Author Note

This paper is an analysis of an interview which was conducted at San Diego State University in 1995 with Dr. Li-Rong Lilly Cheng. Based upon that interview, the authors attempt to analyze the life span development of Li-Rong Lilly Cheng, who, as a young child, fled from her homeland of China to Formosa where she grew up with the richness of multiple languages and cultures. It was this experience that seemed so confusing at first to this child of change, that lay the foundation for her interest in human justice that would eventually help disadvantaged minorities in America develop the will to empower themselves. To that extent, it is a motivating story for all second language teachers and educators to reflect upon as a model for knowing self and seeking self improvement.

Of special note, is the fact that the second author, Shubin Li, grew up in mainland China and experienced the Cultural Revolution of Mao Tse-tung throughout her later adolescence and early adulthood. Shubin Li conducted the initial interview with Dr. Li-Rong Lilly Cheng at San Diego State University and this is believed to have added depth to the Dr. Cheng's sincere responses to very sensitive questions about her own life experiences since both the interviewer and interviewee are from mainland China and since both share two unique backgrounds which are paradoxical as a result of their common ancestry and their markedly different geopolitical upbringings. Shubin Li is a doctoral student at United States International University in San Diego. Both authors contributed equally to the research and publication of this study.

Looking back through all those years, I found myself increasingly driven by education... driven to ask the critical questions (Dr. Cheng, 1995).

Introduction

Dr. Lilly Cheng is Professor of Communicative Disorders and Assistant Dean of Student Affairs and International Development of the College of Health and Human Services at San Diego State University. She is also Director of the International Institute for Human Resources Development in Health and Human Services and a fellow of the American Speech-Language Hearing Association (ASHA) (Cheng, 1995: 28). Chinese by origin, she moved to the United States over twenty eight years ago and has been studying and working in America ever since. This woman is an example of sheer determination in action to help all humans to take initiative to empower themselves and their families.

Purpose

This paper presents a transcript of a one hour interview with Dr. Cheng at San Diego State University, a summary of the interview and a detailed analysis of Dr. Cheng's life story from the perspectives of biosocial, cognitive, and psychosocial development with particular emphasis on the viewpoints of Erik Erikson. The purpose of the paper is to develop insight into the midlife transition of a multilingual change agent, humanist, and educator to whom we all can hope to model to create equality and justice in a changing society. This paper attempts to encourage language teachers of English and all educators to develop hope for their profession as leaders in a world community who have the opportunity to empower speakers from second and third world countries so as to give hope for the elimination of discrimination and to help develop a deeper understanding of human nature... especially through communications.

It is hoped that this story will encourage language teachers to become more aware of their power to influence the thoughts and actions of all people in dynamic ways, since language and its transmission across cultures is what Noam Chomsky believed to be the primary mechanism for justice in an unjust world. The interview is attached as Appendix A. Three charts that reveal Dr Cheng's life stage developments are presented for casual reference in Appendix B. The information that follows is a summary and analysis of Dr. Cheng's life as presented in the interview. It is recommended that the reader read Appendix A before reading the analysis for a maximum understanding of the contributions of Dr. Cheng to those less fortunate, and to develop a richer insight into her personal struggle and determination for educational excellence and human equity.

Summary of Dr. Cheng's Life Story

Dr. Cheng was born in Shanghai, China in 1946. Shortly afterwards, her grandfather accepted a post in Taiwan during the communist takeover of China. Dr. Cheng was two and a half years old then. She moved to Formosa (hereafter referred to as Taiwan) with her grandfather, mother and younger brother. They left Shanghai in a hurry. Much of her family's history was left behind in the process. She spent her childhood in Taiwan , recalling little of her native country or family history there. The transition had a great impact on the direction of her life. Her early childhood was spent in southern Taiwan. Her earliest memory was listening and talking to people who spoke different dialects like Shanghainese, Mandarin, Cantonese and Taiwanese, and languages like Japanese. As a young child, Dr. Cheng was very confused about languages and could not speak just one of them. She had to speak many languages to survive. This left a lasting impression on her when she was a primary student. As a result, she grew up with the view that "one just must be flexible."

After primary school, she went to a girl's middle school. The competition was high and she was considered a good student from the perspective of general education. She had some difficulty with math once and with physical education at another time, but that did not hinder her. When she finished her junior high school, she went to the same high school. After taking a competitive national examination she was selected to attend National Taiwan University (considered the Harvard of Taiwan). She learned English and Spanish and majored in foreign language literature. Surprisingly, she did very well in her studies. She was likely the top student in her class and did not have to worry about getting scholarships. Dr. Cheng received scholarships throughout college and attained excellent recognition from the university.

After graduation she went to the United States because she thought it was a big country and possibly would afford her the opportunity to learn a lot more. She chose teaching English and went into linguistics with a major focus on teaching English. It took her about a year to realize that teaching the English language would not be her goal. The little English she knew could not get her through an academic program in America. Although she was bilingual and multicultural, she did not have the history, the knowledge, or the "know how" of the American culture. As a result, she began to teach the Chinese language in America. She began doctoral level courses in linguistics while she was teaching.

While studying linguistics, she decided to switch to sociolinguistics. Eventually she went into the field of communicative disorders (a 180-degree switch) and moved into the field of speech sciences. Apparently, her childhood exposure to many dialects and languages had laid the foundation for her adult interest. "Looking at the scientific, pathological, physiological, neurological aspects of language, I went into the pathological end of things and became a language pathologist." She went through rigorous training in medical school, clinical training, and eventually obtained her credential and certification as a clinician. She began to work in hospital settings and home-care settings. Simultaneously, she conducted research, clinical teaching, and made clinical contact. Thus, Dr. Cheng's career in medical services began. This led to her noteworthy accomplishment of starting San Diego's first medical program for speech, language and pathological services with Kaiser Preventive Medical Group. Simultaneously, San Diego State University recruited Dr. Cheng for clinical teaching and to conduct research. For the past fourteen years Dr. Cheng has been teaching and conducting clinical and general research.

In these past years, Dr. Cheng has had many opportunities to advance herself in the fields of education and writing. She was also able to have an opportunity on the campus to "take on" a number of responsibilities. One of them was the opportunity to be San Diego State University's Dean of Student Affairs. The opportunity became a reality. Dr. Cheng now assumes that important leadership position and many more. She holds positions on international, state, city, and campus levels. For example, Dr. Cheng is Director of International Research on Human Resource Development, Chairperson of San Diego's Committee on Chinese Asian Thematic District, Chairperson of the Board for Asian and Pacific Affairs, and Chairperson of SDSU's Senate on Faculty Outreach and Faculty Retention. Other assignments include medical assurance committee director and President of the International Association for Professional Organizations.

Dr. Lilly Cheng is the oldest of three children in her family. They live in the United States. Her parents have always been supportive of her educational advancement. Currently, her mother commutes between Taiwan and the United States. Her father passed away six years ago. She has been married for twenty-seven years and has an thirteen-year old son. Her husband is a mathematician by training. His major interest has been in fluid dynamics that involves the area of physics and mathematics. He has his own company doing consulting work and solving very difficult mathematics problems. Now he is developing his own software packages and computer modeling. He is essentially at the forefront of high technology.

Dr. Cheng has many publications. Most of them are in English and a couple of them are in Chinese. Sometimes she was the single author and other times she was the coauthor, editor or contributor. A list of a few of her publications follow: Accessing Language Performance: Guidelines for evaluating Limited English Proficient Students (1987,1991), Human Communication Disorders (1989, gone through six editions), Myth or Reality: Adopted Strategies for Asian Newcomers in California (1993), Integrating Language and Learning for Inclusion (1995), Nu Ren Yi Zhi Hua (currently up for publication shortly), and her next book will be Children: Our Cherished Hope.

