Conversation Series Fall 2025 Sofa Issues
Seedling Stories
Adela with Wendy Shih
“For me, sharing books and stories with people is what matters. I am trying to increase access to them because I want to spark that connection between the person and the book, but also between people, with the book as a catalyst. It’s powerful because every single one of us has a role to play in creating this web of interconnectedness.” – Wendy Shih
I met Wendy (施文莉) walking at a Pride Event called Gays Eating the Rich in the Park. I was instantly drawn to her space because the books she had displayed in her Diverse Free Library swap were entirely by disabled, BIPOC, queer authors.
Growing up as an autistic, queer kid in Colombia, I did not see myself in any of the stories that I read. Even the ones where weirdos banded together against “evil” had racist undertones.
Later on, as a Literature major, I realized that even our curriculum was plagued by the European-white canon: I only had one indigenous literature class, a few on Latin American literature, and one on colonial literature. These, however, were invaluable, as they led me to question the negative space: who is not being shown, why not, and if they are (marginally), how are they represented?
This is what drew me to Wendy’s stand that day at the park. As someone who also believes in the power of stories, her decolonial Free Library felt like a usage of that negative space to bring forth the voices of our people of the Global Majority, which the system has been trying to erase.
Here we talk about being atravesadas, people that belong nowhere and everywhere, and our hope that stories can be a seed for connection and action.
Adela: Since the work that you do with Our Little Free Diverse Library has to do with bringing underrepresented people’s stories to the forefront, I want to start with yours. And where better than with the story of your names, in the different cultures you inhabit.
Wendy: I would identify myself as Taiwanese-Chinese. My grandparents were from China on both sides. On my dad’s side, they moved to Taiwan, and had him. I was born and raised in Taiwan by my grandparents .
Now, I completely embrace Taiwan,Taiwanese culture and the direction it’s generally going. But I didn’t realize, when I moved to the US when I was nine, that Taiwan was under martial law my entire life.
But back to my name: Shih (施)is the family name. We put the family name first.
Adela: That is an interesting way to inhabit the world, putting the “we” first.
Wendy: Indeed, it is. And Wén Lì (文莉) is specific to me. So, my Chinese name is pronounced Shī Wén Lì (施文莉), which roughly translates to bestow, literature and Jasmine flower.
Adela: That is beautiful since now you are bestowing decolonial literature to the community with what you do.
Wendy: It is beautiful, but I just started to embrace it within the past few years while doing this work. It made me start unpacking everything. I had forgotten about it and left that name behind when I moved here.
When we arrived, I was given the name Wendy, because it sounded like wén lì. It is that simple, there’s no meaning behind Wendy, other than the fact that it is pronounceable in English, for Americans.
Now, I’m leaning more into my Chinese name, leaning into where I come from, learning about the complexity between China and Taiwan, the politics and culture. I feel like I am still unpacking.
But of course, I’m living here, in the United States of America. My grandparents and my dad immigrated here to raise me, to give me a new life. And now I have kids here, and my husband’s white.
All of this makes me feel like I have two sets of myself, of my identity that I am also trying to put back together, because we are all connected. What I’m really trying to lean into now is connecting to our shared humanity.
Adela: And within those sets of yourself, are there any folk stories, Taiwanese or Chinese, that you have heard or read that you connect to?
Wendy: I don’t really remember. I feel like once I moved here, I was pushed to assimilate. Colonization of the mind and detachment from our roots happen immediately and forcefully, and this is something I’m dealing with, still decolonizing, obviously. Even though it saddens me, it has led to an existential crisis of feeling like I don’t belong anywhere, I am also certain that I don’t want to assimilate here anymore.
But now I believe we all feel this way, to a certain extent, we all feel like we belong nowhere, and that’s actually because we belong everywhere. The colonial values pumped into all of us dictate detachment from ourselves, our land and each other. This is part of the reason why I love sharing stories. I love to hear from other people who may also feel disconnected and are looking to find or remember their own culture’s legacy.
Adela: Yeah. I resonate deeply with that, as a Colombian here, but also as someone whose Lebanese-Syrian family barely passed down their culture. It is so important that we finally see our borderline identities mirrored back to us. What were some of the first stories that made you feel seen?
Wendy: One book that really stuck with me is Reading with Patrick, a memoir by Michelle Kuo. She is Taiwanese American, so I could see myself in some of her culture and background. She described her journey with Teach for America, in one of the poorest counties in the Mississippi Delta, to work with the students there. She formed an unlikely friendship with one Black student named Patrick. We talk about books as mirrors, windows, or sliding glass doors. That book for me was all three. Because I saw pieces of myself, but also of the society we live in, and how we can intersect and embrace each other. It taught me that in the most unlikely places, scenarios, or interactions, you can always find a connection.
