LINDA CHOW

My name is Linda Chow. I came from Hong Kong, a British colony before 1997, Hong Kong was returned to People Republic of China (Mainland) from Britain.

In 2019, I retired from San Francisco Unified School district in Lowell High School as a custodian for 15 years. The job was maintaining the school building, which included waxing, stripping the floor and vacuuming carpets. Also, I had to clean the restrooms as it was needed. The custodial job was not my first job. I worked at Mitsubishi Bank of California in San Francisco. The main office had several branches or liaisons in Los Angeles, and New York. I was a remittance clerk when I worked there. Then I was promoted to the Letter of Credit department (L/C), my job was retyping short messages into a standard format. I informed customers about terms. They prepared documents, and presented them to us. When terms and conditions were in order, the bank would transfer funds as per their instructions. They traded many financial products. In 1989, the bank merged with the Bank of California (Bank Cal), San Francisco which was a big Bank in San Francisco. I became an advising/issuing clerk in the letter of Credit dept. I went to Skyline College, studied computer skills because of my position. I advised or issued L/C as per customer requirements, that was an exciting job for me. Unfortunately, the economy was bad, so, I lost my job at the end of 1999. In 2000, I was trained for many fields, I was a custodian in 2001. I am a senior citizen, I am trying to get into the writing group in Crystal Springs Road Senior Center is my goal.

DOLORES E. FIERRO

WRITING BIOGRAPHY

For over forty years, Dolores wrote Standard Operating Procedures, current Good Manufacturing Practices, Validations, Nutrition Facts, Drug Facts, and Ingredient Statements for food, cosmetic, and OTC drug companies. She also wrote Certificates of Compliances to various global cosmetic regulations. They involved precise scientific, and regulatory languages that could not be subject to misinterpretation. Dolores got accustomed using the left side of her brain in her line of work in science and math.

When she retired in May 2015, Dolores decided to write her memoir. She joined the Creative Writing Class at Crystal Springs Senior Center. Writing from the heart and using the right side of her brain became a new challenge for her. Dolores also joined the San Mateo 50+ Memoir Writing class where the writers received weekly prompts to help trigger their memory. After her breast cancer lumpectomy and radiation in 2016, Dolores joined Writing Through Cancer at the Bay Area Cancer Connections in Palo Alto. She found on-the-spot quick writing very powerful and cathartic. It activated her subconscious mind.

Dolores wanted to share her healing experience from writing; she started facilitating memoir writing classes at Lincoln Community Center and Doelger Senior Center in Daly City. Her classmate in French invited her to start a memoir writing class at the Cayuga Community Connectors in San Francisco. A year later, Dolores joined the San Francisco Lit-quake Project. It was a twelve-week-program in poetry, epistolary, grieving, and memoir writing.