Voice of America “interviews and follows Alexa Alice Joubin, Professor of English, on a typical day in her life on George Washington University’s campus in downtown Washington, D.C.”

     This special feature “sheds a new light on her extraordinary journey from Taiwan to the US, as an immigrant, and eventually to the Shakespeare studies classroom at one of America’s top universities.” Born to Taiwanese parents in a farming village in southern Taiwan, she loved reading and creating stories, which she “later learned are called narratives.” Stories gave her “a space to dream.”

     In this Voice of America special feature, Professor Joubin “shares her struggles as a woman of color and immigrant for whom English isn’t her first language, as well as tips on how one might pursue their passion.”

     One of Professor Joubin’s insights was “learning to fail and learning to turn setbacks into new opportunities.” She said that “she has been been looking for a place to call home” for all her life, which is why “she became interested in how narratives are transformed when they move across boundaries of all kinds.”

     “As a foreign-born scholar,” she continued, “she has always felt like an imposter and very self-conscious of being a minority.” But she has now learned that “the personal is political, and the personal defines the critical imperative and the critical enterprise.”