New Frontiers

New Frontiers podcast with Joyce Mao

Charlotte Tate
From the Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs at Middlebury College, this is New Frontiers. I’m Charlotte Tate, associate director of the Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs. New Frontiers podcasts highlight research undertaken by Middlebury scholars and others, on matters of international and global concern. Everything is fair game—from big tech, environmental conservation and global security—to religion, culture, and changing work patterns.

In this episode, Mark Williams—director of the Rohatyn Center—sits down with historian Joyce Mao, to discuss how concerns over China—and US foreign policy in Asia after WWII—helped shape modern political conservativism in America, and create a movement which in time exercised increasing influence in American politics.

Mark Williams
Joyce Mao is an associate professor of history at Middlebury College. Much of her research is focused on American foreign affairs and national politics during the cold war, especially with respect to U.S.-Asia relations and, in particular, with respect to the effects that U.S., China, Taiwan relations had on American domestic politics. Today, I'll be talking with Joyce about the arguments she makes and the conclusions she reaches in her book, Asia First: China and the Making of Modern American Conservatism, which the University of Chicago Press published in 2015. Joyce Mao, welcome to New Frontiers.

Joyce Mao
Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here. I love the title of the series. I feel like we're going to announce a mission to the moon.

Mark Williams
We might get there eventually. Well, why don't we dive right in and let me ask this. With all of the history that there is to study what kindled your own personal interest in this particular topic, China and the United States of the 1950s and 60s, what was it that drew you to this subject?

Joyce Mao
Well, my interest in political history and the history of conservatism began when I was an undergrad history major at UC Berkeley and growing up in California and studying California history, I became very aware of California as the cradle of the new right. And when I went to grad school in history at Berkeley, there was a very steady discourse about conservative internationalism, especially after 9/11. And mainstream media coverage of 9/11 and what the Bush administration would do in response to it really made it seem as if conservative internationalism and overseas intervention were a given. And I was curious about how that came to be, because I was doing a lot of reading about the 1930s and 1940s when conservatives were considered isolationists. So, I began to wonder how conservatism got from point A to point B. And the more I read, the more I researched, it became very clear that China was a big part of that equation.

Mark Williams
Interesting. Interesting. Well, let's go back to the beginning in a way, and let's think about the title of your book itself. What do you mean by Asia First? What is that?

Joyce Mao
Well to put it succinctly, Asia first was an insistence that Pacific affairs receive as much, if not more attention than European Atlantic relations in the cold war, its proponents, its supporters, many of whom were very powerful, conservative voices in the Senate, in Congress felt like U.S. foreign policy after World War II was neglecting mainland Asia and therefore imperiling the whole cold war.

Mark Williams
Is this sort of coming out of the, the tail end of the Marshall Plan and the efforts to, to rebuild Western Europe after the war?

Joyce Mao
Yes. And certainly that was a counterpoint. Conservatives who were Asia firsters looked at what was happening in Europe and the investment that was happening there on the part of the United States as a stark contrast to what they felt was not happening in China in particular. And it's great that you bring up Marshall because it was the failure of the Marshall mission in 1947, to bring about some sort of coalition government between the Chinese communists and the Chinese nationalists that really saw a drop off in terms of initiative for U.S.-China policy. And of course, Asia firsters would argue that pause really helped bring about a conclusion to the Chinese civil war that was unfavorable to American interests.

Mark Williams
You perhaps have already answered this or at least provided part of an answer. If we were to go back to the 50s and 60s, is the reason that American conservatives were so concerned about Asia precisely because they saw this divide, you might say, between the focus on Europe and the efforts that were being put forth there and the focus on, or the lack of focus that they saw or perceived to be with respect to of Asia?

Joyce Mao
There was definitely among some conservatives, a genuine, sincere interest in China and the fate of China. A long missionary history, a long history of engagement with China that really dated from the early 19th century was one of the underpinnings that Asia first conservatives pointed to as evidence that the United States should keep up a commitment to the potential of a democratic, what they called a free China. And so, all the efforts that were underway in the European Atlantic provided a strong precedent for conservatives to say, why isn't the same sort of investment being made in regards to China. But then there's the cynical side of the story in that there were plenty of conservatives who became Asia firsters, who really didn't have an organic interest in China, who regarded Chiang kai shek’s leadership with some degree of skepticism, but China was too good of an opportunity to pass up when it came to critiquing containment policy, liberalism as a governing ethos. And so, when joining forces, those Asia firsters who really believed in a free China and those who were there for more sort of opportunistic reasons, and many of them were one and the same really, it resulted in a potent argument about an Achilles heel in U.S. foreign policy and became a politicized issue within domestic political circles.