For me, sharing books and stories with people is what matters. I am trying to increase access to them because I want to spark that connection between the person and the book, but also between people, with the book as a catalyst.
It’s like planting seeds: when someone reads a book that forms a relationship between the reader and the author, then there’s another one when they recommend it to a friend, and yet another one if we meet at an event. It’s powerful because every single one of us has a role to play in creating this web of interconnectedness.
Adela: How did the first seed happen within you, though? What was happening in your life at the time that brought the first Diverse Free Library to life?
Wendy: I have to say that this work started with anger at our (unjust) system; it is fueling it.
That anger led me to look at my immediate sphere: I started to feel suffocated in my neighborhood, Rock Creek, because it is very homogenous, very white. And while my kids go to a Chinese immersion school with a little more “diversity”, and many mixed families, like ours, I saw so many of them assimilated or sucked into the dominant culture. I wanted to do something about it.
Since our kids were born, we had been taking them to the library, where I specifically looked for books that represented them, our family, and other different cultures to learn from. I would also make sure our home library was diverse. So it really started with our home library.
Shortly after I installed our library box, I became very active with the Little Free Library Organization and saw that they have an initiative called Read in Color, which focuses on sharing diverse and inclusive books. That’s when I thought: that’s what I want to do. I’m gonna have a Read in Color library for the neighborhood. And we are actually located in a perfect spot. It’s a corner where the middle school kids wait for the bus, and people walk by on the way to a trail.
Then I started visiting a lot of the libraries in the Portland metro area, and I saw that diversity was something we really needed. It was lacking. And I still call what I do a Diverse Library, but what I am really trying to focus on is decolonizing our libraries/bookshelves.
Adela: To decolonize our libraries, though, sounds like a complex goal that needs more than one person and one free library to be accomplished. How did you find the collaborators who are also now decolonizing their own libraries with you?
Wendy: Honestly, it happened organically; I didn’t plan it. There was this Vietnamese cake shop nearby that we often went to, and we became friends with the owner. One day, we were chit-chatting, and I was like: Hey, would you like a few books in here for a community book sharing space? And she loved the idea. She cleared out one little cake shelf for me.
Then shortly after that, I met the owner of Stumptown Otaku, which is this anime gift shop in Old Town, and he had seen what I do on my Instagram and asked if I would like to have a library in their store.
And I reached out to Cafe United, because I had always wanted to have my books in a coffee shop. After all, those two things go really well together. I met the owner, Justin, who is from Ghana.I had just come back from a trip over there, we connected on that, he was so sweet and told me to do it right away.
Since it was my third library and I didn’t have enough books to keep stocking it, I set it up as a reference library, and people seemed to enjoy it.
After this, I reached out to APANO. They were doing an Open Studio where people could come in and use their materials to create art and be in community. And so I did my first book swap event with them. It was there that I realized I also love connecting with the people interacting with the books, I love it, I loved it!
Adela: It is amazing how once you gather momentum, doors just start opening up like that. It seems to me that these are all very different types of prospective readers, though. And even though you are creating a decolonial curation, the act of curating is still creating. What is your book selection process like?
Wendy: Yes! I think about the customers who might show up at Café United versus my library at home in the suburb. For example, at Cafe United, The 1619 Project was very popular. Since the anime shop is queer, Asian owned and it gets a lot of kids, teens or adults who are into anime, I put in more graphic novels and Young Adult literature. Books like Lunar Boy.
The library at home has a range of all, so I have two tiers: One for kids and little readers, and one for adults. I approach it more as an intro to anti-racism and social justice library. Like the book by Ibram X. Kendi, it says on the cover: How to be anti-racist, and it has been taken quite a few times, so people are curious.
It took me a while to put this book out because, you know, it makes people feel uncomfortable, White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, and it was written by a white woman! I also try to put in kid’s book about racism because not having the ability to talk about what our systems are built on is not helpful. I have met some neighbors who are really thankful for the library, and they come to tell me.
Adela: Has there ever been an example of people who oppose or avoid your mission and libraries?
Wendy: Yes! At the time we made it, I got the sense that some people weren’t really comfortable with it. We have an unofficial neighborhood association, and a newsletter, and the library was not shared. Even when Rock Creek made it to the news with the Library on Willamette week, they never mentioned it.
This reaction also happened when I was tabling at an event that was stationed next to the local police department outreach, and most of the officers never looked at the books even after I invited them ; I felt they went out of their way to not engage with it. Only one came, and she was, of course, a person of color.
