WEBVTT - Wind Beneath My Wings 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:06.080 Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. I 0:00:06.160 --> 0:00:08.600 was so excited the first time I saw another Chinese 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:11.000 person on the street that I opened my mouth to 0:00:11.080 --> 0:00:15.400 exclaim nha. The only thing that stopped me was Mama's 0:00:15.400 --> 0:00:19.360 morning about talking to random people. Don't talk to anyone, 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:24.239 she said, we can't trust anyone, no one. What about 0:00:24.239 --> 0:00:30.360 police officers, Mama, no one, especially police officers. If you 0:00:30.400 --> 0:00:35.560 see a uniform, turn around and walk the opposite way. Why, Mama, 0:00:36.520 --> 0:00:43.239 it's dangerous. We're not allowed here. Don't trust anyone. Always 0:00:43.240 --> 0:00:45.760 walk the other way when you see the police. Change in. 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:50.520 Baba's voice guided me wherever I went. If anyone asked 0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:53.159 you for documents, say you don't know, Say that your 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:55.840 Baba has them, Say that you were born here, that 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:59.640 you've always lived in America. This was not China, and 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:01.600 I could no longer get by on the color of 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:04.360 my skin and my gap tooth smile. I was no 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:11.320 longer normal. I was never to forget that that's Chian. 0:01:11.520 --> 0:01:16.440 Julie Wong, author, speaker, and litigator, reading passages from her 0:01:16.440 --> 0:01:21.520 debut memoir Beautiful Country. She and Julie's is a story 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:25.880 of extraordinary triumph. Triumph made all the brighter for having 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:46.200 been forged from profound hardship, secrecy, and shame. I'm Danny Shapiro, 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:49.560 and this is family secrets, the secrets that are kept 0:01:49.560 --> 0:01:52.280 from us, the secrets we keep from others, and the 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:59.800 secrets we keep from ourselves. Tell me about the landscape 0:01:59.800 --> 0:02:04.480 of your childhood before the age of seven. When I 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:09.320 think about that time, it's all just love and happiness 0:02:09.560 --> 0:02:14.239 and singing and belonging. I never questioned if I was safe, 0:02:14.520 --> 0:02:17.480 if I fit in, if I needed to worry about 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:20.360 where my next meal was going to come from. It 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:24.280 was a time I like to think of as true childhood. 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:27.800 And where were you I was in China. I was 0:02:28.440 --> 0:02:31.920 surrounded by my extended family. UM. I was born in 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:34.960 North China in a town called Shadrong, just to three 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:39.200 hours outside of Beijing, and that's where many of my 0:02:39.240 --> 0:02:42.760 mother's family lived, and my dad's family lived not too 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:46.560 far away. So before age seven, my life was very 0:02:46.600 --> 0:02:50.920 stable and I'm just surrounded by loved once. And how 0:02:50.919 --> 0:02:55.040 old were you when um, your father who you called Baba, 0:02:55.320 --> 0:03:00.200 left China for America. I was five years old at 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:02.679 the time. I had no idea, and I don't think 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:05.640 any of us really had a sense that he was 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:09.280 leaving for very long. At first, he was leaving to 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:12.480 attend school, and we thought it would just be maybe 0:03:12.520 --> 0:03:16.519 a year nine months, but he ended up being gone 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:22.360 for two years. Describe both Bamba and your mother, who 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:26.560 you call Mama before the age of seven back in China, 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:32.360 they were extremely playful. My earliest memory was of them 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:36.400 tossing me in a blanket, throwing me up and down 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:41.720 as I shrieked and laughed, and that was really them. 