Mark Williams
So, China should be at the forefront for a variety of security reasons, strategic reasons.

Joyce Mao
Yes, absolutely. And after 1949 and Mao's victory, you have to understand that the world map was at the forefront of a lot of political arguments in terms of which part of the world was free, quote unquote, and which part of the world was red, quote unquote. And with Mao’s victory, the largest country in the world went red. And so, that for Asia first conservatives was proof positive that containment policy was going to fail. It had already failed. The United States had, quote unquote, lost China to communism. And so, there were questions of, well who lost China? Who within the U.S. government let this happen? And that is based on a number of assumptions about American paternalism and that China is the United States’s to lose in the first place?

Mark Williams
That’s exactly what I was going to say. It's always fascinating to me to hear those types of discourses for precisely the reasons you've outlined, as if a country, a civilization as old and a country as vast as China was America's to lose in the first place. It's quite odd. So let's go back to these concerns that the conservatives had with respect to China. Was this the dominant mode of thought in the United States at the time, is this what most people were thinking back then, or was there a kind of counter narrative and at least in political circles that saw things about China differently than the way that the conservatives did?

Joyce Mao
Asia first conservatism, the argument that the United States had somehow lost China was definitely the alternative political view. But they were an incredibly loud minority voice with well-placed advocates in elite institutions within government. The dominant mode of thinking about U.S. foreign policy was of course containment theory. And this was, you know, the overarching framework for the cold war that most experts signed on to. What was different about Asia first was its very pointed critique, not only that containment and a defensive posture in the cold war, wasn't going to work in the long term and that China was evidence of that; but also, they took containment theory as an example of how liberalism overall was a faulty way to approach governance, both at home and in foreign policy. And so, the spinoff arguments about who lost China and Asia first brought in arguments about executive power, congressional balance of power, not only in foreign policy but in other realms of governance as well, and how the United States saw itself within a multilateral security system. So, Asia firsters extended the who lost China argument into critiques of the United Nations for example, corresponding arguments about how the United States needed to wield its power more unilaterally and not be beholden to the whims of communist states or third world nations.

Mark Williams
Who might be members of the United Nations.

Joyce Mao
Precisely. So then there's also the McCarthy side of the story. McCarthy's red scare began as a hunt for communist subversion within the state department. Who lost China was a big part of the context for McCarthyism’s rise to the fore of the national political discussion. And so, arguments about government is too big; it's too bureaucratic; there are employees within government who aren't vetted enough; and that such an unwieldy state is not serving American interests either at home or abroad.

Mark Williams
I see. Well, this is really fascinating to think about the way that the foreign gets mirrored into the domestic and is welded together there. Let me be a little provocative. You said that you were a history major as an undergraduate. I almost became a history major myself, so I did a fair amount of reading as an undergraduate in history. And the history books, at least to my mind, they're usually filled with lots of information, lots of details and so forth. But when you boil it all down, most history books seem to make a couple of central or really big arguments. And one of the biggest arguments that your book seems to make is that the conservatives’ interest in China actually helped shape how the political right developed here in the United States. So I have two questions for you here. First, is that more or less an accurate reading of the book, I'm not misinterpreting anything there? Is that an accurate reading of one of the books big arguments? And second, if it is an accurate reading, then how much of this conservative focus on China actually did help shape how the political right developed here at home?

Joyce Mao
You read the book correctly. Thank you for, you know, hewing so closely to one of the main arguments that I make in the book is that China helped bridge a divide between the elite institutional politicians that were easily associated with Asia first conservatism, names like Barry Goldwater, William F. Nolan, who was a senator from California, Robert Taft, who was a senator from Ohio and senate majority leader. These were folks who really inhabited sort of exalted realms of elite American politics. But one of the marked features of the postwar new right is its grassroots movement and its ability to reach new audiences, new constituents, and keep conservatism evolving and reaching new audiences and new voters. And in the 1940s, there is a palpable divide between elite conservative officials in places like Congress, and a growing grassroots movement that is going to only reach full flower in the 1960s.

