As a San Francisco resident, I was intrigued to see a story set during a lesser-known piece of the city’s history: the bubonic plague outbreak that started in 1900. What about this specific piece of history drew your interest?

As I wrote this story, I was mulling over legacy and inheritance, how the way I experience the world now is affected by the way Chinese Americans were treated then. The panic around the bubonic plague resonates with that of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent wave of Asian hate, for instance; questions of femininity and labor persist as well. Moments like these really expose the flimsiness of the model minority myth: how arbitrary it is, how easily it can be taken away, and how it obfuscates real, painful histories to promote narratives against other groups. Some of the signs in the story were real slogans levied against the Chinese.

As a native Californian, I’ve also thought a lot about how California, and especially the Bay Area, has been defined by its relationship to progress, from its position as a tech juggernaut today back to its roots as the last frontier of westward expansion, closer to when this story is set. I accidentally enrolled in the history thesis course when I was in undergrad, and my proposed thesis was about how the rhetoric of hygiene and “modern” society was weaponized against the Chinese—I was interested in this sort of medicalized nativism, and how it’s used to construct difference. The research process and discussions I had really helped guide the story.

I’ve read that moths can represent messengers from the beyond, or the spirits of one’s ancestors coming to visit. I feel here in your story, the moths cling to the clothes of the wealthy and powerful, perhaps as an homage to the fabric they spun as silkworms. Was this your intent with this image? It seems to me Lonnie risks losing her identity when she eats the moths. What does she gain by consuming them?

There are two “systems” of magic operating in the story. Blood works along very defined rules, and what it represents is unambiguous; the moths are a more open-ended question.

I really enjoyed the perspective splits between the continuous first-person narrative of Lonnie and the alternating perspectives of residents outside of Chinatown. I also found the use of second person very effective here. What were you hoping for readers to experience with this structure?

I’m glad it landed for you! “The Plague Comes from Chinatown” isn’t a grand narrative of villains and heroes; the distributed perspectives really let me explore the culpability of a community rather than that of individuals. Short fiction often gets a reputation for efficiency, but the vignettes here don’t necessarily advance the plot; they contribute to how the reader experiences the story—to the affect and to their understanding of the social atmosphere.

I won’t go into everything with the second person, but there’s definitely a playful element to it—the perspective lets you avoid naming your narrator if you don’t want to, and I wanted to mess with the type of people who have historically been important enough to be named and the ones who get reduced to the faceless masses.

Do you have any future work that readers can look forward to? Where can we find more of your work?

I’m not sure what stories will be pubbed and which will be forthcoming at the time this spotlight goes live—you can always keep up with me at my socials (clairejiawen on Instagram or Bluesky) and check out my website (clairejiawen.com/work) and newsletter (https://clairejwen.substack.com) for updates!