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:45.320 They found the creative ways to play with me. My 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:49.200 mother made absolutely everything a game. I never fussed when 0:03:49.240 --> 0:03:51.600 taking a bath or doing any of the things that 0:03:51.800 --> 0:03:54.440 kids didn't like to do. I never fussed eating vegetables 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:57.280 because she just told me it was a game. When 0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:02.160 when she cooked, she made the carrot peel dance. It 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:06.240 was all a play, and life was just full of joy. 0:04:06.640 --> 0:04:10.680 My father, in particular, loved dancing, so he would go 0:04:10.720 --> 0:04:13.680 to the dance hall regularly and I would accompany him, 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:16.320 and my feet would be on his bigger feet and 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:20.400 he would move me around the room. We developed such 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:24.240 a ritual with dance that he came up with my 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:27.520 very special song that was just for me that he 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:32.120 made up and the words were all gibberish. But throughout 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:34.839 the days of my childhood in China, we would dance 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:38.400 to that at home pretty much every day. And you 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:42.599 were an only child, yes, due to the Chinese government's 0:04:42.680 --> 0:04:46.560 family planning policy. Unfortunately, I was an only child. I 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:49.279 really wanted disibling, but that was not in the cards. 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:53.800 When Jan Julie is seven, she and her mother fly 0:04:53.960 --> 0:04:55.760 to the United States to meet up with her father. 0:04:56.560 --> 0:05:00.839 It's not only a different country, it's a different universe altogether. 0:05:02.320 --> 0:05:06.039 Everything was new and quite bizarre. From the minute we 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:09.919 went to the airport, we started seeing people with different 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:13.560 color skin, different color eyes. I was living in a 0:05:13.560 --> 0:05:16.600 part of China where everyone looked the same. We were 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:19.320 all homogeneous, and I fit in. And all of a sudden, 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:22.599 I'm learning it's possible to have blue eyes and green 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:26.960 eyes and blonde hair. And my world just felt like 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:32.280 it was turned upside down. And then when we got 0:05:32.360 --> 0:05:36.400 out of the airport and my father was there, I 0:05:36.520 --> 0:05:40.599 saw how old and wan he looked. It looked like 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:44.320 he had aged decades in the span of two years. 0:05:45.320 --> 0:05:49.000 Um And all of a sudden, I saw this kind 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:53.120 of pallor and weariness fall upon both my parents, who 0:05:53.200 --> 0:05:56.360 once were so joyful and full of play and love 0:05:56.400 --> 0:06:00.760 and dance, they didn't really do that anymore. All around 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:04.320 us were people who looked nothing like me, and they 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:08.039 would say words to me that I didn't understand and 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:11.480 I would later know to be ethnic slurs. They would 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:16.440 pull their eyes back at me on the street and 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:19.760 mock who we were. We were really we settled in 0:06:20.360 --> 0:06:24.839 then Park Slope general area of Brooklyn and the nineties, 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:27.360 so it's very different in character than it is now, 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:31.360 and we were pretty much the only Asians in the neighborhood. 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:34.039 And of course at that point, I had no idea 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:36.880 what being quote unquote Asian was. I just thought I 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:39.919 was regular, and I had to learn to reckon with 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:45.719 race and our new environment. And then of course there 0:06:45.839 --> 0:06:49.800 was this messaging for my parents that I was not 0:06:49.880 --> 0:06:52.479 to tell people that I had immigrated, that I was 0:06:52.520 --> 0:06:57.360 to pretend that I was born here. This is really 0:06:57.360 --> 0:07:01.440 where Changelie's family secret begins. And as family's secrets go, 0:07:02.120 --> 0:07:06.320 it's a particularly unique and potent one because it's the 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:10.200 family's secret. They all share it, they're all in the know, 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:14.800 and they're all keeping it. This secret also extends beyond 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:18.160 Chian and Julie's immediate family and back into the layered 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:22.920 histories of her parents, particularly her father's childhood and young adulthood. 