China is an issue that helps, in a topical way, elite officials reach out to grassroots activists and vice versa. China means so many different things to so many different kinds of Americans. And what really helps unite these branches of the conservative movement, when it comes to China, is this affinity for the idea of China and the potential of China as a democratic counterpart to the United States in the Pacific. It is something that I found really consistently in the archives when it came to letters from constituents to their representatives. Publications that grassroots organizations would put out to members and future members, as well as, you know campaigns trying to reach out to elected officials.

Mark Williams
This belief that China would become or ought to become a democracy, sort of the mirror image of the United States, something like that?

Joyce Mao
Yes. And that goes back to that sort of open door, special relationship that harkened back to the United States poised to become a major world power reaching out, the world's youngest democracy reaching out to reform, you know, the world's oldest country in a meaningful way and building sort of bridges of ideological brotherhood. At the same time, the reality is that that relationship never really existed in the first place; that there was a distinct power imbalance that the dreams of a Chinese democracy never really come to fruition according to American metrics. And there is a lot of discussion among both conservative activists and conservative officials in the past perfect tense that the United States should have done this. It could have done that. And so, in the 1940s maybe there was some potential hope that the cold war would go a different way, but once the PRC became an irrevocable reality, there is a distinct rhetorical shift that both elite officials and activists share in that, okay, well we're going to treat China as evidence. What happened to China's evidence that liberalism is a failure containment is a joke and use what we can out of this idea of China to move our own agendas forward.

Mark Williams
So, the right becomes shaped by its being the antithesis of liberalism, its perception of liberalism. And this has both a domestic and an international or foreign component to it.

Joyce Mao
And one of the arguments I make in Asia First is that without China, without the specter of Chinese communism, the right would not have been able to muster the same kind of foreign policy platform and foreign policy arguments that it so eloquently advanced in the 60s and beyond.

Mark Williams
Interesting, interesting. Your book I think makes clear that when you’re talking about conservatives, quote unquote, you’re really referring to modern conservatives. And so, for the benefit of our listeners, could you please explain what you mean by modern conservatism? Modern as opposed to what?

Joyce Mao
Modern as opposed to the earlier iteration of conservatism that dominated say in the 20s and the 30s, the brand of politics that emphasized small government, free market, and a brand of politics that frankly, after the great crash of 1929 was associated most readily with big business, the one percent. I call it modern conservatism based on two key characteristics. The first is an approach to internationalism, meaning an active vision for the United States role in the world, and a clear approach to foreign policy. This is something that's distinctly lacking in the pre-World War II version of conservatism. But after World War II, it's a political necessity to have a foreign policy. And one of the stories that I track in the book is how it is that China as an issue came along at precisely the right time for conservatives who are looking for a way to achieve a toehold in full foreign policy discussions. This gave them a really good opportunity to enter a national and international discussion about how it is that the United States was going to wield its superpower. So, however theoretical or imperfect in its application, this Asia first internationalism really did signal a responsiveness to global affairs, marking it as modern, as I discuss in the book.

Mark Williams
Okay. Then one might say that the conservatives at the time took stock of their movement. They saw a gap, meaning a foreign policy gap, and China was utilized to help fill that gap and help build and expand the movement.

Joyce Mao
Yes. The second feature of modern conservatism that I really want to mark is how it is that conservatism continually evolved its organization and its mobilization, meaning that it was a political movement whose dynamic composition allowed for future growth. And it allowed for the movement to have multiple epicenters of activism, legislation, changing ideas, and therefore ensuring that it would continue to progress and move forward. And one of the key claims that I make in Asia First is that China was a key component of both those branches of conservative development.

Mark Williams
So, China was also an aspect of this, we might call it agility, this movement agility? Can you elaborate?

Joyce Mao
China was a way for conservatives to advance ideas and ideals because it was almost a figment of the imagination, this idea that China could be a democratic counterpart to the United States. The needle wasn't moving in terms of official China policy, per se. Chiang kai shek was not going to be, quote unquote, unleashed to take back the mainland. That was a far from distant possibility and conservatives knew it. So the ways in which they would invoke China, which drew upon, you know, sort of sentimental attachment to China or China as a shorthand for liberalism's failures, was a way for conservatives to demonstrate that they had some sort of foreign policy acumen, but at the same time invoke a lot of the ideas that were driving their movement at that particular moment in time.

