Dao-yuan Chou

Dao-yuan will be taking two interviews from an oral history project she conducted from 1995 to 1998 with folks involved in the Chinese Revolution and turning them into stories that share the complexity of a revolutionary people’s movement. In particular, her book will focus on her interviews with a dairy farmer and nuclear physicist who were moved to join the Revolution. Her goal is to make this social change history accessible to folks locally who are also struggling for change.

For Dao-yuan, finding the creative means to tell stories of struggle – from her talks with women in the Philippines who are fighting for land reform to garment shop workers in Philadelphia’s Chinatown demanding just working conditions – as part of an accessible people’s history, is the driving force of her work. Dao-yuan’s writing has grown deeper in the last few years while working as a member of the CommunitY Organizing Collective, working alongside youth from Chinatown. The way she perceives her writing has shifted, by being engaged in struggle on the ground, changing the context for what she believes makes storytelling about revolution compelling or relevant in current times. As a Chinese person born in the U.S., she has worked hard to figure out ways to respectfully reclaim the revolutionary history of China, one that is wiped out of history books and replaced with glorified “dynasty history.” Working with CYOC, Dao-yuan sees the importance of this history in current struggles, as well as the larger movement. Her writing seeks to “creatively present a relevant and galvanizing picture of social change through people’s stories.” In efforts to create accessible and functional art, her projects utilize a multi-disciplinary approach, including: life narratives, oral histories; historical accounts of people’s struggle; storytelling; and critical analysis. As Dao-yuan is able to increasingly integrate her writing in an accountable way to the struggles themselves, she sees her art having an “impact on folks on the ground in people’s movement, as a way to popularize their work, garner support, and provide the opportunity for reflection and analysis.”