Career-wise, Dr. Cheng does not think she is successful in terms of personal goals. She has been modeling Western women since childhood. When she was in Taiwan, the most famous woman was Madam Chiang Kai-shek. When she got to study in college in the United States, she began to read books about the life of Eleanor Roosevelt and Margaret Mead. Compared with them, Dr. Cheng felt she still had a long way to go. She wrote a lot. She figured that was a way of transmitting self. People often called her and said, "I read you article. I am interested in your perspectives." Her friends and her colleagues kept on saying, "Please write the book, Lilly. Please write some more. Your stories are good and your research is nice." Dr. Cheng's response to writing as a forum for success was : "I had achieved what (at least preliminarily) I wrote and I was able to publish... So, my motivation is probably more to educate myself and to educate others. That is very strong in me."

As stated earlier, Dr. Cheng is Chinese by origin, but she has lived in the United States for almost twenty nine years. Is she an American Chinese or a Chinese American? Asked whether she had ever felt frustrated because of different culture backgrounds she said :"You will find people who are totally not tolerant with your foreignness even though I consider myself pretty much bicultural. A kind of level of lack of understanding of the global world is frustrating." For Dr. Cheng, a lot of people really do not understand how to go beyond current cultural boundaries. They appear to be trapped in a world of their own. "That is always frustrating. People always try to pin me down and say, "Who are you? Where are you from? Why are you here"? That frustrates me because I am often caught in a mental disequilibrium trying to figure out who I am."

Asked about whether there is ethnic discomfort while working with white men, Dr. Cheng responded by saying that working with white men, dynamic ethnic, cultural, and gender issues surface. She finds that as long as she can speak her mind, she earns their respect. Even at large meetings she sometimes gets chosen as the chairperson - not on the basis as an Asian woman; rather, because of her rationality and critical thinking skills. Dr. Cheng found that once she settles down and "says her piece," she gets strong recommendations from men and women. "They do not judge me on my physical characteristics; they do look beyond my skin and my small stature."

To answer the question about the reflections of life in the United States and in Taiwan, Dr. Cheng said there were many moments of hardship after she came the United States. She needed to pay for her own education and took any kind of job she could get to survive. She recalled a time of hardship in her early married life and described it as a "luxurious experience." One snowy evening, years ago, Dr. Cheng and her husband were very hungry and were unable to find anything to eat. Their cash was very low. They searched their house for coins, found $6.50, and ordered a pizza. The delivery person got angry when Dr. Cheng and her husband were unable to come up with a tip. Dr. Cheng has always looked at those days as days of struggle; yet, of strength building. With this acquired strength, Dr. Cheng felt she could help others build theirs.

Career woman versus good wife and mother is a controversial topic. Dr. Cheng has her own point of view. She and her husband both hold doctoral degrees. They understand each other well. She considers her husband a good friend and supporter. They have become increasingly intimate as partners over the last ten years. They have gone beyond the normal daily talk of "Where is the rice, where is the food, and where is the beef?" In a way, their partnership has solidified because both of them are driven by a hunger to learn more.

Her son was a late gift to the family. Dr Cheng tries her best to work with him with his homework, and she takes him to school during the week. He was the only person at his school to receive the perfect school attendance award over the past five or six years. Dr. Cheng never missed a session. She was there for him come rain or shine . Dr. Cheng admitted that she is not a good cook but she emphasized that she does provide food on the table. She often found herself in situations where she was unable to do all the things she wanted to do. For example, when she has a board meeting in Washington DC, she can not do those things which require her presence at home or at work at SDSU. She feels a bit unsuccessful because of her tendency to put her personal needs on the back burner. Dr. Cheng faces problem-solving with a sense of humor, balance, and an awareness that she can not be Margaret Mead. Dr. Cheng has her own philosophy of balancing responsibilities. Family is her priority; especially her son and her husband's career. She feels she is "balancing out."

Dr. Cheng believes in collaboration and in sharing ideas. She has accumulated a lot of knowledge through experience and writing. She accumulates ideas in her computer so that she can sort them out and write little by little. Her first two books were not her ideas. People who read her little stories and research papers came up to her and asked her to write. Once people gave her the idea that she could write and once her books sold a lot of copies, she realized that there was a need. Then ideas started flowing. She realized: "Once people affirmed me, it gave me the energy to do some more. I always have a way of looking at other people's strengths. I pull that strength out of them. The ability of people to share is very good. I am empowering not only myself, but those who are coming along in terms of being a junior faculty or a junior member of the academy."

Regarding cultural behavior preferences (American or Chinese), Dr. Cheng feels that her ways of thinking and ways of doing things in terms of looking at the world or problem solving are very European based because she received her higher education in the United States. Most of her theoretical bases of thinking or paradigms developed in the United States. There is no doubt in her mind that her thinking process relies completely on American higher education, which characterizes her analytical and critical thinking abilities. Deep down, she figures her values have changed. She is no longer able to keep one value system. She has two value systems because she came to America so young. She had no model women from China or Taiwan; instead, all of her models were from the United States. The formation of her personality appears couched in more European or at least on American based models. She feels she has a blend of multiculturalness inside her; but deep down within, her principles are more academically based. Her academic life is coached in the American culture.

Analysis of Dr. Li-Rong Lilly Cheng

Introduction of the Analysis

In analyzing Dr. Cheng's life story one main issue stood out above all others. It was Dr. Cheng's search for her identity. The search for this identity emerged from her uprooted history. Dr. Cheng had traveled in three vessels to find it; namely, language, education, and career. The journey, the vessels, and the destination were (and still are) inseparable. They are strongly interconnected and complex. The irony of the sometimes vague journey was, that amidst its frequent frustrations, it emerged as a powerful mission - one which helped others to empower themselves. Observing this process of growth in others has helped Dr. Cheng fulfill her deepest need ... to know herself.

Purpose of the Analysis

Due to the limited content in the interview, an analysis was made on Dr. Cheng's search for her identity from Erikson's theoretical viewpoints; particularly, Erikson's theory that "the stages of life are centered on each person's relationship to their social environment" (Berger, 1993: 41). The analysis attempted to reveal the deep structure of Dr. Cheng's motivation. Deep structure was defined as those underlying factors in Dr. Cheng's experiences and environment that assigned meaning and purpose to her life (Chomsky, 1972:162-163). Examples to support the proposed analysis were supported from various theoretical sources.

Erikson and Identity

Erik Erikson mentioned that historical accidents caused by revolution take place throughout our lifetime and affect personal fortunes and symptoms of unconscious demands (Erikson, 1963: 279). Dr. Cheng was born in mainland China in the immediate aftermath of World War II. She lived in Shanghai for the first two and a half years of her life where her early childhood was surrounded by an atmosphere of political instability and parental concern. At that young age, she moved to Taiwan. This was made possible because her grandfather obtained a post in Taiwan. The exodus was amidst the Communist takeover of China and the founding of The People's Republic of China in 1949.

Dr. Cheng was virtually torn from her roots and planted in a new environment. She grew up in a multicultural genesis. Everything around her was changing. This is where the basis of her future problem with ego identity began. The deep structure of her identity had re-rooted itself in a strange new soil. The family was still there to nourish the trust described in Erikson's first stage of life span development, but the dynamic changes in her environment manifested a long-term impact on her fifth stage of life span development. Erikson defined this stage as the stage of identity versus role confusion (Erikson, 1963:273).

Dr. Cheng needed a woman role model to confirm her identity. No suitable oriental models were available except for her mother and for Madame Chiang Kai-shek. The mother may not have been the perfect role model for two reasons. First, like Madame Chiang Kai-shek, Dr. Cheng's mother was redefining her own national identity. Second, Doctor Cheng may have absorbed her parents' anxieties caused by the "heightened struggle for a meaningful existence in a new era of history" in a Republic which broke away from China (Erikson, 1963:274).

