Writing on Identity

Hank. It is because of people like Hank whose shoulders we are standing on that we will bring a third FIFA World Cup to America in 2026.” By the end of 2020, the group reached its initial $85,000 goal to name the Hank Steinbrecher Sports Complex. A new scoreboard was installed, and improvements to the fi elds are underway. Moreover, the group decided to continue to fundraise in order to create an endowed, needbased scholarship for students. After a few short months, an additional $25,000 was raised to endow the scholarship, which will remain in perpetuity as a testament to the value Steinbrecher placed on education. “Warren Wilson College served as the foundation of my long career in soccer,” Steinbrecher said. “The lessons that I learned from the Warren Wilson College community were fundamental to my success in the sport. I will always carry in my heart the thoughts of our teams and our College.”

To view a recording of the Toast to Hank virtual event from Summer 2020, visit:

warren-wilson.edu/owlandspade2021

MFA Graduate Received Fulbright to Explore Nationality, Intersectionality, and Race Through Fiction

By Mary Bates, photo courtesy of Daniel Tam-Claiborne

Anyone wishing to make a gift to grow the Hank Steinbrecher scholarship endowment can contact Mark Newman, Director of Development, at 828-771-3756 or by email at

mnewman@warren-wilson.edu.

Daniel Tam-Claiborne MFA ’20, whose father is American and mother is an immigrant from China, grew up grappling with an identity he could not easily classify. That sense only intensifi ed when he graduated college in the U.S. and began teaching English in rural China. Upon graduating from the MFA Program for Writers in 2020, Tam-Claiborne received a Fulbright Scholarship to pursue ethnographic research and write a novel inspired by his grandparents’ migration story and his own experience growing up half-Chinese in the U.S. The Fulbright U.S. Student Program is one of the most widely recognized and prestigious international exchange programs in the world. The novel he is writing, Transplants, will address questions about culture, identity, and belonging. “This story connects to larger ideas that are being faced by people all over the world—of migration, of belonging, of being turned away because of certain aspects of their identity that are immutable, that they are born with, that they can’t change,” Tam-Claiborne said. “I don’t imagine that this will speak to or answer all of those questions, but I hope it will provide a little bit of light, some kind of respite for people feeling stretched between places or not having a sense of home.” His project was delayed for almost a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and an Executive Order issued by former President Trump to suspend the Fulbright program in China and Hong Kong. Tam-Claiborne applied for a transfer of his Fulbright project to Taiwan, and he arrived in Taiwan in February 2021. “While it varies from my initial project with its focus on Taiwanese identity instead of Chinese, I'm hoping that some of the core themes and experiences will continue to resonate,” Tam-Claiborne said. “I am very much still planning to complete a fi nal draft of my novel manuscript by the end of the fellowship.”