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:30.720 So when my father was four years old was when 0:07:31.120 --> 0:07:36.800 China's Cultural Revolution began. During the Cultural Revolution, Chairman Now 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:42.040 called upon the people of China to unify in the 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:46.960 name of communism, but really also kind of attack and 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:52.960 penalize in part the educated, the landlords, those who had 0:07:53.080 --> 0:07:57.000 education and had some semblance of power as compared to 0:07:57.160 --> 0:08:03.200 Chairman Now. It led to ten years, a full decade 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:08.320 of bloodshed. A lot of people were tortured, were publicly beaten, 0:08:08.440 --> 0:08:14.160 were imprisoned, disappeared overnight. Because China has a strong history 0:08:14.160 --> 0:08:17.080 of censorship, there is no real data on how many 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:21.280 people died, but it could be, you know, five hundred thousand, 0:08:21.320 --> 0:08:26.800 it could be millions. Historians really just can't ascertain. So 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:29.320 my father was four years old when this began, and 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:33.520 his first memory was that of two scholars who hung 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:37.320 from a tree, dead, and at their feet was written 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:41.200 in blood, the character for wrongly accused because they had 0:08:41.240 --> 0:08:46.040 been publicly persecuted for their scholarly thinking, and probably critical thought, 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:52.840 and then at age seven, my father then recalls the 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:56.040 Red Guards who acted at the behested Chairman Mount in 0:08:56.200 --> 0:09:01.400 terms of the cultural revolution, ransacking his home and dragging 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:04.680 his mother out to be publicly beaten. And this was 0:09:04.800 --> 0:09:09.720 because his brother had written a paper criticizing Chairman Now, 0:09:10.840 --> 0:09:14.000 asking the people of China to think about why, in 0:09:14.080 --> 0:09:16.800 the name of communism we were killing each other and 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:20.640 reporting on each other and who it really served. My 0:09:20.760 --> 0:09:24.720 uncle loved reading banned books. He hated being told what 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:27.400 not to read and what not to think, and so 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:33.800 he presented examples in history of dictatorships and controlling re 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:37.960 dreams that used the same tactic. He didn't sign his 0:09:38.080 --> 0:09:40.839 name to it, but neighbor saw him post it up. 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:44.079 And at that time, in that environment, you were encouraged 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:47.760 to report anyone around you who may be thought of 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:52.839 as a quote unquote counter revolutionary or traitor to the country. 0:09:53.400 --> 0:09:59.559 So my uncle, who was just eighteen, was imprisoned for decades, tortured, 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:04.640 star and because of that, my father went through his 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:09.800 entire schooling with the tarnished being a counter revolutionary, of 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:13.320 being a traitor. So in China it's the Red perchief 0:10:13.360 --> 0:10:15.000 that you were around your neck. It's like the honor 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:17.840 role he was just it was impossible for him to 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:21.480 get ahead in school, and teachers would have him stand 0:10:21.480 --> 0:10:24.640 at the front of the class and have his classmates 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:27.719 list all of the things that were wrong with him 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:34.160 and his family and his brother. So it really informed 0:10:34.640 --> 0:10:38.800 the man that he became. And unfortunately, of course, I 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:41.400 did not have much of this information until later in 0:10:41.440 --> 0:10:47.280 my adulthood, but it definitely informed how he interacted with 0:10:47.760 --> 0:10:51.320 Chinese government, the American government, how he educated me, and 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:54.480 how he taught me to think about the world's both 0:10:54.559 --> 0:11:00.240 for better and for worse. Chanel. These father's upbringing only 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:05.240 intensifies his focus on keeping his family safe, which means 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:11.160 keeping their undocumented status a secret. Their insular lives, compounded 0:11:11.160 --> 0:11:14.400 with the fact that Chian Julie does not yet speak English, 0:11:14.760 --> 0:11:19.640 means that her early education comes from watching television. The 0:11:19.720 --> 0:11:23.720 TV is always on in their house. She's also learning 0:11:23.920 --> 0:11:29.719 self protective behaviors adaptations. She's always counting, whether it's the 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:34.000 number of steps or number of tiles or whatever, harboring 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:37.319 a superstition that if she counts exactly the right number, 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:42.319 she'll be safe. She'll keep everyone safe. Part of keeping 0:11:42.360 --> 0:11:46.240 everyone safe involves arranging her face into a mask to 0:11:46.400 --> 0:11:50.040 keep her true feelings hidden. One place chian Julie wears 0:11:50.080 --> 0:11:52.640 this mask is at the sweatshop, where she works with 0:11:52.679 --> 0:11:56.520 her mother for pennies soon after they arrive in America. 