Inspiring Stories of Asian American Hidden Heroes
Dorktales Podcast Playlist for Kids
What if belonging wasn’t just about finding your place, but about creating it for others too? That’s the spirit at the heart of Mia Wenjen’s new children’s picture book, Fortune Cookies for Everyone! (Smithsonian) Through the story of a much-debated treat, young readers find the resilience, creativity, and community spirit of immigrants who helped shape American culture.
Fortune Cookies for Everyone!
A Smithsonian Collaboration
This playlist and our Hidden Heroes of History episode on Makoto Hagiwara were inspired by a children’s book from Red Comet Press: Fortune Cookies for Everyone: The Surprising Story of the Tasty Treat We Love to Eat by Mia Wenjen with illustrations by Colleen Kong-Savage. This Smithsonian collaboration is an investigative adventure into the history of fortune cookies and the immigrant ingenuity baked inside them.
Mia Wenjen, author, blogger, and co-founder of Read Your World, has long been a champion of diverse voices in children’s literature. Her work reminds us that stories bring people together, whether told through books, food, art, music, gardens, or even a podcast! Inspired by Fortune Cookies For Everyone, we created this special playlist of Asian American trailblazers who built belonging and created communities.
These are the people who cultivated gardens, healed communities, reclaimed voices, and created spaces where all could feel included. Together, their stories show that belonging isn’t just something you find, it’s something you grow.
The Gardens of Belonging
From designing San Francisco’s Japanese Tea Garden to introducing the fortune cookie, Makoto Hagiwara left behind gifts that invited people to connect with Japanese culture. His vision for beauty and hospitality continues to welcome visitors more than a century later.
The Art of Belonging
Ruth Asawa transformed wire into breathtaking sculptures and classrooms into places of opportunity. Through her art and advocacy for arts education, she built bridges of creativity that still uplift communities today.
The Care of Belonging
When others were denied care, Dr. Kazue Togasaki stepped in with courage and compassion. From makeshift hospitals in WWII concentration camps to her San Francisco practice, she devoted her life to healing and helping her community thrive.
The Voice of Belonging
By reclaiming a painful word through his band, The Slants®, Simon Tam
sparked a movement about identity and justice. His fight for free expression showed that music, and one’s own voice, can build belonging and bring about change.
The Knowledge of Belonging
As the first Hawaiian woman to earn a PhD in science, Isabella Aiona Abbott combined ancestral wisdom with scientific discovery. Her groundbreaking research on seaweed nourished communities and deepened respect for the gifts of the ocean.
The Memory of Belonging
At just 21, Maya Lin created the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, a place for reflection, remembrance, and healing. Her work continues to honor fallen soldiers and their families, showing how art can help us belong to history and to one another.
Coming Soon: Barbed Wire Between Us
By Mia Wenjen, illustrated by Violeta Encarnación
Out March 31, 2026 — Red Comet Press
From the author of Fortune Cookies for Everyone! comes a powerful reverso poem connecting two girls, one Japanese American during World War II and one Latina decades later, through the same camp’s barbed wire. It’s a moving reflection on justice, memory, and the echoes of history that shape our present.
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