A revolutionary atmosphere prevailed and a national search for identity was in the air throughout Dr. Cheng's early childhood transition, childhood, and adolescence. Just as 'history had the generation of World War II by the throat' (Mussolini) so did history dictate Dr. Cheng's new surroundings in her first stages of development. Just as history prevented Dr. Cheng's parents from being who they knew they were (Chinese in mainland China), so was a seed planted in Dr. Cheng's childhood mind, germinating the question:"Who shall I become?"

In that search, and amidst some confusion, Dr. Cheng looked to the West for women role models. She attempted to define herself as a unique person. Just how does this search to the West connect with who Dr. Cheng wanted to become? For Erikson, her search for identity represented a basic human need that began to be felt in her adolescence (Berger,1994). The process of discovering her identity was complex because it involved three cultures. All of the cultures were multi-lingually oriented. Dr. Cheng was Chinese in her early childhood transition (Levinson, 1965: 20) and in the first stage of Erikson's eight stages of woman, Taiwanese throughout her childhood & adolescence and early adulthood transition, and an American in her early adulthood, mid-life transition, and currently in her early stage of middle adulthood.

The greatest opportunity for Dr. Cheng to discover herself appeared to be in America; but without all three cultures, Dr. Cheng would not be the person she is today because "psychosocial identity develops out of a gradual integration of all identifications" (Erikson, 1963: 241). Erikson spoke of ego and identity concerns in social institutions and he related them to history and culture. He said that ego identity anchors itself in a cultural identity because he believed it "to be that part of the ego which at he end of adolescence integrates the infantile ego stages and neutralizes the autocracy of the infantile superego." The ideal identity establishes itself with culture, is based on culture, and is a reflection of one's role in the culture. Dr. Cheng's difficulty in finding her identity is subject to the power of her cultural roots (Erikson, 1963: 165). Keeping in mind Noam Chomsky's viewpoint that language is culture, Dr. Cheng started her subconscious search for identity in a vehicle which had fascinated her since her earliest memory - the vehicle of language itself.

Language - the First Vehicle

Dr. Cheng's earliest connection with "who she is" is tied-in with her earliest childhood memory of multilingualism. It can be considered as "tertiary (remote) memory" which "includes information remembered for years or decades" (Berger, 1994: 615). Her early memory of multicultural speakers laid a foundation for her career where she would eventually feel most comfortable. It laid a background for her academic and multilingual ability. A multicultural environment stirred curiosity and interest about languages, and helped her to form a simple philosophy of life.

Although a happy memory because of the warm and sharing environment she experienced at home, the emerging identity of Dr. Cheng was complicated. By definition, emerging identity "attempts to bridge the stages of childhood when the bodily self and the parental images are given their cultural connotations" (Erikson,1963: 235 ).The cultural connotations in Dr. Cheng's early childhood were not completely clear because of the parents' search and Taiwan's search for a redefined identity. Multiple languages did caused some confusion for her because of the nature of a multilingual environment. Language transfer conflicts and code switching occurred at school, in the neighborhood and in the family. Her mother and father spoke different Chinese dialects. All this happened in a newly establish republic whose own national identity was emerging in an attempt to empower itself as an independent entity from the Peoples Republic of China.

An analysis of language in Dr. Cheng's life discloses a remarkable connection with her motivation to empower herself and others from multicultural backgrounds. By empowering others, Dr. Cheng strengthened her own identity and ego. Underlying her motivation to empower others was her sense of ego identity . Erikson defined it as the "accrued confidence that inner sameness and continuity prepared in the past are matched by the sameness and continuity of one's meaning for others" (Erikson, 1963: 262). The paradox is that the sameness referred to in Erikson's definition is the difference in languages that Dr. Cheng was exposed to. She looked towards those multicultural languages to empower herself. In the process, it carried her to America where multiple ethnic groups from the most diverse society in the world help give her a deeper understanding of herself. Thus, language helped Dr. Cheng to form a relationship between memory, curiosity and philosophy.

Memory influenced her life and career. It stimulated Dr. Cheng's curiosity and love for multiple languages because of the happy association of thought. In turn, the same curiosity helped her to develop her interest to teach English abroad and working with people of diverse backgrounds. This opened the door to choices of career opportunities. Living in three cultures requiring flexibility in language, Dr. Cheng formulated her philosophy on life: "Be flexible." That flexibility is what enables Dr. Cheng to continue her journey of self-discovery and re-identity. The motivation is the potential empowerment of weaker ethnic groups within America, and helping them to become "ones who will be able to stand on their own feet" (Erikson, 1963:235). Through language, Dr. Cheng has become a powerful change agent in America's system of higher education.

Education - the Second Vehicle

This vehicle was a link between language and career. It was the key to documenting accomplishments and forming a social identity. It enhanced Dr. Cheng's self-esteem tremendously and solidified her connection with family because of her parents' unwavering support of her educational endeavors. "Dr. Cheng's growing self-esteem helped her believe she was "learning effective steps toward a tangible future, and developing into a defined self within a social reality"(Erikson, 1963: 235). To that extent, education opened doors for achievement to occur. This resulted in identity through achievement in Dr. Cheng's adolescent years in high school in Taiwan. She was rated the top student in her high school. Her selection to Taiwan University boosted her perception of her ability as well as her self image. This inspired Dr. Cheng to push herself harder and to gain more from life.

As Dr. Cheng attained more and more achievements in education, more cultural meaning was added to her identity. She grew as an identity achiever (Berger, 1994: 414). Identity achievement: "occurs when adolescents attain their new identity through "selective repudiation and mutual assimilation of childhood identifications." In this sense, Dr. Cheng made a strong connection with language and education as a means to reduce her cultural-identity anxiety, increase her self-esteem, strengthen her ethnic identity, reduce any perceived prejudices, gain a stronger sense of independence, improving hand develop social interactions involving problem solving skills, and improving the foundation for intimacy for her life in the future with her husband (Berger, 1994: 414).

The chart in Appendix A reveals Dr. Cheng's accomplishments and supports Erikson's theory that "ego identity gains real strength only from wholehearted and consistent recognition of real accomplishment" (Erikson, 1963; p. 235) Furthermore, it supports the theory of this paper that Dr. Cheng's identity is an inseparable product of her environment and the sum of her experiences in language, education and career. The quality of her identity is determined by her motivation, achievements and opportunities. The following formula illustrates the point:

I = Environment { (L + E + C) ( M + O + A) }

I = Identity

L = Language

E = Education

C = Career

M = Motivation

O = Opportunity

A = Achievement

Career-the Third Vehicle

Career is defined as "a profession or occupation one trains for and pursues as a lifework." It is usually measured in terms of success. To that extent, Dr. Cheng was striving for a higher sense of self esteem through the vehicles of language, education and career. Language and education were prerequisites to Dr. Cheng's career and it was her career which helped her discover the depth of her identity. Let's take a look at her career development and some connections which helped Dr. Cheng help others discover their own identity while empowering Dr. Cheng to discover her own. This is an important concept because "the striving for success is the striving for self-esteem." (Bardwick, 197:166).

Career development

Dr. Cheng's success in career is based on her knowledge of language and background of education. Always in search of a "productive and meaningful" life, she remained committed "to educate 'herself' and to educate others" (Cheng, 1995). There is no doubt that Dr. Cheng was quite successful in her career. Now she is an educator, an administrator and a leader (a leading figure) in a number of positions on international, state, local government, and campus levels. Her mixture of an east-and-west educational background influenced her value system; yet, she maintains the beautifully Asian virtue of taking care of her parents and her child no matter how busy she is.

Dr. Cheng endured many hardships since coming to America. They ranged from simple frustrations like her pizza story, to more complex and personal frustrations such as ethnic discomforts associated with working with individuals who have low tolerance levels in dealing with foreigners especially from "scholarly white men," misunderstandings of Americans from diverse backgrounds, and her frustrations in identifying her role in American society. She went through all of these moments of hardship to build her self-esteem while seeking her identity and helping people of minority multicultural backgrounds do the same.