0:11:56.800 --> 0:11:59.680 The sweatshop is full of surprises for young chian Julie, 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:03.559 not only the harsh conditions and low pay, but also 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:07.720 the hierarchy among swachshop workers, a hierarchy that has her 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:11.840 mom and her at the bottom. I remember walking into 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:16.280 that room. I had never in my short life realized 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:19.080 that a room like that existed. It was the middle 0:12:19.080 --> 0:12:22.880 of summer, was August. There was no air conditioning. There 0:12:22.960 --> 0:12:25.560 wasn't really even that many fans. There were a few 0:12:26.040 --> 0:12:30.160 ceiling fans. There was no ventilation. It was just rose 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:33.840 and rows and rows of people slumped over sewing machines. 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:39.040 And where people sat, I came to learn had meaning. 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:42.199 So people who sat in the front tended to do 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:47.640 the more high paying work. Attaching buttons to clothing was 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:51.040 required more skills, So I believe it was either ten 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:53.760 cents a button or ten cents per article clothing, probably 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:57.840 more likely article clothing. And my mother and I being 0:12:57.960 --> 0:13:00.679 brand new, and of course my mother there being a 0:13:00.679 --> 0:13:04.120 math professor, not a seamstress or anything of that kind, 0:13:04.880 --> 0:13:07.120 we were at the right back row, so we made 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:10.920 the least. My mother made three cents per article of clothing, 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:14.040 attaching labels to the you know, the back of a 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:18.080 shirt or dress, and I made one cent per art 0:13:18.120 --> 0:13:22.400 of clothing, snipping thread, loose thread off every piece that 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:27.120 she finished. And we came to learn also that by 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:30.520 virtue of the fact that we spoke Mandarin, we were 0:13:30.720 --> 0:13:35.920 viewed as lower ranking because more of the earlier Chinese 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:40.680 immigrants to America. We're from Guangdong and Southern China and 0:13:40.720 --> 0:13:44.439 spoke Cantonese. So whether or not you could speak Cantonese 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:49.080 became an emblem of status where we were from. In 0:13:49.120 --> 0:13:54.440 North China. There are similar prejudices against South China. Um 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:57.920 it's kind of similar to the parallels between North Northern 0:13:57.960 --> 0:14:02.880 States and Southern States. We thought Mandarin was the dialect 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:06.160 of the intellectual, and anyone who didn't speak it was 0:14:06.200 --> 0:14:10.480 not educated, and so there was a real sense of divide, 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:15.280 and I remember my mother remarking saying, even here, even 0:14:15.320 --> 0:14:19.200 among our people, we still don't belong. We don't have 0:14:19.240 --> 0:14:24.200 a home anymore, and it was incredibly heartbreaking. So you 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:29.640 carry that with you when you start grade school and 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:35.600 you speak Mandarin and the other Chinese children don't and 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:39.920 put you down for not being able to speak Cantonese, 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:46.320 and you pretty quickly are singled out. One of the 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:48.440 things that so striking to me about your story is 0:14:48.920 --> 0:14:51.560 the sort of spectacular teachers that you had and then 0:14:51.560 --> 0:14:56.040 the absolute disaster teachers that you had um And you know, 0:14:56.080 --> 0:15:00.160 you're singled out and put in a special classroom for 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:05.880 students who don't speak English and students who have special needs. Yes, 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:08.960 and there's no way that you can communicate to the 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:13.000 very tired teacher who is in charge of that classroom 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:15.160 that you do know how to read, and you do 0:15:15.280 --> 0:15:18.760 know how to think, and that you don't belong there. 