Her parents, Julia Chang Lin and Henry Huan Lin, immigrated to the United States from China in 1940. Both were esteemed members of the faculty at Ohio University, and they provided Maya with an environment that stimulated both her imagination and her intellectual curiosity. Maya's father was dean of the Ohio University art school and a well-known ceramic artist with his own studio, where Maya explored her creativity through the earthen materials of his craft. Julia Lin was a poet and professor of Asian and English literature, and she imbued her daughter with a love of reading.
During her school years Maya demonstrated a facility for mathematics and art. She was an above average student, and in high school took college level courses to challenge herself. It was during these studies that she was exposed to the existentialist writings of Albert Camus and Jean Paul Sartre. Existentialist philosophy, in combination with the reading of poetry encouraged by her mother, exerted a strong influence in Lin's later memorial designs. When she wasn't studying, Lin spent her free time reading, or indulging her love of nature with a walk in the woods.
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