PMX Events’ Superhero Car Show and Comic Con. The book is hand signed by Simu Liu in both English and Chinese! It also comes with a JSA certificate of authenticity so it is 100% Guaranteed authentic! Buy with confidence. The photo provided is of the exact copy in our inventory and will be…

[thenetionalnews]

Simu Liu 'shook' after altercation with 'professional autograph seekers'

Simu Liu ‘shook’ after altercation with ‘professional autograph seekers’

Simu Liu has said he is pressing charges after an unpleasant encounter with ‘professional autograph seekers’ during his book signing event in the United States. Professional autograph seekers are those who try to get the autograph of celebrities in order to sell them to their fans for a profit. Simu, who released a memoir We Were Dreamers: An Immigrant Superhero Origin Story last month, was…

[myfunnylittlebrain]

This Jaguar commercial was aired in 2019. 3 years before Simu Liu's book "We Were Dreamers" was published and released. And this commercial might have been the spark of Simu's idea to write his book.

"We Were Dreamers: An Immigrant Superhero Origin Story" by Simu Liu. Order it now at Amazon.

[paidrestperiod]

Older Now

My grandmother, a Scottish immigrant who came to America on her own dime, is most prominently remembered by her fierce work ethic, and even fiercer sense of positivity. She embodied that quintessential fairytale attitude of “the sky’s the limit” and often looked me square in the eyes and told me with complete conviction, word for word, the cliche that “you can be anything you want to in this life.”

Maybe she believed this because of her remarkable work ethic, which she assumed was passed down to me. In her eyes if I used the same energies that she did on a daily basis to support her family, then they would no doubt carry me to success- becoming President of the United States would be small fries to her daily routine.

For my grandmother, supporting her family often meant her milk white skin was working mixed with the earthly colored laborers in fields picking whatever seasonal fruits and vegetables grew in the toxic pesticide ridden farming air of the central coast. The backbreaking labor she endured would cripple her in her later life, but she strove through it as a mere consequence of making ends meet, and was noted by her close friends for always being the chipper one in the bunch, seemingly full of energy even after a scorching day in the fields. Even more remarkable than her unwavering work ethic, were the stories that she gained from these jobs. Like how on more than one occasion, she unknowingly followed in running with the crowd of works after someone screamed “La Migra!”.  Her reasoning behind this exemplified another one of her outstanding qualities; her dedication to the belief that at their core, everyone embodied a righteously good spirit, so much that when a whole host of illegal workers get up and run from the INS, she joined them thinking it was a cultural routine to boost their energy the way a sleepy person does jumping jacks.

Given these qualities, it’s easy for one to see what made her into the old lady that espoused her grandkids the possibility of their dreams becoming a reality. Through her eyes, it was feasible that anything dreamt up really could be attained through hard work, and the world was a place where compassionate people existed that would recognize your efforts and undoubtedly help you bridge the gap.

Some would call these beliefs a fantasy, the overly positive, Disneyesque optimism that we believed as children. It seems to fit a child’s mentalities. When our imaginations let us see swimming pool as Omaha beach on D-day, or the Oak trees a crow's nest in a tall ship, why wouldn’t that same imagination would allow us to see the world through a more positive, or attainable lens, however unrealistic? Those of us fortunate enough to grow up in a stable environment were allowed to relish in these fantasies, as well as the accompanying “be all you can be” thoughts, because our parents shielded us from the harsh realities that were adulthood. Words such as “failure”, “heartbreak” and “corruption” were only understood on a menial surface level.

You see, when we were kids we couldn’t imagine the reality of a world where evil existed that couldn’t be justly beaten by a superhero or magic power, and even the most creative couldn’t dream up the subtle demons of institutionalized racism or the structures of hegemony that control our destinies. This pure naive innocence characterizes our youth. It was what it means to be young.

This characterization of youthfulness as being naive, or a “dreamer”, often leads many people to associate it naturally with a lack of adult responsibilities. This commonly results in mistaking someone’s progression of maturing as “growing up”. People believe that growing up entails someone taking on responsibilities, in which their childish games are replaced by efforts of attaining an education, profit, and comfortable living.  But this is a misnomer. Having responsibilities might make you “mature”, but they don’t make you the opposite of youthful, or “grown up”.

