University Honors

Hua Hua is an autobiographical fiction graphic novel featuring seventeen stories across twenty-one pages. Across these stories, the graphic novel focuses on the key memories of Mei, a young Taiwanese-American woman, as it follows her chronologically from early childhood to young adulthood. It focuses on her challenges growing up as an outcast at home and in school, and her constantly evolving sense of self. Throughout, she questions and evaluates her relationship with her culture, family, friends, and former acquaintances. Depending on the audience, Mei learns which aspects of herself she should hide away and others she can safely express. Her early childhood focuses on the struggles of growing up as the only Taiwanese student in her predominantly white elementary school. It explores her earliest encounters with self loathing from the constant teasing and badgering of racial and cultural differences. Meanwhile, her teenage years focus on self discovery, retrospection, and acknowledging generational trauma and destructive behavior stemming from her relationships. Meiís story culminates in the acceptance of the experiences, positive and negative, that made her the sum of who she is. With these stories, the graphic novel aims to balance the comedy and troubles that come with growing up in an environment that ostracizes those who are unwilling to conform. It conveys that bitter experiences in the moment can be looked back on as through the lens of a story with a lesson or punchline.