Career Aspirations and Connections

During the stage of early adulthood, Dr. Cheng thought she wanted to be an English teacher. This appeared to be a kind of mental moratorium (Berger, 1994: 413). After experiencing some difficulties with English, she refocused her energy to teach the Chinese language. It is interesting to note how Dr. Cheng originally connected her identity to language through education. Language was her happiest memory. Education was her greatest achievement. The pattern of Dr. Cheng's career aspirations appeared to be simple and logical. That course changed however, as Dr. Cheng matured. It turned out that she had a much more profound motivation and deeper drive within her subconscious mind. She would soon realize that language and education were the tools which helped her form a career involving much greater responsibility. Rather than teaching other people of multicultural backgrounds the tools of language and education, Dr. Cheng used the tools to teach them how to empower themselves in an inequitable world.

That led to her work as a clinician where she used language and education to help people with functional speech problems caused by disease or congenital disorders. This is where the real basis of Dr. Cheng's compassion and love for humanity truly emerged in career form. Her pattern always sought a course of empowering other people. "No matter what specific pattern a particular adult life may form, two basic psychosocial needs drive its development. According to Freud, the two needs are love and work." (Berger, 1994: 484). Dr. Cheng was no exception to Freud's assertion. In fact, they wove in nicely with Dr. Cheng's career motivation to help others love themselves by helping themselves to increase their self esteem through empowerment. This applied equally to Dr. Cheng in her continued search for her own identity. The more she could empower others to love themselves in a responsible way, the closer she came to a love of her own identity as Chinese, Taiwanese, American and ... global human being (Noble, 1995).

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Birth

You ask me about my life story. Maybe I can start from early childhood as a beginning point. I was born in Shanghai ... I think at the early age of two and half, I believe. My mother and I and my younger brother left Shanghai for Taiwan. That was prompted, essentially not because of the communist takeover of China; rather, that my grandfather took a post in Taiwan. So it was pretty convenient for us to go. But at the same time, there was so much internal unrest in China (at least from the perspective of my mother) that we felt it was a good time to leave. We left in a hurry, so much of her history was left behind.

Earliest memory

I really did not have much history. I remember nothing of Shanghai ... nothing at all. My early childhood was actually spent in the Southern part of Taiwan, on a sugar cane plantation where my grandfather was sort of in charge of sugar manufacturing. My earliest memory included listening and talking to people... individuals who spoke different dialects and languages. That included Shanghainese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese and Taiwanese.mother's dialect was Cantonese. My father's was Hubeinese. So, as a young child I was very confused about languages. I wondered why everybody spoke differently; yet, I enjoyed very much my early childhood.

Primary School and First Philosophy

I remember going to a primary school primarily with individuals who came from China with a Mandarin speaking background; while in the neighborhood, most people spoke Japanese, lived in Japanese styled homes, dressed in Japanese styled clothing, wore Japanese styled shoes and most importantly, enjoyed the Japanese culture. There we were from sort of a Shanghainese, Mandarin, Cantonese background trying to fit into a culture that was quite different. So, all my life I have never really been monolingual. I had never been able to just speak one language. We had to speak a lot of languages to survive. On the street, we spoke one language. In the neighborhood we spoke another. At home we spoke another; in school we spoke even another dialect. So, I grew up with the view that one just must be flexible. After primary school, I went to a girl's middle school. The competition was very high and I guess I managed. I was considered a good student from the perspective of general education. I think I passed most of the courses. I had some difficulty with math at one time and physical education at another; but it did not handicapped me ... you know. After my graduation from junior high school I went to the same high school. The girl's school at that time was from the seventh grade to the twelfth grade.

College, Competition and Interests

After taking a competitive national examination I was selected to attend National Taiwan University, which at this point, is still considered the Harvard of Taiwan. I went to that school and got into a program where I learned English and Spanish. My major was sort of English - a foreign language literature. Essentially, I went through the university without much thinking and absolutely no career goal, because when you are in the language and literature you would only enjoy the literature and enjoy the language. I had wanted , however, to be a teacher at some point in time, but my career path at that time was not designed for being a teacher because in Taiwan at that time in order to be a teacher you would go to a normal university and major in education and minor in other fields. You would then get a credential and so on. I had none of that. So, in a way the four years of college education afforded me the opportunity to kind of just roam around, browse into literature, and just sort of be a dreamer. I graduated from National Taiwan University. Surprisingly I did very, very well... Apparently because I was interested in language and literature. So I was probably top in the class at a level where I did not have to worry about getting a scholarship. I received the scholarship all the way through the college and recognition from the university. But yet it was not so effortful. I did not really work that hard. I just liked what I did.

Opportunity Abroad - A New Challenge

After graduation it was kind of interesting because most of my cohorts said to me "Move on. Where would you go"? There was the opportunity at that time clearly to go to , Japan, Germany, South America, the United States, Great Britain, etc. There were many choices, and even Spain at that point because I had learned Spanish. I chose the United States because I thought it was a big country and possibly it would afford me the opportunity to learn a lot more. So, I chose teaching English. I thought, well, I learned English why couldn't I use that. So, I went into linguistics with a major focus on teaching English. It took me about a year , maybe 12-16 months to realize that that would not really be my goal, because the little English I knew before I arrived in the Unites States really could not get me through an academic program where I would become bilingual and multicultural. I found my masters program only began to let me know it would be very difficult for me to be a good English teacher because I did not have the history, the knowledge, the know how, and the culture. So I decided that I would try something different since I liked the teaching so much. I would teach Chinese using my English background to teach Chinese. So I did some of that and at the same time I was also taking doctoral level courses in linguistics which I really enjoyed ... very much the theoretical aspects of linguistics. Teaching Chinese was a challenge -- absolutely a challenge for me. I had students who had no background in Chinese. I had students who actually came from a Cantonese speaking background (second, third generation Chinese). I had students who really wanted to learn the calligraphy of Chinese and not so much the spoken language. I had students who really could not handle the tones of Chinese.

Refocus on Career Interests

Mandarin, I felt was indeed a challenge. So in the process of studying linguistics I switched to sociolinguistics and eventually went into the field of communicative disorders; I totally switched 180 degrees and went into the field of speech sciences. Looking at the scientific, pathological, physiological, neurological aspects of language, how language is acquired, how language is learned, how it's processed, why some people seem to be able to learn language much faster than others, and why some people have difficulty in using one language, and went into the pathological end of things and became a language pathologist. I went through very rigorous training in the medical school. I went into the field of clinical training, and eventually was credentialed and certified as a clinician and began my work in a hospital setting, treating individuals who could not speak, who had brain trauma, who had cancer of larynx, who had Alzheimer's disease, parkinsonism, birth defects and syndromes.

Breaking New Ground - Medical Services

So I went into a field that was unknown to most Chinese, unknown to most of my colleagues, unknown to most people. I went into what I would consider a very esoteric field. So I worked at a clinical setting and I worked at home care setting, intensive care units, neurology, paediatrics, ENT (ear, nose, throat) and did research and clinical teaching as well as clinical contact. That began my career in the area of medical services and eventually moved from Canada - I was in Canada for a few years and back to California and I was in charge.

Accomplishments and Career Responsibilities

Medical

Actually I started the first medical program here in San Diego to provide speech, language and pathological services for the Kaiser Preventative Medical Group here in San Diego.

Teaching and Research

At the same time I was recruited by the university because they really needed someone to do clinical teaching as well as research; specifically in the area of bilingual and multilingual research and they needed people who could become that person ... the person who could talk about these areas. So I, kind of "self-learned" really... a lot of the areas in bilingual research and got more and more involved with the area of looking at how individuals learn ... Language is part of learning. At the interaction between language, cognition, learning and culture - how all of that is intertwined into a process that eventually has an outcome which is what you learn - how you learn and eventually what you learn. So, over the last twelve years I've been teaching and doing clinical research as well as general research.