Mark Williams
Okay. Thank you. Sort of carrying on with this notion of modern conservatives, as you look over America's political landscape today, do you think that there's still such a thing as a modern conservative, at least as in terms of the way that you're using this to describe the 1950s and the 1960s?

Joyce Mao
When I look at politics today, I definitely see vestiges of Asia first internationalism within contemporary discussions about foreign policy. There are still tenants of conservative internationalism from the 50s and 60s that are readily associated with the ways in which conservative foreign policy is thought of and remembered; things like an emphasis on unilateralism, selective military intervention, and certainly a sort of hardline rhetorical articulation about things like communism. And I'm thinking specifically about the Reagan era, but even today there is growing public sphere analysis of how the cold war continues to impact contemporary politics, and Asia first internationalism should be part of that conversation. But I think when you look at and assess the conservative movement today, you also need to take into account the social and moral phase of conservative development that drove the movement in the 1970s and the 1980s. Nowadays, I think it's a combination of a hawkish unilateralism and the moralism of the Christian right, as well as a willingness to harness the energy of the fringe as a way to redefine the mainstream. Someone like Josh Hawley seems eager to take up the mantle of modern conservatism. Ben Sasse is also in the mix.

Mark Williams
Okay. Good examples. You know, I have to say that I found your book a really enjoyable read, and I'm wondering if you could share a couple of telling stories from the book, you know, are there any particular nuggets that listeners might look forward to reading about?

Joyce Mao
Well, one entire chapter is devoted to the John Birch Society, which was a well-known grassroots organization named after a U.S. army intelligence officer named John Birch, who was killed by Chinese communist soldiers in the waning days of World War II. Not many folks who have even heard of the John Birch Society would recognize the origins of the group's name. And it's an example of what I was talking about in terms of that bridge that China provided between grassroots organizations like the John Birch Society and elite politicians. The name inspiration came to the founder of the John Birch Society, a man named Robert Welch, who was a candy maker from just outside of Boston. Welch was really disillusioned with Republican politics; he did not like the direction of the party; he really hated Eisenhower. In fact, he accused Eisenhower of being a secret communist in a really ill-thought-out book.

Mark Williams
They were everywhere.

Joyce Mao
Apparently. And he really did not feel at home within the Republican Party. And then he heard a speech by Senator William F. Nolan of California, one of the loudest Asia first conservatives, about this man named John Birch, who was a Baptist evangelical soldier, who was the so-called first casualty of the cold war. And it happened in China. And Welch was inspired. He wrote to Nolan, I saw the letters between them, and they had this long correspondence about how John Birch was an American hero. And Welch kept that under his hat for a few years. And then decided to establish this new grassroots organization that would fight for American freedom, fight the American cold war, you know, by harnessing the power of the American voter, the ordinary American. And, again wrote William F. Nolan and said, this is what I'm doing with this story that you shared with me. And so, that to me is a really potent example of how it is that China brought together these different branches of the right, that weren't exactly seeing eye to eye.

Mark Williams
Grassroot and elite in this case. I see. Okay.

Joyce Mao
And the John Birch Society is a really good example of that. Another story that I really love that I talk about in the book is the time when Barry Goldwater sued Jimmy Carter in 1979. One of Jimmy Carter's initiatives as president was to fully normalize relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China. And he began,

Mark Williams
This was the process that had begun with Richard Nixon.

Joyce Mao
Yes. Traveling to Beijing in 1972. Until the late 1970s, there really hadn't been much advancement in that relationship in terms of fully realizing a normal relationship between these two very important countries, and Carter wanted to bring that about. And he decided not to renew the mutual defense treaty with Taiwan. And this was a decision that he announced in late 1978. Conservatives, as you can imagine, were livid. None more so than Barry Goldwater. He accused Carter of obliterating Taiwan's independence, quote, he is saying Taiwan has no right to exist, end quote. All because Carter had announced that he wasn't going to renew the mutual defense treaty. And so, Goldwater took Carter to court. A sitting U.S. senator sued the sitting U.S. president. Goldwater, and nine other senators, and ten representatives filed a civil suit in U.S. district court. They argued that the president had no constitutional right to end a treaty without consulting Congress or the Senate ratifying the decision with a vote. And this was really, as you can imagine, a remarkable moment.