0:15:20.960 --> 0:15:23.560 So what does she do to feel like she belongs? 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:27.000 Just as she absorbed the English language and American culture 0:15:27.080 --> 0:15:31.920 from watching television, she now reads every book she can. Clifford, 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:35.280 the Big Red Dog becomes her guide. Soon she and 0:15:35.360 --> 0:15:37.520 Julie begs her father to get her back into the 0:15:37.600 --> 0:15:42.440 right classroom where she can satiate her hunger for knowledge. Meanwhile, 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:50.680 another hunger persists, actual real hunger. I never knew hunger 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:53.520 in China. I mean, if you look at my photos 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:57.360 from China, I'm always holding something that I'm eating, usually 0:15:57.360 --> 0:16:02.000 a popsicle. I was very pledged in China because of 0:16:02.280 --> 0:16:06.920 how educated my my parents were, and when we arrived here, 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:13.119 I quickly realized that food was going to be a problem. 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:15.400 One of the early memories I share was my father 0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:18.600 bringing in one slice of pizza for all three of 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:21.240 us for dinner. And I didn't know what pizza was, 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:23.720 so I was fine with just having a bike because 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:27.360 the cheese was brand new to me. But as I 0:16:27.360 --> 0:16:30.760 started observing my parents and how stressed they were shopping 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:37.040 and how frugal they became, I realized that my hunger 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:41.600 was a burden on them instead of you know, in China, 0:16:41.640 --> 0:16:43.880 when I said I'm hungry, my mother would immediately get 0:16:43.920 --> 0:16:48.080 me something. She started saying, well, you know, just just 0:16:48.200 --> 0:16:51.200 hang onto that. That's how you know you're becoming stronger. 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:54.000 When you feel the cold sweat is when you know 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:57.960 you're you're really getting strong. And I could see the 0:16:58.040 --> 0:17:00.480 pain in her eyes when she said that. So I 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:07.240 started keeping that secret to myself. If I was hungry. 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:10.840 There was nothing I knew my parents could do. I 0:17:10.960 --> 0:17:14.399 might as well have kept that to myself and lessen 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:17.000 their burden. I don't think I was thinking of it 0:17:17.080 --> 0:17:19.800 that consciously as a kid. I just you know, children 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:22.960 soak up the emotional energy of those around them, and 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:26.040 especially their parents, and I could feel their stress around 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:29.879 food and around our weekly budget, which was only twenty dollars. 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:35.320 So I started going to school hungry every day. I 0:17:35.359 --> 0:17:39.080 told my mother that there was a free public school breakfast, 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:41.840 which there was, and there was a free public school lunch. 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:46.720 Of course those are never that nutritional, and I never 0:17:46.840 --> 0:17:49.680 got there early enough for the breakfast because I lived 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:52.439 in Brooklyn and went to school in Chinatown, Manhattan, and 0:17:52.480 --> 0:17:55.199 we worked late at the sweatshop, and it was this 0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:59.439 constant battle between sleep and hunger. And once I started 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:01.560 going to school later, I didn't want to then switch 0:18:01.640 --> 0:18:04.200 the times because that my mother would be tipped off 0:18:04.200 --> 0:18:07.920 that something was off. So I for all of my 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:12.280 elementary school years, I just went to school without breakfast, 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:17.160 and I remember the entire morning just being me staring 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:21.679 at the clock, feeling my stomach turning over itself. That 0:18:21.800 --> 0:18:26.119 gnawing sensation, the cold sweat, and telling myself to just 0:18:26.280 --> 0:18:29.600 hang on a little bit longer, you'll make it to lunch, 0:18:29.640 --> 0:18:32.400 and then you'll get that food. But by the time 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:36.480 I made it to that free lunch, I was shaking everywhere. 