Writings, Publications and Administration

During the last twelve years I have had many opportunities to advance myself in learning and specifically in the area of writing, publication, presentation and collaborative research. Also, I was able then to be given the opportunity on this campus to try to take on a number of responsibilities. One of them is the opportunity to work in the Dean's Office and be the Dean of Student Affairs. That was essentially not really a promotion, but rather a difference in responsibilities. So, I stepped into administration and found myself intrigued with the university system - how we can change the system to benefit the students and actually create better learners. So, I have been doing that. I also was given the opportunity to try the leadership position in directing a number of grants and scholarships. That I found interesting too - to help students advance themselves in terms of acquiring fellowships and scholarships.

International Positions

Also being Director of International Research Human Resource Development was very interesting. We were able to work with the United Nations, The USIA and World Bank and World Health Organization - actually linking up with China, Japan, Africa (many countries in Africa - Zimbabwe and Nigeria) and other parts of the world linking up health and human research with other parts of the world through such organizations as the United Nations ... so on and so forth. That has been very challenging. I have had the opportunity to lead groups to China a number of times and do research and conduct symposia - this type of thing. So that has been very very fruitful I would say international terms.

Campus Assignments

My own personal gains out of learning is simply that there are opportunities to also work on this campus besides off campus as I just said. On campus, I have taken on the position as the Chairperson of the Senate on Faculty Outreach and Faculty Retention which is a very important position in that we are looking at new faculty coming in. How do we groom them to become better scholars and teachers and professors. I also chair the Campus Committee on Campus Climate. How do we measure climate on this campus? So, there are two major opportunities for me as an individual to bring in my background as a woman, as a minority, as a person who believes in internationalization and in bilingual multi- culturalism . All of that is now a part of me.

Motivation as a Change Agent

So simply put that's why I am in so many committees, and go to so many meetings ... to be able to voice an opinion - often a minority opinion, but in a campus that is mostly dominated by white men - not women - but men ... and white men. So essentially, I have taken on that responsibility along side with my research and maybe it is also because of my feeling that leadership has to come from individuals who may not look like a man with white hair and a white beard.

Local Government Assignments

In fact I have also participated in the city (San Diego) and in the Government. I am a Chairperson of a number of major committees in the city. One of them you will probably be very interested to know. I chair the City Committee on the Chinese Asian Thematic District ... That is planning in San Diego ... a special district where the Asian, the Chinese focus and the history is being retained and I chair that major committee so we deal with major issues that confront our everyday life as an ethnic minority. What kind of history do we have. What did the Chinese bring to this community many years ago and what do we bring now in terms of diversity? I also chair the major Advisory Board for Asian - Pacific Affairs. That is again looking at the diverse population from all over Asia. ... whether it is Vietnamese, Korean, or second generation Japanese. We look at issues. So, I chair those two major committees for the city and am a member of boards within the city because I figure that is one way to deal with leadership.

Assignment at the State Level

At the state government level because of my own area of specialty I am also in charge of a medical assurance committee with looking at how individuals who serve patients and clients have the right credential in the medical setting.

Committee for Empowerment of Minorities

And one other committee I think you might like to know about is the Minority Health Scholarship Foundation which is a major foundation that gives money for individuals who are interested to pursue an area in health and human services who are of minority status. A Hispanic woman maybe, a black child going to school ... and grooming an individual from that background into a medical profession because there are so few black doctors around ... very few Hispanic doctors, and yet we have a large population, so we do what we consider to be the under served population ... and on top of that I have other international and national boards. I am the President of the International Association for my Professional Organization so we have a large membership with international scholars all over the world. We meet regularly to discuss issues about education and health all over the world. How do we deal with issues like that. Those are some of my international affiliations. I have just given you a part of my life story.

Family and Marriage

I am the oldest of three children in my family. I have a younger brother and a younger sister. All three of us are in the United States. My brother is in Hawaii and my sister is also in California. My parents had always been very supportive of education and advancement in education. My father unfortunately passed away two years ago. He had been a major support. My mother right now commutes between Taiwan and the United States. She lives here some of the time and she lives in Taiwan some of the time. Without a spouse, I think she finds herself pretty much alone. That has been a concern of mine. I do not have a very large extended family. I have a number of uncles,aunts, and cousins. Most of us are in the United States. Some are on other parts of the world. Essentially I keep more contact with my own small family ... the nucleus family. I have a family of my own now. I have a son who is eleven years old and I have a husband. We have been married for nearly 25 years. We have been married for a quarter of a century. My husband and I and my son, we formed a smaller unit in San Diego. My husband's family is pretty large, a little larger than my family. He has three brothers and a sister. She passed away. He has his father, mother, and an extended family of uncles and aunts. They congregate ... all of them, all that very large group. They all live in the same area, in San Jose, in northern California. And we keep some contact with them.

Personal Success and Motivation

I think that you may want to view this from a number of perspectives. What is success? I do not think that I am so successful in terms of personal goals because it depends on who you look for in terms of modelling. I have been modelling women, essentially from the western world. Simply because as I grew up I have no information about China. When we were in Taiwan we were in Taiwan. Probably the most known woman at that time was Madam Chiang Kai-shek. I knew of women who took some positions, but very few. So I have very few role models. So finally, when I got to my college years I began to read about the life stories of Eleanor Roosevelt and Margaret Mead, for example. Then I began to understand that there is large group of women out there that, to me, were considered successful. So if you look at me and you think I am pretty successful; I look at them and I think I have a long way to go. I am not being modest ... because modesty at this time won't work for me. What I need is the motivation which I think is more important. Maybe you can look at my life story as being achieving some goals in life. But I must tell you a lot of the things that happened to me happened to me not by design. In other words, I did not go and look for something. It happen to me because people call on me. How they got to know me is mostly through my writing. I write a lot. I write both in Chinese and in English. I figure that is a way of transmitting for me. People would call me and say "I read you article", "I am interested in your perspectives". That is how I got known. So at the level of success I had achieved was at least preliminarily I wrote and I was able to publish. But to become more successful for me I would consider much more rigorous attempts at research; a much more rigorous attempt at recording what I have learned from my research, and even a more rigorous attempt at synthesizing that information and making it possible so that it makes sense to the reader or to people. So to gage my process I would think success is a long way from me yet. I would like to go that far and it will take me a long time.

Motivating Force

There is, however, a motivating force for me. The motivating force probably comes from my encounters in the last twenty five years or twenty seven years in the United States where a lot of people truly do not understand about cultures, about diverse cultures. People ask me questions that led me to think that they do not know anything about foreign cultures including the Chinese culture. They have stereo types, they have generalizations that were grossly wrong. They have a lot of myth about a lot of people. Because of that, that is my motivating force ... to educate. To say:" This is what I find. This is how new Asians really function. This is how some Chinese scholars think. This is how scholarly work is done. Please understand that." So, my motivation is probably more to educate myself and to educate others. That piece I think is very strong in me.

Frustration an issue?

Frustrated? I think we're constantly frustrated. Maybe it's not even so much in education or educating others because that's probably too noble a notion. I think in daily encounters - every single daily encounter, whether it's social or not. It's all social, of course, even the school is a society ... a community. You will find people who are totally not tolerant with your foreignness even though I consider myself pretty much bicultural. They would say, "Where are you from? Where did you learn English?How come you can speak English?" and so on and so forth. That kind of level of lack of understanding of the global world is frustrating. And in California, for example, a lot of people really do not know beyond their boundaries of the city or the county or the state, so they know very little about their neighbors in Mexico, their neighbors in Canada. Let alone their neighbors across the Pacific Ocean! That is always frustrating. Another frustrating piece probably is the frustration that even if you tried to let people know, there is a sense of not so much overt rejection, but rather a covert rejection like: "That's made in China - It's not good enough." There is a sense that this not good enough. Being pretty proud of the fact that I do have the industry as a Chinese person I felt sometimes insulted by those remarks. Yet at the same time I realize there is of course validity in some of the statements, but not all of them. So because of the constant struggle to balance myself, I am often caught in a mental disequilibrium trying to figure out who I am. In other words, my identity at this moment is unclear. Am I an American Chinese, or am I Chinese, or am I an American? I can not be an American because most of the Americans would consider me Chinese, but when I went to China the Chinese consider me pretty much American. So I guess I am Chinese American right now. And yet I am first generation because I form my identity mostly in the United States because my identity as a scholar or as a teacher is primarily in the United States. I guess my identity formation was founded on the basis of being bicultural at least. That frustrates me because people always try to pin me down and say,"Who are you? Where are you from? Why are you here? "

Ethnic discomfort with white men?

