Review: Tell Me the Dream Again by Tasha Jun
Tasha Jun is a half-Korean American writer โcaught between worlds,โ who writes about ethnic and cultural belonging, identity, and faith. As a biracial child myself who grew up in an American and Asian blended house, I was thrilled to see a similar representation in the upcoming 2026 Festival of Faith & Writing, and enjoyed her book, Tell Me the Dream Again: Reflections on Family, Ethnicity & the Sacred Work of Belonging, which thoughtfully acknowledges that โhome,โ for many who come from multicultural backgrounds, is a difficult thing to pin down.
Jun dives into the insights and wisdom that emerge from her Asian-American experience while thoughtfully exploring her Korean heritage through her mother, whoโs first-gen Korean with living memory of the Korean War, contrasting that with her fatherโs white, Dutch American heritage. She tells of her wrestling with her identity and sense of not belonging, tying in her faith and working towards an acceptance of an overarching identity found in her relationship with Christ.
I enjoyed this collection of reflections for their gentleness and honesty. The author doesnโt shy away from the hard stuff sheโs been through and doesnโt sugarcoat the complexities of her personal situation. Sheโs upfront about how her Koreanness โotheredโ her and often like a barrier growing up in the States, and I liked how she expands this experience beyond herself to others in her community and through the generations of her mother and then her own children.
A specific slice of wisdom that felt meaningful to me was when Jun identified the requirements for healing as โtenderness, space, and time.โ For the author, she recounts the generational trauma present in her family, even touching on epigenetics and Han, a Korean philosophy of deep sorrow or suffering often rooted in history (the example given here being that birds โsingโ in English but โcryโ in Korean). Ultimately, families and personal histories can be painful and confusing, but thatโs okay. Though these experiences are unique to each of us, we arenโt alone in those complicated emotions. The author introduces this idea of โshalomsickness,โ this longing for shalom, a peace and belonging that will bring everything together that we canโt make fit on our own.
Being accepting of our discomfort, and being willing to sit in the loneliness and unbelonging that comes as an authentic experience of life, is itself a form of comfort.
And it also can be beautiful. I was reminded of Christian Wimanโs session during the 2024 Festival where he shared Anne Carsonโs poem โGodโs Justice,โ suggesting how, in our pain and longing for shalom, sometimes, maybe, perhaps, the theophany in the whirlwindโs answer is that โbeauty is justice.โ When we wrestle with something as fundamental as who we are, I felt that Jun was able to pinpoint the beauty in that complicated identity as well.
All in all, Tell Me the Dream Again offers valuable insights into the Asian American experience, but also the less-discussed mixed race experience. But itโs not only for these specific audiences; these reflections stand as a welcoming encouragement for each reader to lean into their own backgrounds, identities, familial and cultural complexities with a greater confidence in our identity as Godโs children. This is a good, small piece of reading that lends just enough to chew on, and just enough expansion to this vast world.
