Maxine Hong Kingston was born on October 27th, 1940, in Stockton, California. She was the first of six American-born children; her parents, Tom and Ying Lan Hong, had had two children in China before they came to America. Her mother trained as a midwife in To Keung School of Midwifery in Canton.
My way of writing is that I always have to be exploring. I'm always going into new territory. To just look back and try to remember what the old words were, it just would not be right.