I think probably again there can be an ethnic issue, culture issue and ethnic culture issue and issue of gender. A lot of times when I go to meetings, I see mostly men, so that is gender issue. You know man vs. woman can become an issue. And many times they find the initial impression of me was always Asian looking she might be, Japanese or Korean or Chinese. They do not know. They try not to ask, but they finally have to ask. Most importantly I find that working with them (as long as I can speak my mind, say what I feel based on rationality and rational reasoning) I do earn their respect, and often when there is a meeting, the chair person is elected by the group - by the men and women sometimes. So, even in the large meeting sometimes I got chosen as the chair person not as a woman, not because I am a woman or because I am an Asian but because I represent a rational mind and a critical thinker. So eventually I find that once I can settle down and say my piece, I get strong recommendations from men or women. So they do not judge me on my physical characteristics; they do look beyond my skin color and my small stature. They often do not know that I am nearly fifty years old. They think that I am a younger woman. But I am not. So age, ethnicity, size and being a woman truly presents some challenges for me. But at the same time those challenges can be overlooked because they can look at me as a person. I think it is truly my educational background that helped me. I am trying always very hard to present a critical piece that is based on fairness and social justice. Rather than saying, "Oh, as a woman this is how I feel" I say, " As a person, as a human being, this is how we need to solve the problem." Often there are very sensitive issues in the meetings I hold. We deal a lot of tension, friction, and misunderstanding and how to handle that. We have got to be very calm, collected and be the critical thinkers and make fair judgements on things.

Reflections of life in the US and in Taiwan

I think there were many moments of hardship because essentially I paid for my own education. I got scholarships. I worked. I took any kind of job I could get. I translated. I worked as a chauffeur and drove people around. I worked in the kitchen and washed dishes and cleaned vegetables, I had taken odd jobs of every kind and I graduated as an assistant, working in a department. I have taken all kinds of jobs to survive. As a young person I felt absolutely there was absolutely as limit to one's potential to survive. So I think survival- wise I look back at the time when there was little money that I had to live on. My husband and I got married based on almost no budget. He received a scholarship and I, too. Now I remember one time we were hungry we came back from our respective offices and it was twelve thirty in the evening and it was snowing heavily and we were both very hungry and there was almost no food in the house. So we thought that we could order a pizza. At that time that was considered a luxury, a major luxury because it would cost six dollars or something. We had no six dollars so we looked into our pocketbooks and we looked everywhere in the house. We found coins, maybe six fifty ($6.50). The pizza was delivered. The man who delivered the pizza was looking at our handful of coins and we said we do have fifty cents for you as a tip. He was so angry with us because he had to count the coins. So there were points in our life where we had no transportation and our car broke down because it only cost seventy dollars. Actually, the steering wheel just came off the car so we couldn't go anywhere. So we were stranded and there were times when my car essentially sort of quit on me on a snowy night in the middle of nowhere. I had to find ways to get different places. Had I been a person with a lot of family members and friends around I would not have felt like such a stranger ... like a foreigner. So I did have many such encounters. Of course, living in areas where people would think pretty unsafe, but it was low rent I had to think about rental fees. And living in a very small living quarter because of the lack of means. So I've always looked at those days as being days of struggle and yet of strength building, being able to build one's strength, so I look back at that. I am still not totally concerned about all the material goods one can acquire. Certainly if I wanted to I could try to save money to buy a very nice car, for example, but I have a functional car today. It would give me places if it were not break down as the one I bought in the past but I am not going into that. But looking back through all those years I found myself actually being driven more and more by education, more and more by being able to ask the critical questions to - think and becoming more of a scholarly researcher. I think that looking back probably what I went through help me do that. Had I decided to go into a field of teaching or something else of becoming a secretary or becoming an accountant I would probably join the group that would go into leisure activities during the weekends singing, dancing or maybe playing Majiang or learning more about cooking. I did do that. Because of what had shaped me, I got more and more involved into research. So, looking back, I think the hardship gave me a sense of life and meaning that went beyond the normal course of events which would be graduating with a masters degree and going on to a professional job. It didn't happen to me. It happened in another way.

Career Woman versus Good Wife and Mother?

Every line of work is a career. Even working in the home is career. Maintaining the house is a career. I think that if you have read any book on superwoman, or any work on the area of becoming a superperson, I find myself not totally super at all. I am more than normal. How do you define wife? If you define wife as a partner, life long partnership, in a mutually interdependent situation and then I think my marriage is quite successful because both my husband and I have advanced degrees. He has a doctoral degree and has taught and done research also and continues to do that. He and I both understand each other very well. When we got home that evening on that the snowy night, he and I were looking at each other finding a way to get a pizza; not looking at one to have to create the pizza; but together as a partnership we truly are committed to our life long learning. So in that sense I think he is a good friend and supporter of me and we support each other very much. As a matter of fact, I think over the last ten years we have become more and more intimate as partners. And we have gone beyond the normal daily talk of, "Where is the rice, and where is the food, and where is the beef?" to "What do you think you intend to do in the next ten years in terms of research agenda or life goals?" So in a way this partnership has become more solidified because of both of us being driven very much by wanting to learn more. The typical wife syndrome, situation which is making sure the house has enough food, making sure there is enough toilet paper in the toilet, making sure that the laundry is done. I do take care of most of that, marginally sometimes depending on whether I have enough time or not, in other words, my husband has never starved, my child is not under nourished. I am not the best cook in the world but I do provide food on the table. I mean mostly I would do the cooking and shopping and so on and so forth. I find myself sometimes caught in the situation I am not being able to do too many things but I think I truly try to make a balance. I know my son would say to anyone that my mother loves me so much because I always express it very verbally to him. I think he came into my life much later than I had expected considering my husband and I have been married for twenty five years.He is only eleven years old, so for the first fourteen years of our life we didn't have a child. When he came he came as a later gift to us. I do treasure this relationship. I do go to all of his meetings in school. I am the representative of the family. I work with him every night on his homework. I take him to the Chinese school during the weekend. I have been the person and over the last five or six years every year had been awarded the full attendance award and I have never missed a session. Rain or shine, I was there for him. So I do take priority very carefully. If there is something I do not have to do, then I do not do it. I do take care of him. Yet I am not a typical mother. I am not a typical wife. What I mean by that if you have a sense of what is typical (maybe there is no such thing). A typical mother is someone who is there twenty four hours a day for the child. I am not. I am not able to. When I have a board meeting in Washington DC. I am gone. I do have some social support. I have my sister around and my mother and my husband. So there are baby-sitters and my friends. I am not always at home, this is number 1. Number 2 I do not always provide the food on the table. Sometimes it's fast food. I may go to MacDonalds. But I am not considering myself a lower rate mother. I find myself actually when I do spend time, I spend a lot of time. It is not what people call quality time which means two minutes here and five minutes there. It is a concerted effort to say every Sunday we will be together, we will learn Chinese together, and I will take you to school, and I will bring you home. And I will be even there to assist the teacher. So there are priorities in my life. My son is my priority. My husband's career is my priority, too. But I am being balanced out. In one way, you could say when you talk about success, I am not as successful as I wish to be because I do put my personal needs on the back burner. So I can take care of my family: my husband, my son, my mother and my father-in-law. My father-in-law has been ill for sometime. He needed medical attention, medical care and medication. I would put that as being number one. We drove all the way to Mexico to look for medical care for him. So priorities shift. Family priorities come into my life and I take care of them without complaints. I do care of them first, because without my family I think I would be very much lost. A career woman sometimes is without a family. Many of my colleagues here on this campus, many of the deans, women, faculty members are single. Many of them do not have their first generation around them, for example, their parents may not be around, and since they do not have a spouse or children they are the only person. They take care of only themselves. I am not in that category. I have my husband, my son, my family, my mother, my in-laws. All of them are around. I do have to share that responsibility with all my other relatives. It is hard sometimes though. When I am driving home I have like five things I like to do. First I have pick up the milk and then pick up the laundry, etc. How do I manage? I think having a sense of humor and balance and an awareness that I can not be Margaret Mead help me manage. I can not be someone who can do so much. I can only be myself. When I think that way, then I don't feel as compelled. Often you are driven by desire to be better and it's very hard, too. And not everything can be perfect. There are women who I know that who would be able to spend the whole day cooking for twenty people. I tend not to do that. I used to once in a while, but not any more. I have to readjust my life pattern so that my stress level is low and I try not to be stressed out because being stressful is harmful to me. In a way, it threatens the integrity of my family if I am too stressed out, go home and feel totally exhausted and angry and frustrated. What would that due to your significant other ?

