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may lee-Yang

May Lee-Yang is a Minnesota-based Hmong American writer, performance artist, and teacher. Her work often uses pop culture and humor to interrogate gender, sex, and race. Her theater-based works include The Korean Drama Addict’s Guide to Losing Your Virginity, Confessions of a Lazy Hmong Woman, Ten Reasons Why I’d Be a Bad Porn Star and has been produced through Theater Mu, Illusion Theater, Intermedia Arts, Out North Theater (Anchorage, AK), and The National Asian American Theater Festival (L.A.).

She has received support from The Playwright Center McKnight Fellowship, the Jerome Foundation, the National Performance Network, the Bush Foundation, the MN State Arts Board, and the Loft Literary Center. She is a founding member of F.A.W.K. (Funny Asian Women Kollective), a group that uses comedy to combat the invisibility and dehumanization of Asian women. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of MN - Twin Cities.

She has appeared on CNN’s United Shades of America with W. Kamau Bell. Watch a bonus clip of her poem, “Papaya Salad Is Like Anal Sex” below:

In this bonus scene from the Hmong Americans episode of "USOA," W. Kamau Bell hears a poem about papaya salad he'll never forget. Watch "United Shades of America with W. Kamau Bell" on Sundays at 10 p.m. ET/PT.

Watch her TEDx Talk “It’s Okay Not To Be The Center of the Universe” below:

Playwright May Lee-Yang offers insights on the burdens placed on artists from underrepresented communities and how we can avoid (accidentally) censoring artm...