Meet Erin
I was born at Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights, Ill., on Independence Day—meaning birthday fireworks for life—to parents who emigrated from Hong Kong as students in the late 1960s and met and married in Chicago. I grew up in Glendale Heights, Ill., in DuPage County, attending schools in Medinah and West Chicago. I graduated with a double major in journalism and history from Northwestern University, where I had the chance to study abroad in Spain while attending the Universidad de Salamanca; I also researched and wrote a thesis about the Chinese community in Mexicali, Mexico, during the Mexican Revolution, and the agency they showed in overthrowing an unfair tax. Those experiences were fascinating—and also helped me become trilingual.
After college, I spent several years reporting and writing for the Detroit Free Press. I've spent most of my career since as a freelance journalist for publications like The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, National Geographic Family, Christianity Today, The New York Times, Diversity Woman, and Midwest Living, and I also served as a communications executive for a national nonprofit.
In July 2009, my husband, Charley, and I moved from Detroit back to the Chicago area, where we rented a townhouse for a couple of years in Hoffman Estates. Two years later, we bought a home in South Barrington for three reasons: My husband and I needed to be close to I-90 for work; we loved the tranquility of the area; and we fell in love with the deep and broad offerings of the 220 Barrington School District.
Our son, Chandler, 11, currently attends 6th grade at Station Middle School and runs on the cross country team there. During his offseason, I'm helping Chandler train for his first half marathon, and some of our favorite routes weave through District 220: the Paul Douglas Forest Preserve in Hoffman Estates, Grassy Lake Forest Preserve in Lake Barrington, New Community Park and the Arboretum in South Barrington and our own self-plotted, 8-mile route through the Village and downtown Barrington.
Chandler also attended the Extended Self-Contained program at Hough Street Elementary School from 3rd through 5th grades and the Chinese Immersion program at North Barrington Elementary School from kindergarten through 2nd grade. Our daughter, Callie, 7, attends Countryside Elementary School and has been in the Chinese Immersion program there since kindergarten. (She's also a runner, having done numerous 5Ks and a couple of 8K races.) Both our kids have also spent significant amounts of time at the after-school Kids Klub at Barbara R. Rose Elementary School, so we’ve had quite the school tour of the District 220!
We’re so grateful for the quality of education and the care from every single one of our kids’ teachers, who not only deeply want Chandler and Callie to learn about the world we inhabit but also shape them into empathetic people.