Postpone Children

Fertility is a very interesting thing. At some point in life when we feel more settled I think the chances of becoming fertile are better. I think because we travelled a lot as students from one campus to the next to the next, to my husband attending two different campus to study we were constantly under movement. We were moving from one climate to another, one location to another, I think that was probably not conducive for becoming pregnant. So when we came to California and decided to choose San Diego as our home. We felt more settled, and then naturally it was more possible for me to become pregnant. There was no attempt to say, "No, let's not have children." or to say, "I must have my career first." No such thing. But there were reasons in life for not getting pregnant. Occasions in life were if you do not have a child you might be able to do something. I was actually very involved with children because I am on my work. I love children. When I see children in the hospital, I always say "Oh, how lovely." Even today, to this day, my husband and my son say, "Why are you intrigued by children?" I said because of my work I love to see how children grow and learn. There was no deliberate attempt to say "Put children on hold, and put career first". No such thing!

Husband's career

My husband is a mathematician by training. So his major interest has been in fluid dynamics which of course is an area of physics and mathematics. He started out working and university teaching and went into the defence industry because in San Diego the defence industry many years ago was very strong. There were many major projects with General Dynamics. He participated in some major research and development. He was being involved with developing research data and designing mathematical modelling for computer for the use of eventually filling into NASA for the space shuttle program in a number other modelling assignments. So in terms of research he had really gained a lot from working in industry. About ten years ago he decided to open his own consulting firm to do research in development exactly eleven years ago. When my son was born he was already forming his company. So he has been doing consulting work, solving very difficult mathematics problems (computer problems) for different corporations and he continues to develop his own software package and computer modelling, so he's essentially at the cutting edge of high technology.

Publications

I published quite a bit. Being driven by the notion to publish, my first major English book (single-author book) was published in 1987. That publication was made because of my need to understand more about assessment of language performance. It was Assessing Language Performance of Limited English Proficient Students (LEPS). That was my first major publication by my self. My second attempt was trying to write a book in Chinese on communication disorders on speak language pathology and oral facial anomalies. That book was published in 1989 or 1990. That book has gone through six editions. In other words, it was sold so well. It was published in Taiwan. The title is Human Communication Disorders how to overcome communication disorders. The title of the first book is Accessing Language Performance of Limited English Proficiency Students. That book is also in the second edition. Probably it is one of the first books dealing with topic like that. In 1993, I co-author a book. This was published in London. The title of the book is Myth or Reality: Adopted Strategies for Asian Newcomers in California. That book is also one of the first to even discuss the intergroup and intragroup differences among Asian Pacific populations and how we are not a homogeneous group. It is very positive feedback. Another book that is already in print is 1995 coming up. It is called Integrating Language and Learning for Inclusion with an Asian-Pacific focus. I contributed half of the book so I am sort of the editor plus the contributor. That book will be out in the next month or two. Another book that is also out is a book about women. It is in Chinese. That book came out because the other books are all in English except the one on communicative disorders. The book about women - as I age - as I go through the ageing process, stepping into middle age was not as painful as for some other people. Actually facing middle age and moving into the ageing process I feel that, as women, we can look at it from a more positive perspective, that looking for tomorrow is a better day than today; rather than looking and saying, "Oh, I am getting older,"and "I am not so pretty," and "I am not so young an more," hoping to educate people. So my focus was on how to live in wisdom, how to become a more wise person, especially for women because society looks at women from a different perspective. Unfortunately the title was chosen by my Chinese colleagues because this was written in Chinese. It was a medical perspective other than a personal growth perspective. The title is Nu Ren Yi Zhi Hua. My title I proposed was Sheng Ming, Nu Ren, Wo because to me, that is my life pattern. I look at life and I look at myself as a woman. I consider that my life topic: Sheng Ming, Nu Ren, Wo; the whole perspective. However the book is going to be Nu Ren Yi Zhi Hua because they feel Sheng Ming, Nu Ren, Wo (Life, Women, and Me) is too philosophical and that people will not understand. It is possible. If you look at the Chinese population and the world population a lot of women are still illiterate - in China and in many parts of the world. So if I write a book for women I have to try to write it so that women can really enjoy. Therefore, I can not be too philosophical. I have to think about women who might not have high school education, not people like you, for example. You may find the content of the book is useful, at least, part of it. But for a lot of women I am hoping that they will not lose their perspective as an aged woman or an ageing woman. So that is coming up and that is done. It should be out in any moment and they are to send it to me by air mail when it is done. With those kinds of publications I have been able to look at myself as coming in the next project which is not published yet. It is called Children: Our Cherished Hope. It is my next publication; hopefully a co-author publication. We hopefully can look at ten to fifteen contributors. The book may be one third completed, but it's a focus on the education of children ... which is my hope for the future generation, my cherished hope.

Balancing Responsibilities

You have to just balance it. I am not a young person like you. I have many years of accumulating. I have accumulated a lot of knowledge and experience and writing so I put it together in my computer so that I can sort it out and do little bit more. By the way it is very interesting. The first two books were not my idea. People came to me, flew all the way from Washington DC. and came over and said "Please do this book." People flew from Taiwan to visited me like you with a recorder and ask me questions "Please write the book." Because of those two books it inspired me. My friends and colleagues kept on saying, "Lilly, please write some more, your stories are good and your research is nice."So they affirmed me. In a way, if you thought that I had the energy just to come up with book proposals, no that was not me. It was mostly others who heard about me and who read my little articles or research paper and came to me and asked me to do these monumental pieces slowly. I have another book, that's absolutely interesting. It is thick. I edited the book, co-edited the book. It is on the service delivery for Hispanic population which I initiated. I initiated the project because I thought there was a need. So once people gave me the idea that I could write and once my books sold a lot of copies, I realized that there was a need. Then ideas came. So these recent books I initiated the ideas. Maybe the true answer to your question was that I did not come up with the ideas first. In another words, I did not come up with the energy nor the ideas. People came to me. But once they affirmed me, it gave me the energy to do some more. How did I find time? I found time. There is always time. You and I have the same amount of time. I have twenty four hours and you, too. I do not have one minute more than you. You do not have less one minute than me. So you can do the same. When you decide, there is a project, that project should be in your mind the whole time. You concentrate on that project until you finish it. Then you move on to the next. I do not usually have like five writings of books. I do not do that. This is all chronological, and also developmental because I move on and my topics change. If you are driven by curiosity you can do that. Another piece you may want to know, because I think if there is anything you can learn from my life story, is that I believe in collaboration and sharing. I do not care if you take my ideas as long as you and I can work together. If you have a nice paper I can look at it and say, "Why don't you contribute and let's write it together. Then it becomes a chapter. I always have a way of looking at other people's strength, and pulling that strength out. Then I can work with a person. Sometimes I am the first author. Sometimes I am the second author. Sometimes I am the advisor. Sometimes I am the co-editor. Sometimes I am none of those; but regardless, the information is out. So I find that is very good. The ability of people to share is very good. So if I look at you and say, "If you have very interesting research topic why don't you share it with me?" By sharing it with me I may suggest that you can contribute a chapter in my book or my co-author book. Then I am empowering not only myself but those who are coming along in terms of being a junior faculty or a junior member of the academy. In a way I think my friends and colleagues have also helped me. Because they not only affirmed my work but also work with me. So out of my publications I did not mention the numerous chapters that I have in books. That's only because people will understand that we can work together. I do not find it difficult to work with people and sharing with people. I think that will be a good thing for you to certainly look for in the future if you plan to have a career path that includes scholarly publication.

