For Anne Chao ’05, some of the books that shaped her world did more than introduce her to new stories. They helped her understand culture, history, injustice and the experiences of people whose lives differed from her own.
Chao, co-founder and program manager of the Houston Asian American Archive and an adjunct lecturer in Rice University’s School of Humanities and Arts, shared those reflections Sept. 18 as part of the Friends of Fondren Library’s “The Books That Shaped My World” series.
Chao’s worldview was shaped by an unusually international childhood, she said. The daughter of a diplomat, she moved between Taiwan, Congo, Washington, D.C., and Australia, attending schools in different countries and learning in different languages.
“My actual intellectual development was very much tied to my father’s job and also my family’s travels around the world,” Chao said.
The books she encountered along the way helped her make sense of those experiences. She discussed works ranging from “Little Women” and “The Count of Monte Cristo” to “Cry, the Beloved Country” and Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning,” drawing connections between literature and larger questions of justice, human resilience and how people respond to difficult circumstances.
She also highlighted several works that shaped her development as a historian, including books by Joseph Levenson, Jonathan Spence and her former Rice mentor Richard J. Smith. Chao said studying history requires looking beyond political events and dates to understand the ideas, emotions and cultural practices that shape societies.
“Ideas do not happen in a vacuum,” she said.
That approach also informs Chao’s work with the Houston Asian American Archive, a research and community outreach project focused on documenting the experiences of Asian Americans in Houston. Founded 16 years ago, the archive has collected more than 600 oral history interviews, preserving stories ranging from immigrant entrepreneurship and community activism to experiences of discrimination, hardship and perseverance.
Chao shared several of those stories during her talk, including the experiences of Houston restaurant families and a Vietnamese woman who survived human trafficking before eventually settling in Houston and working as a dental assistant.
For Chao, those individual stories demonstrate why preserving community history matters.
“To me, they compose a formidable tablet of courage, resilience, dignity and perseverance,” she said.
Through both the books that influenced her and the stories she continues to collect, Chao said history offers a way to better understand the people and communities that make up the world around us.
“The Books That Shaped My World” series invites Rice faculty and alumni to reflect on the works that most influenced their thinking, research and careers. To learn more, visit library.rice.edu/places/friends-fondren-library.