0:18:36.640 --> 0:18:40.399 I gulped everything down without really chewing it, and my 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:44.959 stomach never felt quite satisfied. The rest of the afternoon 0:18:45.160 --> 0:18:47.760 just felt like my stomach was now wrestling with these 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:50.320 giant pockets of air and these little kits of food 0:18:51.200 --> 0:18:55.280 with no real ability to process at all. So this 0:18:55.440 --> 0:19:00.600 was a bodily trauma that stayed with me for I mean, 0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:03.960 I still have I still have trouble not over buying 0:19:04.000 --> 0:19:07.240 foot I can't throw out any piece of food, And 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:10.760 when I was able to finally eat four meals, I 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:13.320 immediately felt like I had to throw up because my 0:19:13.359 --> 0:19:15.960 stomach was not used to being full anymore, and that 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:19.520 I struggled with throughout high school. It wasn't It was 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:22.920 a very different kind of eating disorder than the ones 0:19:22.960 --> 0:19:25.680 you typically seen in teenage girls, where I wanted to eat, 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:29.320 but my stomach was saying, we're not used to this anymore, 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:34.760 or maybe even don't get used to this. Yeah, absolutely, 0:19:36.359 --> 0:19:40.080 so after the sweatshop, there's this very harrowing and brief 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:42.840 period of time where your mother goes to work in 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:46.320 a sushi processing factory and and you go with her, 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:50.959 and it makes the sweatshop look like a day at 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:55.840 the beach. You're right, that's a that's an interesting analogy 0:19:55.880 --> 0:19:58.280 because I think of the sweatshop as being very hot 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:01.040 and then the sushi press the same plant as being 0:20:01.600 --> 0:20:05.400 freezing cold, in part because of the seasons in which 0:20:05.440 --> 0:20:09.040 we went there. But yes, my first day going with 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:12.200 my mother, she had been working there for a while. 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:17.320 I went into the warehouse door and I saw that 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:21.879 she was putting on these thick rubber boots and blue 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:25.480 plastic cape. And the minute the door had opened, I 0:20:25.560 --> 0:20:29.240 felt this giant gust of freezing hair come out. And 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:32.160 then as we passed through the ante chamber and into 0:20:32.200 --> 0:20:36.680 the main area, I noticed that there's water on the 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:41.040 floor and it is freezing. My My skin immediately prickles. 0:20:41.840 --> 0:20:45.440 And because my mother had to process salmon and keep 0:20:45.480 --> 0:20:49.679 it in top shape, it had to be processed and 0:20:49.760 --> 0:20:54.399 freezing water with ice cubes around her. The factory was 0:20:54.480 --> 0:20:58.360 not very well equipped or it was kind of old, 0:20:58.600 --> 0:21:01.720 so the basins had leaks in them, and it would 0:21:01.720 --> 0:21:06.040 just be leaking water through the cracks into our boots 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:10.359 all around us for the twelve or fourteen hours that 0:21:10.480 --> 0:21:16.200 we worked, and it was impossible, impossible to get warm 0:21:16.240 --> 0:21:21.440 in that room. I remember coming home, having an hour 0:21:21.520 --> 0:21:24.840 canoe getting home where it was also cold, but warmer, 0:21:25.560 --> 0:21:29.080 and just the veins all over my arms, all over 0:21:29.080 --> 0:21:32.879 my mother's arms, still so visible. My mother would go 0:21:32.960 --> 0:21:34.879 to the kitchen that we shared with our roommates and 0:21:34.920 --> 0:21:38.560 boil water just to feel her hands again, because again 0:21:39.440 --> 0:21:42.000 she her fingers were in ice water this whole time, 0:21:42.720 --> 0:21:45.560 and um, I mean they had gloves available, but to 0:21:46.080 --> 0:21:50.440 prepare the fish properly, you kind of had to use 0:21:50.480 --> 0:21:53.160 their hands. And if you didn't prepare the fish properly 0:21:53.200 --> 0:21:55.879 and you damage some fish, and your pay was dogged. 0:21:56.480 --> 0:21:59.359 So she just didn't want to risk that. And so 0:21:59.480 --> 0:22:02.600 this day her hands don't look the same. I still 0:22:02.640 --> 0:22:05.399 see her veins, and every time I do, I think of, 0:22:06.040 --> 0:22:10.359 I'm just sent back to that environment where she, I 0:22:10.359 --> 0:22:14.520 don't know, risk her bodily health for a meal on 0:22:14.560 --> 0:22:28.440 a table. We'll be right back. She and Julie's childhood 0:22:28.480 --> 0:22:32.320 in America is proving to be beyond challenging and without 0:22:32.400 --> 0:22:36.040 any of the childlike magic she'd once known back in China. 