Velina Hasu Houston facts for kids

Velina Hasu Houston (born Velina Avisa Hasu Houston on May 5, 1957) is an American writer. Primarily an internationally acclaimed playwright and librettist, she is also a published poet, screenwriter for film and television, and essayist.

Her work draws from her experience of being multiracial as well as from the immigrant experiences of her family, her multi-ethnicity, and intersection of culture, race, gender, and region.

Houston is best known for her play Tea, which portrays the lives of Japanese international brides, often known as war brides, who move to the United States with their U.S. American serviceman husbands who are of varied racial backgrounds. Tea had its professional premiere Off-Broadway at Manhattan Theatre Club in 1987, and was designated by Roundabout Theatre as an American theatre canon classic. Since its premiere, the play continues to be produced globally. The Los Angeles Female Playwrights Institute referred to Tea as "one of the most widely produced Asian American plays worldwide."

Early life

Houston, the youngest of three, was born in international waters on a military ship en route to a U.S. base in Japan. Her Japanese mother, Setsuko Takechi, was originally from Matsuyama, Ehime, a provincial town on Shikoku Island. Her father, Lemo Houston, was an African Native American/Blackfoot-Pikuni Native American Indian originally from Linden, Alabama. Houston's ancestral lineages include historical ethnic ties to India, Cuba, Armenia, Greece and China, as well as family ties to Hawaii, England, Germany, Brazil, Argentina and Scotland.

In 1946, the parents of Velina met each other in Kobe, initiating a nine-year courtship despite disapproval from Velina's maternal grandfather. The grandfather, devastated by his country's defeat in World War II and the loss of his family's land due to the land reform policies backed by the US occupation, tragically took his own life. Following their marriage, the couple eventually cut off contact with both sides of their respective families. Later on, they adopted their only son, Joji Kawada George Adam Houston, who was an Amerasian and had been orphaned at the age of eight during the U.S. occupation of Tokyo.

In 1949, Velina's father made his way back to the United States. In order to reunite with Setsuko, he willingly enlisted for active duty in the Korean War and returned to Asia in 1951. The lengthy courtship of Lemo and Setsuko, lasting for nine years, was a result of Lemo's respect for Setsuko's desire to remain in Japan and care for her sick mother. The couple exchanged vows in 1954 and subsequently migrated to the United States in 1957, accompanied by their children, Joji and Velina's sister, Hilda Rika Hatsuyo. While en route, Velina was born and granted citizenship during her father's initial U.S. military assignment at Fort Riley. Their new life in America exposed them to discrimination, both from fellow Americans, including Japanese Americans, and from sources within and outside their own family. Nonetheless, these experiences served to fortify them and lay the foundation for the budding writer within Velina.

The family settled in Junction City, Kansas, a small town adjacent to the military base, living a culturally Japanese lifestyle at the insistence of Velina's mother, Setsuko. In 1969, Velina's father died. Setsuko continued raising her family in Junction City, a community consisting of mostly Japanese and European immigrant women who married Americans after World War II.

Education

Houston attended graduate school at the University of California at Los Angeles and at the University of Southern California. She holds a PhD from USC's School of Cinematic Arts, and an MFA from the University of California at Los Angeles' School of Theater, Film, and Television. She also attended Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas, majoring in journalism and theater with a minor in philosophy.

Personal life

Houston has been married to Peter Henry Jones of Manchester, England, since 2002, and resides in Los Angeles, California. She has two children, Kiyoshi and Leilani.

Awards and fellowships

Houston has been recognized as a Japan Foundation Fellow, a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow, a Sidney F. Brody Fellow, a James Zumberge Fellow (thrice), a California Arts Council fellow, a Los Angeles Endowment for the Arts Fellow, and a Doris Duke Charitable Foundation fellow; in addition, she was a co-recipient of a fellowship from the Andrew Mellon Foundation.

Her archives are held at The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, California.

Works

• Anthologies
  • (ed.) The Politics of Life: Four Plays by Asian American Women. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993. Anthology of plays by Wakako Yamauchi, Genny Lim and Velina Hasu Houston.
  • (ed.) But still, like air, I'll rise: new Asian American plays. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1997. Anthology of plays by Jeannie Barroga, Philip Kan Gotanda, Velina Hasu Houston, Huynh Quang Nhuong, David Henry Hwang, Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl, Sung Rno, Dmae Roberts, Lucy Wang, Elizabeth Wong and Chay Yew.
• Theatrical Works
  • Tea
  • Asa Ga Kimashita (Morning Has Broken)
  • American Dreams
  • Kokoro (True Heart)
  • Setting the Table
  • Calligraphy
  • Oh I Remember the Black Birch
  • Little Women (A Multicultural Transposition)
  • Cinnamon Girl (book and lyrics by Houston)
  • The Everywhere of Her (book and lyrics by Houston), and others.