I am Demian.  I am half Chinese, and part Canadian French and Native American. With the exception of two years in Japan as a very young child, I was born and raised in the United States.

My mother was born in China around 1926. She was two years old when her mother sold her to a Japanese couple for a gold coin. Throughout her entire life the pain of that traumatic moment haunted my mother's soul, and a part of her stayed on that balcony by the Yangtze River, waiting for her two brothers to come and rescue her, to take her back home.

When I was a little girl I would listen to my mother tell stories of her life in China and Japan. I used to lie in bed at night and think about this faraway place.

I am an American, and I love my country, but there is a voice that speaks to me, calls to me. It is a voice that whispers up through the roots of an ancient past and the small avenues of my own personal history. It is the voice of China.

China helped me survive the dark nights of my childhood. It was a magical place to where my imagination could run when things got too bad for me here. It was a place I felt I could belong, even though it wasn't really my home; a people who might embrace me, even though I wasn't really Chinese; a world I could connect with even though I am Western in my thoughts and beliefs and always will be.

One summer several years ago, China came to my door. I was asked to sing at a vigil in front of a prison in my hometown, on behalf of the Chinese refugees from the ship, the Golden Venture.

It was on that night I was told about a young Chinese woman who was being held in New Orleans. She had become depressed and her friends worried she might hurt herself.

So I wrote to her little realizing I would come to love her. Though we have never met in person this young woman profoundly changed my life.

For years I lived as a recluse, but because of her I began to share my thoughts and songs with other people. I wrote and performed a monologue telling  the stories of three of the detained women. I participated in demonstrations wearing prison garb, chains and shackles in protest. I helped produce a short video documentary of the plight of the Chinese refugees. And I had the honor of working with The People of the Golden Vision, an immigrant advocacy group, comprised of people from all walks of life, religious beliefs and political affiliations, working side by side.

This group filled me with inspiration. It represented what America, despite its imperfections, strived for; tolerance  rooted in respect, peaceful coexistence and active cooperation. It renewed my faith in everything our world can be, and it made me want to be a part of making that beautiful possibility a reality.

Because of one woman. Because her dreams, her love touched this one woman.