Bell Yang is displaying her graphic novel "Forget Sorrow: An Ancestral Tale" and children's book "Always Come Home to Me" at the Martin Luther King Library through September 29th. Visitors can see 25 black-and-white panels and 10 color pictures from these works, as well as copies of the books. Yang's art illustrates the lives of immigrants under communism during World War II and explores her Chinese heritage. Her work was inspired by her own immigration experience and witnessing the Tiananmen Massacre in China in the 1980s.

1. Forget Sorrow Exhibit
On the second floor of the Martin Luther King Library, author and illustrator Bell Yang, is
displaying her latest graphic novel, “Forget Sorrow: An Ancestral Tale” and children’s book
“Always Come Home to Me” along with other works through Sept. 29, 2011.
Along the walls, exhibit goers can see 25 black-and-white panels and 10 color pictures from
these works and hard copies of her books enclosed in glass cases.
In her works, Yang illustrates and tells about the lives of devastated immigrants living under
communism during World War II as well as her personal Chinese heritage.
According to the author’s website, Yang’s art and writing was inspired by her immigration to the
United States at a young age and the Tiananmen Massacre, which she witnessed in the 1980s.
During the time she left home for china seeking safety from an abusive and stalker ex-boyfriend.
On Yang’s website, she said that her artwork was influenced by Chinese Folk Art, a form that is
flat and has minimal depth; almost two-dimensional.
According to a poster in the exhibit, “Forget Sorrow: An Ancestral Tale” opens with Yang in
her 20’s just coming out of college and being overwhelmed because of not being able to get into
the world and the self-doubt created by memories of an ex-boyfriend.
Her father comforts her with a story of his “family, reunited under the house of yang in
Manchuria during the Second World War and struggling –both together and individually—to
weather poverty, famine and, later, communist oppression,” the poster stated.
According to Yang’s website, bellyang.com, it says she was born in Taiwan, lived part of her
child-hood in Japan and moved to the United States with her parents when she was seven.
Bell Yang attended Sterling University in Scotland, graduated from UC Santa Cruz with a degree
in biology and later on pursued art at Pasadena Art Center College of Design and the Beijing
Institute of Traditional Chinese Painting, the website stated.