Event Details
Join Rachel Phan for a solo presentation exploring the stories, experiences, and conversations behind That Asian Girl Is a Problem. Phan brings her sharp perspective
Event Details
Join Rachel Phan for a solo presentation exploring the stories, experiences, and conversations behind That Asian Girl Is a Problem. Phan brings her sharp perspective and personal insights to a timely discussion about identity, culture, and finding the courage to challenge the labels placed upon us.
Speakers for this event
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Deborah Dundas
Deborah Dundas
Deborah Dundas is an award-winning writer and editor in Toronto. She is an Opinion editor at the Toronto Star, garnering a National Newspaper Project of the Year award and a Special Citation from the Canadian Journalism Foundation. She has covered business and politics in Canada and Northern Ireland, in TV and print. She has interviewed some of the world’s most recognizable writers including Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, Colson Whitehead, Jonathan Franzen, Zadie Smith and John Irving. She studied English and Political Science at York University and has an MFA from the University of King’s College. Her first book was “On Class,” published by Biblioasis in 2023; her third book, “Relative Truths: Stories of adoption, family and belonging” is out in February 2027.
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Rachel Phan
Rachel Phan
Rachel Phan (she/her/hers) is a Chinese Canadian bestselling author whose work often explores the impacts of racism, assimilation, fetishization, and forced displacement on one’s feelings of identity, belonging, and self-worth.Rachel grew up in a small town in Southern Ontario, the daughter of two former Vietnamese refugees who ran the local Chinese restaurant. Navigating life as a third-culture kid shaped her earliest questions about who she was and where she belonged—themes that continue to anchor her writing today.A graduate of Toronto Metropolitan University’s Master of Journalism program, she and her work have appeared on CBC, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Toronto Star, Chatelaine, and Maclean’s.Her instant national bestselling book, Restaurant Kid: A Memoir of Family and Belonging, was longlisted for Canada Reads in 2026 and named one of CBC Books’ Best Books of 2025. Her second book, That Asian Girl Is a Problem, will be released in Oct. 2026.Rachel lives in Toronto with her partner and their genius dog. She can usually be found buying way too many books, hunting down the city’s best bites, or drafting essays she swears she’ll finish one day. Follow her on Instagram @rachelmphan.
Books
That Asian Girl Is a Problem
In a world that tells women of colour they are either too much or not enough, Rachel Phan asks: What if being a “problem” is actually the point?
That Asian Girl Is a Problem is a bold, witty, and uncompromising collection about what it means to live as a racialized woman in spaces that were never built for you. Drawing from her own experiences, Phan dives into the contradictions of being the “problem” woman in the workplace, in family, in faith, in marriage and even in her own body. With sharp humour and unflinching honesty, she exposes the absurdity of a society that demands gratitude, silence and smallness from women of colour—and explores what happens when they finally refuse.
From a court transcript satirizing how racialized women are “tried” for being too much at work, to a tongue-in-cheek ‘recipe’ for the perfect Asian female body, to searing reflections on filial piety, interracial marriage, fatphobia, queerness and impostor syndrome, That Asian Girl Is a Problem blends memoir, cultural critique and playful experimentation to expose the pressures racialized women face—and the thrill of living on your own terms.
Part social commentary, part coming-of-age, part rebellion, this book transforms every insult and “flaw” into an act of resilience and defiance. For anyone who’s ever been called difficult, too much, or simply a problem, Rachel Phan offers both recognition and a rallying cry: being a problem might be the most honest and freeing way to live.
AuthorRachel Phan
PublisherDouglas & McIntyre