Constance Powell Chin

I worked as a journalist, first in Texas, and then I was the first American to write for the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, when it was a British publication. They kept correcting my spelling. Then I taught English at Tunghai University in Taiwan, and got married there. Was married to Ernest for 33 years.

For the past forty years I have worked at Stanford University at the Center for East Asian Studies, and now I am manager of the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures. I still have lots of opportunities to speak Chinese, and my in-laws live in China. I guess that makes me Chinese, having married into a Chinese family. How many of you have changed ethnicity?

Oberlin was a great place to fulfill my curiosity, and fuel a passion for lifetime learning. I chose to go there because of Martin Luther King, but unfortunately never had the chance to see him in person. You all know what happened the year we graduated. When I look back on it, that was one horrible year, 1968.