“Still Joy” is my pencil artwork of my mother, whom I admire for persisting in hope and cheerfulness despite overcoming extreme difficulties while raising me. In 2008, she and my father moved from China into a cozy apartment in Savannah, Georgia. She was the housewife and maintained everything while employment consumed almost the entirety of my father’s life. Sleepless nights were spent on labor as a maid, mother, wife, chef, fixer, driver, and more, toiling as much as someone with a job, if not harder, just without pay. In the coming years, ups and downs disturbed our family and financial position before succeeding in creating a stable condition in the Bay Area. Yet when I walk in the door or call out “Mom,” the first expression on my mother’s face is the bright smile captured in the artwork. She avows that she had an optimistic, childish spirit, which I scorned as a preteen. Now, however, I recognize that it drives persistence in efforts, endurance of struggles, and gratitude for the assets we have.