0:22:36.400 --> 0:22:40.720 But then something happens Christmas. This is the first time 0:22:40.760 --> 0:22:44.879 she feels like she understands how this country, America, could 0:22:44.920 --> 0:22:50.200 be a beautiful country. The first time I saw Fifth 0:22:50.240 --> 0:22:56.280 Avenue during the holidays, I thought, Oh, here's the America 0:22:56.400 --> 0:23:00.320 that I heard about back then in China. There were 0:23:00.320 --> 0:23:04.680 really two depictions of America. One was of homeless people 0:23:04.920 --> 0:23:08.080 on the street, hungry and begging and fighting over food, 0:23:08.720 --> 0:23:13.200 and the other was of roads paved with gold, where 0:23:13.240 --> 0:23:18.160 no one was hungry and everyone had everything they absolutely wanted. 0:23:18.240 --> 0:23:22.240 And it was unclear to all of us through what 0:23:22.400 --> 0:23:25.480 the government censored to us which one was the truth. 0:23:26.720 --> 0:23:31.639 And our reality unfortunately fell closer to the former. But 0:23:31.800 --> 0:23:35.440 when I saw Fifth Avenue, I thought, here's the one 0:23:36.160 --> 0:23:39.000 that I had been promised that my uncle was excited 0:23:39.040 --> 0:23:43.440 for me to experience. It does, in fact exists, I'm 0:23:43.600 --> 0:23:48.040 just not privy to it all the time. When I 0:23:48.080 --> 0:23:51.080 was standing outside of it must have been Sacks or 0:23:51.080 --> 0:23:54.199 one of those department stores with the lights dancing and 0:23:54.240 --> 0:23:59.560 the figurines in the window display, I realized how easily 0:24:00.600 --> 0:24:05.520 people could fall in love with this country, that magic 0:24:05.720 --> 0:24:09.200 for change. Julie is also soon found in the library, 0:24:09.240 --> 0:24:12.000 where she spends as much time as she possibly can. 0:24:12.640 --> 0:24:16.240 She lives and breathes books. They are her friends, her 0:24:16.280 --> 0:24:21.239 windows into possibility. She also makes positive connections outside her 0:24:21.280 --> 0:24:24.639 family for the first time, with her third grade teacher, 0:24:24.880 --> 0:24:29.080 Ms Pong, and with Elaine, her new best friend. Finally, 0:24:29.200 --> 0:24:31.879 she has a sleepover at Elaine's house, which should be 0:24:31.920 --> 0:24:37.160 a highlight, but instead, Changuli is plagued by a terrible homesickness. 0:24:39.680 --> 0:24:44.800 This fear of separation made so much sense because you 0:24:44.960 --> 0:24:48.119 had drilled in you, um from the time that you 0:24:48.320 --> 0:24:53.879 arrived in America, this feeling of don't trust anyone. You know, 0:24:53.960 --> 0:24:57.679 we're only safe with our own kind. Tell them you 0:24:57.720 --> 0:25:00.840 were born here and that you've always lived here, and 0:25:00.920 --> 0:25:04.399 the idea that it could all vanish at any moment. 0:25:04.640 --> 0:25:07.119 And you get through the night, but you've called, and 0:25:07.119 --> 0:25:10.479 you've said to your parents, please come get me or 0:25:10.600 --> 0:25:13.440 let me come home, and and the next morning they 0:25:13.480 --> 0:25:17.840 do meet you and take you home. Yep, I mean, 0:25:17.880 --> 0:25:22.240 I think one important bit that jumped up at me 0:25:22.560 --> 0:25:26.360 looking back was that my father had boarded a plane 0:25:27.520 --> 0:25:33.960 and then just disappeared for two years. So their presence 0:25:34.040 --> 0:25:38.760 felt very conditional to me. From that point on, I 0:25:38.840 --> 0:25:42.879 remember being very clingy and having a lot of separation 0:25:42.880 --> 0:25:45.720 anxiety towards my mother, even when we were in China 0:25:45.840 --> 0:25:51.240 after my father left. Whenever she try to get a 0:25:51.320 --> 0:25:53.360 visa to the US, and she had to try many 0:25:53.440 --> 0:25:57.159 times and get rejected. Many times. She had to go 0:25:57.200 --> 0:25:59.480 to Beijing, which might I had to stay home with 0:25:59.520 --> 0:26:01.520 my grandpa parents, and I would cry thinking that I 0:26:01.520 --> 0:26:04.200 would never see her again. So this whole idea of 0:26:04.760 --> 0:26:08.560 people can just disappear and your whole life as you 0:26:08.600 --> 0:26:12.120 know it can change in a second, was very much 0:26:12.200 --> 0:26:15.560 drilled into me by the immigrant experience, you know. Then 0:26:15.600 --> 0:26:18.240 we boarded that planet. I never saw my grandparents and 0:26:18.320 --> 0:26:22.639 my uncles or my aunt again. And then there was 0:26:22.720 --> 0:26:27.800 the elements, as you mentioned earlier, of superstition. I thought 0:26:27.800 --> 0:26:31.240 that if I did everything right, then I could minimize 0:26:31.280 --> 0:26:35.000 the harm that my parents were exposed to. And I 0:26:35.040 --> 0:26:38.800 thought that if I stayed with them and watched them, 0:26:38.880 --> 0:26:43.040 that that would ensure that they stayed safe. And there's 0:26:43.119 --> 0:26:46.040 really no rhyme or reason to thinking that. It was 0:26:46.160 --> 0:26:50.880 just when you're a child, and you have zero control 0:26:50.960 --> 0:26:54.840 or power over what's happening. You grasp onto what little 0:26:54.920 --> 0:26:58.840 you can, like getting to that street signed before the 0:26:58.920 --> 0:27:03.320 light changes, are watching your parents like a hawk. So 0:27:03.359 --> 0:27:06.119 all of these superstitions just became embedded in me, and 0:27:06.119 --> 0:27:10.160 they became this kind of talisman that I held onto 0:27:10.359 --> 0:27:12.359 to feel like I was doing what I could to 0:27:12.440 --> 0:27:16.040 keep us safe while having very little power at all. 0:27:17.400 --> 0:27:21.760