Mark Williams
Somehow this escaped my intellectual horizon. This is the first I've heard about this.

Joyce Mao
The case reached the Supreme Court, eventually. It cycled through, you know, district court and eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which reviewed the case without oral arguments, in December 1979. After hearing arguments, it declined jurisdiction, dismissed the case by a vote of six to three. The majority opinion stated that matters of presidential power should be determined by congressional processes, not judicial processes. And really basically the majority opinion said, this is an embarrassing situation, and it would not bode well if all three branches of government did not see eye to eye on this particular question. So we're not, we’re not getting involved in this fight. This defeat of Goldwater's case was actually offset by the passage of the Taiwan Relations Act in the spring of 1979. And the TRA was a really forceful statement by Congress that there would be continuing American support for Taiwanese sovereignty. It included that crucial element of future arms sales, if the island’s defenses were in need. And that's really what Goldwater and other Asia firsters wanted to maintain in the first place. They also wanted to show up the president and really kind of reiterate Congress's power when it came to foreign policy.

Mark Williams
This is so fascinating. In light of everything that you've said so far and what I have read in the book, what impact did the conservative efforts ultimately have on American foreign policy and U.S.-China relations? What's your assessment there?

Joyce Mao
Well, the foreign policy manifestation took time. It wasn't an immediate overnight change in which you see conservative internationalism or conservative foreign policy rise to the fore of actual cold war strategy.

Mark Williams
So if we were talking about the 40s and the 50s where you, the period that you're focusing on, are we seeing demonstrable achievements at this point?

Joyce Mao
Not so much. What I talk about in the book is that the foreign policy arguments that were being made in the 50s really had most impact on domestic politics. But then the seeds were planted for the long term. Conservatives eventually run presidential candidates, eventually win the White House under an unabashedly conservative banner with Ronald Reagan. And certainly, you know, something like Reagan's rhetoric during the cold war, which was very hardline, at least in public, owes a lot to that conservative internationalism and that sort of hardline stance about winning the cold war. We're talking about rollback, not containment. And that's something that Asia firsters articulated as far back as the 50s. I think another impact that Asia first has had on U.S.-China relations specifically, is the fact that Taiwan remains a key issue and that the independence of Taiwan, the sovereignty of Taiwan, is something that is going to continue to mark U.S.-China relations.

Mark Williams
It's in the news right now.

Joyce Mao
Absolutely. I mean, it's certainly what she and Biden were discussing the other day. The other element in terms of lingering and lasting impact is how Asia first really demonstrated that American public sentiment about China matters when it comes to the shape of national political discussions. And that millions of Americans care about China and think that China has a place within America’s future for better or for worse.

Mark Williams
Okay. I understand now. To what extent do you think that Asia first still resonates with America's political right today? Can it help us better understand what's happening inside conservatism right now?

Joyce Mao
Understanding the history that American conservatism has with China, I think helps us to better understand not only the history of that particular movement, but also get a better read on the nuances of what's being discussed today. When we think about China's continuing reverberations within American politics, conservatives consistent calling out of the PRC is really hard to miss. Trump's demonization of the PRC, even as he expressed personal admiration for Xi Jinping is one example, and certainly foreign policy credentials for politicians who are on the right entail op-eds and public addresses about the dangers of a China unchecked by the United States. Even with a Democrat in the White House, the tenor of recent U.S.-China relations really does recall the era of the mutual defense treaty with Taiwan. Biden's overall approach, his continuation of the trade war with the PRC, his emphasis on building out American infrastructure and multi-lateral alliances to counter the PRC, signal the legacies of Asia first. And when it comes to American public opinion, polls reveal a prevalent concern about China and its significance for the United States, and it's a concern that cuts across partisan and regional lines. And so, one thing that I'm left wondering is how these present circumstances really elicit the question of, are we all, progressives, liberals, conservatives, and everyone in between, all Asia firsters now?