If we understand growing up as the antithesis of youth, this means that “grown up” tendencies mirror the aspects of youthful ones in an inverse way. If we associate as earlier the innocence and a positive “dreamer” outlook with youthfulness, then the opposite, a hardened cynicism and a brutal knowledge of the world must be associated with the “grown up” perspective. This progression from childhood pureness to “grown up” reality is a predictable one.  After a while, it doesn’t take a genius to show that your place of birth in a socioeconomic structure has a huge factor in determining if your dreams become a reality, and that there is an awful lot of evil that exists in the world that wants nothing more than to break you down. Coming face to face with these experiences lead many people into the path of being stripped of their pure trust in the world, and in turn, their youth.

This hardening of resolve, the facing of reality, this is what it is to “grow up”.  Instead of living in the fantastical nature of their wild ideas and dreams, “grown ups” have replaced them with more sensible and logical realities. They’ve realized that being an astronaut isn’t in the cards, and settle on a sales rep. They choose to scoff at the fairytale endings of what were once their favorite cartoons, and instead only point out the underlying misogynistic or imperialistic tendencies, missing the point of them completely. They grow out of daydreaming, and into the limiting confines of predetermined logic, in the process editing out all the fantastical or other-worldly symptoms of their youth.

Yes, the process is inevitable, and eventually parts of your innocent youth is replaced with a “grown up” logic or worldview, but how one deals with this process, and how much of that data we choose to adhere to, this struggle of individual courage transforms the youth into the well formed Being.

Let’s unpack courage for a second, and separate it from its usual counterpart of bravery. The original French word Corage, derived from the latin root Cor, meaning heart, was meant as to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart, your innermost feelings. To show Corage was to express your deepest convictions and desires, whatever they may be. In a modern take, an act of courage is an expression of emotion not fueled by empirical data or rational thought, but at the same time, does not fly in the face of it. To show courage can be understood as recognizing the worldly expectations and boundaries to your dreams, and yet despite them, express your youthful desires and hopes from your inner core as demonstration of agency.  An act of courage deconstructs the binary of empirical world experience ( “growing up”) versus the inexplicable desires and untempered emotions of the heart (youthfulness).  Thus, showing that the existence of one does not preclude the other, and that both can be simultaneously understood and expressed.

This may be a bunch of mumbo jumbo, but what it boils down to is that while given the “growing up” process is inevitable, showing courage in the classic sense is our way of simultaneously accepting it, and combating it.  Acts of courage, expressing your deepest innermost desires with the knowledge of their irrational nature, are what create connections in the world around us, and bring to real life creativity and possibility the way that our dreams once did when they played out in our minds.  Asking someone on a date while realizing that you could be turned down, believing you’re worthy of compassion and belonging despite what past relationships and the flood of media have told you, telling someone you love them, while accepting you could be hurt in the process, choosing a career path in something you’re passionate about instead of something that will make you money, committing to a long distance relationship with someone you love deeply in spite of the many warning voices telling you it won’t work, the acceptance of uncertainty, the ability to be vulnerable to others, these are the acts of courage that define our character, our ways of actualizing on the dreams of our youth. This is how we live on in our “grown up” state.

My grandma, despite being a widower of an abusive husband, living under the poverty line the whole of her life, as well as a whole host of worldly shit, expressed courage as a routine. She choose to live an actively happy life, instead of wallowing in her misery despite her situation. She imparted on her grandkids the importance of never judging someone by anything but their character, in spite of the many racially fueled gangs that plagued her town. She decided, that even with the cancer that had been eating away at her for some 10 years and eventually took her life, to be a constant source of joy for those around her, taking time out of her day to show genuine interest in everyone she talked to whether it be the clerk at the store or her best friend, and her compassion for all things living was visible in the zoo of animals that she adopted in her lifetime. And even when I grew older, I never doubted her genuineness when she told me I could be anything I wanted, because she served as a living proof through her unending compassion that just because you “grow up” and become attuned the harsh conditions of the world, does not mean your life has to be one hardened by the realities of the space you live in. I could learn from her example, I could be like her and choose to be truly happy in a world that had only showed her pain. A feat still reserved for the fairytales and books of our childhood.