When I immigrated from China to Palo Alto at age seven, 65% of my classmates either treated me as if I were invisible or a pariah. Only three girls were nice to me. The mean ones told me I was gross because I was Asian and said I was weird and wasn’t allowed to play with them. Even the Asian girls told me I was weird because I was Chinese, not Japanese. Clearly, this was all because of the narcissism of small differences that humans create to mask their inferiority, but as a child, you don’t know why you’re an outcast. You just know you are. “Paradise in a Pencil” is a film I made about how drawing helped me heal from hurt.
Thank you for helping us build a kinder + braver world!
Share your email with us so we can send you updates on our work and extra special Channel Kindness graphics!
Join the Kindest Corner of
the Internet!
Paradise in a Pencil
June 10, 2026
Yilin loves wearing mismatched socks and making beautiful gifts with yarn and scraps she finds around the house. Instead of buying her friends gifts, she prefers to make them so that she can experience that moment of delight when her friends feel seen and loved. Yilin makes roses out of paper, and when she doesn’t have glue, she uses clear nail polish. She makes her own clothes and costumes, makes films on her phone that make people feel not alone, and has the courage to tell her story of moving from Beijing to America when she was seven and finding out being Chinese wasn’t cool. Over time, with the help of her philosopher mother, Yilin learned to become a human and artist she loves even though her mom says her fashion style resembles someone homeless.