Mark Williams
It’s an interesting question. I'm thinking about the extent to which a focus on China might actually carry more weight today than it did in times past, particularly in the 40s and the 50s. I'm thinking about China which is not a huge, impoverished country. It is a huge, wealthy country. A China whose power clearly is growing, whose influence is growing, and whose ambitions are following in step with its growth of influence. As a political scientist, as someone who looks at and thinks about great power relations in a serious way, there seems to be a great case to make that this is a relationship that ought to be managed with care, for all of these obvious reasons. We're not talking about a country that is easy to ignore, or that should be ignored. In contrast with the 40s and the 50s, where one I think could make a case that given what had happened in the second world war and given the problems that Europe had created for most of the world, the focus probably should be there to make sure that those types of problems don't recur. Do you have any thoughts about what's going on with U.S.-China relations right now? As a student of history, are there any lessons from the 1950s and the 1960s that you think might help policy makers, either in Beijing or Washington, make this relationship the best that it could be?

Joyce Mao
I keep coming back to Taiwan as a flash point for U.S.-China relations, and the recent discussions about China and about Taiwan really do show a contrast in terms of what the United States will go to bat for. Not human rights violations, not pro-democracy protest crackdowns in Hong Kong. Those two latter events did not elicit the same sort of strong protectionism that the Biden administration has demonstrated say with military exercises and strong rhetoric in bilateral talks with the PRC. The way in which I think I'm going to consider, you know, the shape of future U.S.-China relations still centers on that old issue of Taiwan. Which is very familiar to many Americans, sort of intergenerationally, and I think holds a sort of historical weight that even Hong Kong, the Uighur situation, don't really resonate in the same way with Americans who are observing from afar in many cases. I think the Biden administration is using both multilateral means and bilateral discussions to make its own mark on U.S.-China relations. And the fact that we are now in a steady dialogue between the two countries is, in and of itself, perhaps the point, right? Because it's been a while since there has been a really clear China policy. And it seems as if the Biden administration is making China a real focal point in the way that it conceptualizes world order and American foreign policy to shape that world order. Even during the Obama administration's pivot to Asia, there were gestures, but not this sort of front and centering of China as both a potential partner in some cases, say with the climate discussions, but also adversarial. And I'm watching with keen interest. What I think is different about the Biden approach, vis-à-vis the Obama approach, is that we're in a different political moment now. We're post-Trump. Trumpian politics really singled out the PRC as an enemy, as an adversary that any strong nation would have to counter in a very direct fashion. I think coming out of that political context, perhaps the Biden administration is having to respond to that context, those expectations that many Americans have about what to do about China, and this new China question for the 21st century. His Democratic predecessor Obama wasn't operating in those particular political contexts. And so perhaps that's something to bear in mind when thinking about why it is that the Biden administration seems to be placing China front center.

Mark Williams
I can see the residual effects of how the relationship deteriorated, one might say, from 2016 up through 2020 increasing animosity and so forth, and trade wars and so forth. I can see that. Well, Joyce, let me ask you in the time remaining what is next for you? The book that we've been discussing was published in 2015, and what are you working on now that we can look forward to reading?

Joyce Mao
What I'm working on now is a project about China in the American economic imagination. So, I'm asking questions like, why does the Chinese economy inspire such deep emotions, ranging from anxiety to optimism among all types of Americans. I'm interested in the history of the answers to that question. So I'm looking at how U.S. officials try to decipher events like the Great Leap Forward. How American economists use China as a case study for modernization theory, particularly in the 1960s. I'm also making the Asian Development Bank the subject of one chapter. In many ways, this new project is a natural follow up to Asia First. With Asia First, I looked at conservatives, now I'm turning my attention to the liberals, who actually had policy making power in the 60s, and how they sought to significantly alter the U.S.-China dynamic when there was no official relationship between the two countries. And what I'm finding is that money and economic theory are key tools that American liberals tried to use to reshape not only the U.S.-China dynamic, but the Pacific region at large.

Mark Williams
That's really fascinating. I honestly look forward to reading what you have to write. We've been talking about the book America First: China and the Making of Modern American Conservatism. And we've been speaking with the author of that book, Middlebury College Professor Joyce Mao. Joyce, thank you so much for taking time to talk to us today on New Frontiers.

Joyce Mao
Thank you so much.

Student
As a native Californian, Professor Joyce Mao grew up on the West Coast and after migrating to the Northeast, she’s embraced life in Vermont—hiking the trails around Middlebury and enjoying the ski slopes nearby—while trying to keep up with her two children. She enjoys baking, reading, and is an architecture and design enthusiast.