Growing up, I relied on my mother and three small sisters for everything, from food and warmth to survive the Great Famine, to the hopes and dreams that kept us going during the Cultural Revolution. Whether we sheltered ourselves in the tiny wooden hut my father built with his bare hands or our small concrete home later in life, we never had much and didn’t know what tomorrow would bring. But we always had each other. Sisterhood was what sustained us and helped us not just survive, but thrive. As the rest of the world shunned us as political pariahs after our father was imprisoned for seven long years during the Cultural Revolution, we became our mother’s only friends. Ranging in age from two to ten, we learned to shoulder hardships with her, picking up twigs from local parks, finding unburnt charcoal briquettes from a nearby dumpster, and learning to cook over an open fire when she was sick in bed. There was nothing we couldn’t do, even though we were only four “worthless” little girls, as my grandmother often called us. Throughout my life, I always understood and appreciated the power of sisterhood. I knew we couldn’t have made it a single day without each other, and we were always stronger together. After I left for America, my mother passed away, and my sisters’ lives were scattered to different places around the world. Sisterhood became more of a memory and a romantic notion of my past – until I rediscovered it through the power of writing.
Early this April, I was inducted into the National League of American Pen Women (NLAPW), a historic 129-year-old organization that has counted among its members such illustrious alumnae as Pearl S. Buck, Eudora Welty, Maya Angelou, Georgia O’Keefe, Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosalyn Carter, and Hillary Clinton. Founded in 1897 by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s niece Marian Longfellow O’Donoghue, and journalists Margaret Sullivan Burke and Anna Sanborn Hamilton, the NLAPW is the oldest women’s arts organization in the country. Its headquarters are in the historical home of Robert Todd Lincoln in the heart of Washington, DC. Surrounded by women writers, artists, and musicians, I was honored to be the keynote speaker during my first meeting. So, it was only proper that I focused my speech on the power of sisterhood. Through NLAPW, I have now gained 1,600 sisters in 80 chapters across the country – more than I could ever have imagined. And, I feel that I am finally home again.
To find out more about the National League of American Pen Women, go to www.NLAPW.org.
You can always reach me at qstubis@gmail.com, or please visit me at QinSunStubis.com. You can find a copy of my book, Once Our Lives, online at Amazon.com.