Cultural Behavior Preference: American or Chinese?

Let me tell you how I arrive at my answer. I have been thinking about it. My major higher education was conducted in the United States with a little bit of input from Canada or a little bit of input from Mexico. I have been to both for short periods of time. So the formation of my major paradigms, in other words, my ways of thinking and ways of doing things in terms of looking at the world or problem solving I would have to say it is very European based because my higher education was received here. As I said, my university education in Taiwan was mostly on literature. It did not lend itself very well to critical thinking or problem solving. Most of my theoretical bases of thinking or paradigms were formed in the United States. So I must say I came from a more logical, more linear, sequential, analytical, and critical mind in that way. When I conduct business I am absolutely academician based on the American- European model. There is no doubt about it. When I conduct my everyday business here my academic life is couched in the American culture. There is absolutely no doubt about it because I don't know any other discourse style. The only discourse style is the discourse style of the American universities because that was where I came from. I spent most of my life in the United States. So I have no doubt. I can not even hesitate to tell you that my thinking process is totally based on American higher education, very analytical and critical in thinking.

Culture and Language Code Switching

My personal life or how I may deal with you if you come in from China. Then I would code switch my language and also code switch my culture slightly, only because it is so uncomfortable sometimes for people to find me operating in that category. For example, if you are not on time, I find it very difficult because in a linear pattern - if I say 3 o'clock, I will give you 3 to 4:30. I will try to keep that. Some of my Chinese visitors say they will come at 3:00 and at 3:30 they are not here. I find that very irritating because my mentality, my paradigm, is like that - so I must say that. But in terms of personal life let us say at home with friends I am absolutely able to deal with idiosyncrasies or cultural values of the Chinese tradition you know, you got to pay respect to your parents, and you give little red envelops to your nieces and nephews.

Value Systems

But deep down I figure my values have changed. I am no longer able to keep one value system. I have two value systems. Often I choose one over the other. There are times I become ambivalent not knowing which one to choose. Example, my mother-in-law would say to me you ought to give your son a lot of whole milk because that will make him grow. And my colleague in health in my college would say low fat milk and non-fat milk is better because a child does not need a whole lot of fat in the system essentially leading eventually to cardiovascular diseases because of the deposit of the fat. So on the one hand I can say to mother in law "Thank you very much, I am going to give him no fat. OK?". That would make her very angry. Or I can simply say "Yes, you are right" and go home, do the other; or say to her "Really you are theoretically wrong. There is no basis for the fat in the milk" which will make her even more enraged because she knows she is right. It's a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law situation. So sometimes I am caught. Sometimes I just simply say "Yes, mother" and hang up and do my thing. Other times I simply tell her I disagree. That is my American way coming out. And more obviously, going back to China or Taiwan is very very interesting now because the minute I open my mouth and begin to conduct business, they know that I do not have the same style because the style that I learned, I learned all from the United States. Essentially all the models I have are all United States' models . I have no models from China or Taiwan because I came to America so young. So the formation of my personality even in some ways is couched in more European or at least an American based model, but I still have multiculturism in me because I know Spanish. I work with the Latino population and I work with Asians. I have that multiculturalness in me but deep down my guiding principles are more academically based.

Life Stage Language Education Career Identity Motivation

Levinson's

Early Childhood Transition

(up to 30

months) Exposed to

Cantonese,

Hubeinese &

Shanghai dialect in Mainland

China Parents'

Training

and Erikson's

Environment Chinese

female child Survival

(Maslow)

Levinson's

Childhood

(6-12) Early Memory of multicultural and multilingual background in

Taiwan Primary School

in Taiwan Student Praise,

Social Norm

Levinson's

Adolescence

(13-16) Mandarin Middle School in Taiwan Good Student Recognition;

Challenge;

Please Parents

Levinson's

Adolescence

(16-18) Mandarin High School in Taiwan Achiever

Identity Competition for College Entrance Exams

Levinson's

Early Adult

Transition

(18-22) English

&

Spanish National Taiwan University

in Taiwan Pre-teacher

career Top student,

a kind of

dreamer Freedom and

Opportunity

to open Career doors

Levinson's

Early

Adulthood

(22-23) English MA study in

linguistics in

America English teacher career Student

&

Teacher Establish Career Identity

Levinson's

Early

Adulthood

(24-27) English Post Master's

in Clinical

Pathology Student

Clinician Speech

Pathologist Humanitarian

Levinson's

Early

Adulthood

(28-32) English Practicing

Clinician Speech

Pathologist for five years Humanitarian

Life Stage Language Education Career Identity Motivation

Levinson's late part of Early

Adulthood

(33-37) English PhD study in

linguistics in

America Teaching

Chinese

Language Student,

teacher,

Interest

switcher Establish

Professional

Identity

Levinson's late part of Early

Adulthood

(33-37) English PhD study in

socio-linguistics in America Odd Jobs

Worker Social

Worker Focus on career area of genuine interest

Levinson's late part of Early

Adulthood

(38-39) Bilingual

English

Spanish

Chinese Post Doctoral

Research Started the

first medical

program to

provide speech, language and

pathological

services in

Kaiser

Preventative

Medical Group in San Diego Medical

Innovator Recognition and Humanitarian

Levinson's early stage of

Mid Life

Transition

(40) Bilingual

English

Spanish

Chinese Post Doctoral

Research Published

Assessing

Language

Performance of Limited English Proficient

Students 1987 Author Recognition and Professional

Identity

Levinson's

Mid Life

Transition

(42) Bilingual

English

Spanish

Chinese Post Doctoral

Research Published Human Communication Disorders

1989 Coauthor Recognition and Professional

Identity

Life Stage Language Education Career Identity Motivation

Levinson's

Middle

Adulthood and

Erikson's

Generativity and

Stagnation

Stage

(46) Bilingual

English

Spanish

Chinese Post Doctoral

Research Published Myth or Reality:

Adopted

Strategies for Asian

Newcomers in California

1993 Coauthor To empower

Asians in

American

Society and to solidify her own multinational

identity

Levinson's

Middle

Adulthood and

Erikson's

Generativity and Stagnation

Stage

(48) Bilingual

English

Spanish

Chinese Post Doctoral

Research Published

Integrating

Language and

Learning for

Inclusion 1995 Contributing

Author

and Editor Recognition and Professional

Identity

Levinson's

Middle

Adulthood and

Erikson's

Generativity and

Stagnation

Stage

(48) Bilingual

English

Spanish

Chinese Post Doctoral

Research Published Nu Ren Yi Zhi Hua: Life Women and Me 1995 Author Recognition and Professional

Identity

Levinson's

Middle

Adulthood and

Erikson's

Generativity and

Stagnation

Stage

(48) Bilingual

English

Spanish

Chinese Post Doctoral

Research Writing

Children: Our

Cherished Hope

1995;

Multiple

International,

state, city &

campus

Chairperson Coauthor

with 10-15

contributors;

Active Change Agent and

"Educational

Politician" Love

(Erich Fromm)

Good

Samaritan

(New

Testament)