This week's guest on REPORT FROM SANTA FE is Dr. Dora-Linda Wang, psychiatrist, and author, "The Kitchen Shrink" and "The Daily Practice of Compassion - A History of the UNM School of Medicine," discussing challenges faced by Asian Americans today and the history of the Alien Land Law in New Mexico.

Dr. Wang is the president of the caucus of Asian American psychiatrists for the American Psychiatrist Association, which has been very active addressing the increased anti-Asian activity that has been taking place during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Towards the beginning, a great deal of blame for the pandemic was placed on Asia, with accusations of “the China virus.” Hate crimes against Asian Americans soared – and still continue -- with this year alone showing a 300% increase in hate crimes.

Wang is a graduate of the Yale School of Medicine, and the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute, where she specialized in the treatment of Anxiety Disorders and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. At the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, where she has been on the faculty since 1998, Dr. Wang has trained a generation of psychiatrists on treating anxiety and mood disorders..

She completed an MA in English Literature from the University of California, Berkeley, with an emphasis in ethnic American literature and the history of medicine. Dr. Wang has been the recipient of a Lannan Foundation Writer’s Residency, a New Mexico-Arizona Book Award, the Pfeiffer Visiting Scholar Award from the Stanford School of Medicine, and a Graduate and Professional Program Award from the Yale Alumni Association.

She is the author of a literary memoir about the noble profession of medicine transforming into a profit-driven health care industry, "The Kitchen Shrink: A Psychiatrist’s Reflections on Healing in a Changing World."

Her most recent book, "The Daily Practice of Compassion: A History of the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Its People and Its Mission, 1964-2014" has earned her the title of Historian of the School of Medicine at the University of New Mexico.