A Conversation with Storyteller, Author, and Activist Nancy Wang of Eth-Noh-Tec

Welcome to Season 5, Episode 12! Today’s conversation is with the amazing storyteller, activist, performer, and co-founder of the multicultural storytelling theater group Eth-Noh-Tec. Along with her real-life partner Robert Kikuchi-Yngojo, Nancy co-founded Eth-Noh-Tec with a commitment to the preservation, revival, and performance of Asian and Asian American stories. 

Nancy’s latest work is the novel Red Altar, a story based on her ancestor’s real-life challenges and triumphs in forming a new life in America. Red Altar began as a multimedia storytelling and stage production, and it’s an emotional re-telling of how her ancestors helped develop the fishing industry along the coast of California near the Monterey Bay despite facing racist people and policies. 

In this conversation, we talk to Nancy about the development of the Red Altar performance, the challenges with adapting it to the book format, the relevance of the story in our challenging times in the U.S., other projects that Eth-No-Tec is working on, and so much more. 

Red Altar is a great book, and it tells a part of Chinese American and Asian American history that isn’t well-known… and we hope you buy it. But DON’T buy it from Amazon. Purchase it from the Eth-Noh-Tec website so that they get the benefits. If you want to support Eth-Noh-Tec’s work, you can follow them on Instagram, make a donation to them, or go to one of their upcoming events. 

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