People Who We Should Not Forget (I)

I bumped into this from Willblog:

It's difficult to understand why someone would take their own life. It's even more difficult when that life has been so well-spent, with so much more promise to come. Similar tragedies in the past month make me pause and try to appreciate this moment, every moment, before it's gone forever.

Iris Chang, an extraordinary writer and alumnus of the University of Illinois College of Communications, was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound on November 9th. Her first book was Thread of the Silkworm, which told the remarkable story of the Chinese scientist Tsien Hsue-shen, founder of the Chinese rocket program who emigrated to the United States only to be isolated in America. Her second book, The Rape of Nanking, earned international acclaim and served to announce Iris Chang as a ground-breaking scholar and human rights advocate. He third book, The Chinese in America, told the extraordinary narritive of her own ancestors in a way that revealed America's own identity.

I had a chance to interview Iris Chang in 1995, and was immediately struck by her intelligence and humanity. Apparently she had a similar impact on everyone she met. About 100 people attended a recent event in her honor at the University of Illinois, where her former professors, friends, and colleagues spoke movingly about her life, her work, and our loss. A scholarship in honor of Iris has been established by her family, with information available at the University of Illinois College of Communications, 217-333-2350.

Iris' description of the recent genocide of Chinese in Indonesia:
It is important in all these cases to tell the truth, to refute the denials. .......In fact, the denial in Indonesia are considered as a part of the last stage of genocide. First the victim is killed, then the memory of killing itself is killed.