Publication Date: November 7, 2025
“Water is fluid, soft, yielding. But water will wear away rock… what is soft is strong.” –Lao Tzu
In 1920s Detroit, King Ying lives in a small apartment behind her parents’ laundry business, where she stands on a box to iron clothes, endures taunts of “Ching-Ching Chinaman” on the playground, and tries to reconcile what passes for normal in Jazz Age America with her father’s vastly different cultural values.
She dreams of a real home, the elegance of her Jane Arden paper dolls, and winning her stern father’s affection. But when Ba incurs steep debts during the Great Depression, he sends her far from hope to live in his ancestral village.
In remote Tai Ting Pong, in the Guangdong Province of China, she feels as foreign in the land of her heritage as in the country of her birth. She must survive hunger, dangerous superstitions, and Japanese invasion as the Sino-Japanese War begins.
When guardian angels help her return to the U.S., it’s a chance to seize her American dream. In this inspiring and heartfelt memoir, Karin K. Jensen records her mother’s transpacific quest for identity, survival, and new world dreams.
Born in the United States to Chinese immigrants, King Ying straddles two worlds, trying desperately to fit in.
Her memories are captured in The Strength of Water by her daughter, Karin K. Jensen. It’s a moving story that highlights the challenges faced by Asian Americans as they tried to make a living in the 1920s and beyond.
King Ying recounts her childhood with a mother who dies too early, a father with a temper, and a passel of younger siblings. What resonates the most is the return to China, so her father can remarry.
The stark difference between being impoverished in the United States vs. a small village in China can be illustrated by the inhumane living conditions. King Ying’s depiction of suffering from malaria is heartbreaking, especially with the remedies she endures.
Through determination, King Ying returns to the United States to pursue her future. It’s a journey full of ups and downs, but ultimately represents a story of survival.
The Strength of Water demonstrates a woman’s endurance through a memoir written by her daughter.
Karin K. Jensen is a local news writer for the Alameda Post and the debut author of The Strength of Water: An Asian American Coming-of-Age Memoir, which made the Kirkus Reviews annual list of best indie books published and won awards from The BookFest, International Book Awards, and the San Francisco Book Festival. She has won NewsBreak editorial awards, including on the topics of #StopAsianHate and #AAPI Voices. For her work, Authority Magazine named her a social impact author. She makes her home in California.
