MIDDLEBURY — Suzanne Brown, retired Visiting Assistant Professor at Dartmouth College, will be at Ilsley Public Library in Middlebury on Wednesday, Nov. 6 at 7 p.m. to give a Vermont Humanities Council talk entitled “Immigration Restrictions Then and Now: Short Stories of Edith Eaton (Sui Sin Far).”
Brown will discuss three 1912 short stories by Edith Eaton (Sui Sin Far) that examine the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and its effects on the Chinese immigrant community. Eaton’s stories explore assimilation issues, family separations, discrimination, and fear of deportation in ways that still resonate in 2019. Audience members are encouraged to read the three short stories — “Mrs. Spring Fragrance,” “In the Land of the Free,” and “The Americanizing of Pau Tsu” — now available at Ilsley Library.
Brown has led Vermont Humanities Council and New Hampshire Humanities Council book discussions for over 30 years. Focusing on 19th and 20th century American and English literature, she holds a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania. She has published her own short fiction and articles on the short story form. She was a Fulbright Scholar to Germany and received a fiction-writing grant from the New Hampshire Arts Council. She has worked with veterans’ book discussion groups and helped a nationwide program for them, editing the anthology “Echoes of War.”
Brown’s talk replaces the originally scheduled November talk in Middlebury, “Blurring the Lines Between Sacred and Secular” with Reverend Dr. Arnold Thomas.