Jennifer Chan Is Not Alone

Tae Keller describes herself as an author who “writes about biracial girls trying to find their voices” (Keller, Tae. “About the Author.” Tae Keller, 2016). Her works often reflect her personal experiences as a biracial Korean American. Her mother, Nora Okja Keller, is also biracial, and she is the author of the prize-winning novel Comfort Woman (1997), a seminal work in Asian American fiction. 

In an interview, Tae Keller explains that she chose a small town in Florida as the setting for Jennifer Chan is Not Alone to explore how her characters experience living in a place where there are not a lot of Asians in the community (Ito, Erica. “Tae Keller on Jennifer Chan is Not Alone.” Mixed Asian Media, 2022). Keller grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii, among a large population of multiracial and Asian people, and she drew upon how different her experiences were of being biracial on the mainland. In the novel, when Jennifer meets Mal for the first time, her first questions to Mal are, “So, what kind of Asian are you? […] I’m Chinese. There aren’t a lot of us here, are there?” (20-21).