An engaging workshop for tweens and young teens in partnership with award-winning poet and author, Michelle Myers

Romana Lee-Akiyama and Michelle Myers are partnering to host Honor Your Roots, an experiential, fun, engaging workshop for tweens and young teens (6th - 8th graders) of all backgrounds and identities.

Attendees will hear excerpts from award-winning poet Michelle Myers’ middle-grade debut novel ‘Talk Me a Story About Moon Rabbit’, and be directed to write their own family folktales or stories.

The workshop will help youth who attend to reflect on and document stories of their parents, grandparents, or other family members that tie back to cultural traditions.

Participants will get to create their own handmade mini-books, make a Mooncake-shaped memento keychain, and dabble with Chinese calligraphy. This is a family-friendly event for young people to enjoy with their friends and/or their parents or guardians. All are welcome.

This event is a part of 2024 Michelle Angela Ortiz fellow Romana Lee-Akiyama 'Moon Gazing: A Call to Ancestors,' a group exhibition designed to bring ancestral heritage into conversation with the present. Inspired by the work of the late painter, printmaker, and professor Chen Lok Lee (1927- 2020), Romana Lee-Akiyama, Lee’s daughter, curated this exhibition to explore contemporary expressions of identity for Asian and Asian American artists connected to Philadelphia, as well as the tensions that underrepresented and systemically excluded artists with hyphenated identities face.