Velina Hasu Houston, Playwright and Professor, child of a Japanese Mother and African American Father, was born on a United States Military Ship sitting in contested waters. All her life she has had that sense of fluid borders. Velina was raised in a small town in Kansas, middle America in every way, and at a young age announced that she wanted to write. Navigating through a society that more often searched to give her a fixed identity and limit her ambitions, she rejected that characterization and in spite of discouraging advice, went on to garner awards for playwriting and a Distinguished Professor designation at the University of Southern California (USC) School of Dramatic Arts. Velina discusses the many sided ways of looking at identity, how her famous play, TEA is a homage to her Mother and her life in Kansas, as a Japanese immigrant woman, and muses about what identity means today as the world changes in the 21st century.

Dr. Velina Hasu Houston’s play, TEA, is available from Dramatist’s Play Service on its website.