Also, a couple of times, the library at my house was vandalized. Not super bad, but like books were taken out and thrown around, with bookmarks left all over the floor.
Adela: This deliberate invisibilization of your work, the avoidance of engagement, the vandalizing, and the general mindfuckery we are living through right now, these are circumstances that can be discouraging. How do you stay inspired to do this work, especially now when it is most needed, when books and underrepresented communities archives are being banned or erased?
Wendy: I definitely go through hard moments. But, like I said, this work is where I put that anger. It has made me realize that I have a certain privilege, living in this neighborhood, being married to a white man, being East Asian and loud about not wanting to assimilate. It is a question of where you are positioned and how you can use that.
So when I go to pop-up events, and I do see people engaged, and books get taken, I feel like stories are getting out there. I can see how we are creating a web of connections. I’m planting seeds. To me, that is one thing that keeps me going.
Also, when I see my kids and feel scared to raise them here in this environment, but I see their innocence, their kindness, I am reminded that we all started out that way. But we ended up as products and victims of colonization.
And while we may feel like we’re struggling through it, I think that’s actually our strength because we are breaking out of the colonization. This process has to be uncomfortable. It has to feel icky and painful. And that has led me to really embrace my sadness, embrace my pain, and use it, turn it into something more beautiful. It’s much easier to feel numb, to just check out, so you don’t have to feel the uncomfortable feelings.
Adela: I resonate with that. I think being able to have agency to transform that pain into creation is so important. And being able to put words to the turmoil of our time and connect with other people around it. It feels like we are breaking through this “don’t air your dirty laundry” paradigm, which was not ours to begin with; this shame, this questioning of our own knowledge, was also a product of and a tool of oppression and colonialism, which breeds this silence and isolation.
Wendy: Absolutely, this is why I think stories are important. I feel like so many people are disconnected. I feel disconnected at times, but I am actively trying to stay true to myself, true to my values, and be in touch with my humanity. And stories do just that, they remind us of our shared humanity.
And people like you and I already feel that love for books, that’s great, but I want more people to have access. Thankfully, we live in a pretty book-loving city, but there are a lot of people who don’t have time to read or haven’t found that book that touches them. So my question is,how do we get the day-to-day people to engage and have these feelings and understand the importance of decolonizing their bookshelf? That is my purpose.
Adela: Speaking of that purpose. Have you ever been told of or experienced that seed of connection and decolonizing going from the page into the world?
Wendy: Yeah, a friend of mine, he’s white and had just read White Fragility, and he said like, wow, that was uncomfortable, but it was so eye-opening. And then, he went a step further: he shared a story where I saw that he took whatever it was that he learned into real life. He didn’t say it explicitly but I saw the connection. There was some drama in his Neighborhood Association and he sent out an email calling them out, explaining some of the issues and that they needed to follow Black and Indigenous community’s leadership. There were even some phrases and concepts in his email that came from that book.
That was the first time that I could see a person not only liking a book but shifting because of it. And I wonder how many of these stories there are that I don’t know about? And, ultimately, I don’t need to know. But I would like to imagine that as we share stories, more and more of this is happening.
Wendy Shih 施文莉 (she/her/她) is a Mom and a volunteer Little Free Library steward who is dedicated to expanding access to diverse and inclusive stories. She created OUR Little Free Diverse Library, which began as a book sharing box in her neighborhood, then expanded it to a small collection of justice and community centered book sharing spaces around the Portland metro area, where anyone can “Take a book. Share a book”.
Wendy is an active participant in the Little Free Library’s Read in Color program. She received a Todd H. Bol award for outstanding achievement and was also included in Willamette Week as one of the “Best of Portland 2024”. She uses her library work to connect with various groups and to help build inter and intra community solidarity. She believes in the power of diverse and inclusive books (and zines and community gatherings) to not only open hearts and minds, but also save lives. Her mission is to connect as many people to these stories as possible as a path towards collective liberation.
Adela is a professional in noticing the beautiful small things in life / Una Profesional en ver las maricaditas lindas de la vida.
Depending on the day, she poses as an Artist, Journalist, Poet, Storyteller, Archivist, Gatherer, Sustainability, and Social Impact Director. But truly, she’s a druid, a plant dressed in the body of a human.
As a Colombian-Lebanese, Autistic x ADHDer, Queer human, she is constantly inhabiting the borderlines and bringing her roots everywhere, to help other people flow with the rivers of their own stories. Her work touches on the themes of family, legacy, mental health, fashion, community storytelling, identity, creativity, and sustainability.
Some of her gifts include an insane ear for music, as well as weaving words and people together. She’s now in the process of getting her MFA in Art + Social Practice at PSU, in Portland, Oregon.