WEBVTT - Telenovela 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:08.320 Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio. Some people's questions 0:00:08.360 --> 0:00:12.520 and comments pricked like a splinter, no blood lost, but 0:00:12.600 --> 0:00:16.000 sticking under my skin. Others burned in my chest so 0:00:16.160 --> 0:00:18.800 hard that I could barely speak the rest of the day. 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:24.920 I was never Latina enough, Dominican enough, American enough, Chinese enough. 0:00:25.560 --> 0:00:30.880 Even the fetishizing and backhanded compliments left bruises Chinese. Oh 0:00:31.000 --> 0:00:34.680 that's where you get your cheekbones and your brains, sexy blend, 0:00:34.840 --> 0:00:38.599 best of both worlds. You're like a mut. MutS are 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:43.760 smarter and better than other dogs. Dogs. I can't tell 0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:46.760 you how many times white people thought they were complimenting 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:52.320 me using references to dog breeding. Identity shouldn't be such pain. 0:00:53.159 --> 0:00:56.480 It shouldn't be about playing an exhausting defense to simply 0:00:56.520 --> 0:01:00.160 exist on par with the majority culture. It means, as 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:05.280 a default, white is best and you are less. Always. 0:01:06.319 --> 0:01:08.600 I just wanted to live and feel good about who 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:13.360 I was, all my parts. 0:01:15.000 --> 0:01:19.920 That's Carmen Rito Wong, radio television and online journalist, personal 0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:23.440 finance expert, an author of the memoir Why Didn't You 0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:28.120 Tell Me? Carmen's is a story about race, identity, secrecy, 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:31.240 and all the ways our lives are formed by what 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:44.679 we don't yet know. I'm Danny Shapiro, and this is 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:47.640 family secrets, the secrets that are kept from us, the 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:50.559 secrets we keep from others, and the secrets we keep 0:01:50.600 --> 0:01:54.080 from ourselves. 0:01:57.840 --> 0:02:02.680 The landscape of my childhood actually centered on two places. 0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:06.240 So the beginning I started in Harlem. I had a 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:09.840 Dominican mother and a Chinese father, and that was the 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:13.360 first landscape where I was surrounded by family immigrants from 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:17.680 the Dominican Republic, my cousins, we came in all shades 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:22.919 that we come in as Dominicans. And also my father 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:26.240 at the time, Poppy Wang, who was a Chinese immigrant, 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:29.280 and he would take us oun in Chinatown all the time. 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:33.320 So it was a very rich landscape to start in 0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:38.880 growing up with Poppy, with this Chinese father who was 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:44.520 essentially a Chinese gangster, which I didn't discover till decades later. 0:02:45.680 --> 0:02:50.760 Very slick, hustler, businessman type, super charming. I joke I 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:54.280 learned my hustle from him. He was so charming. He 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:56.959 would take my brother and I all dressed up, especially 0:02:57.040 --> 0:03:00.400 on Sundays, and Sundays was the best day because my 0:03:00.560 --> 0:03:04.240 grandmother Mayamuela would dress us up in the finest clothes 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:08.400 you could have at tiny ages and a little fur 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:11.359 chubby coach. She made me from, you know, remnants from 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:14.280 she was a seamstress for Oscar to Laurenta, and she 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:17.360 made me these things to dress us up for Chinatown 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:20.680 for Poppy, because when he would show up in his 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:23.320 big car, a car in New York City, a big, 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:27.840 you know, obnoxious car sedan, bring us downtown. The restaurant 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:29.960 that we would go to on a Sunday was very 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:32.200 different from the Chinese restaurants we would go to during 0:03:32.240 --> 0:03:35.320 the week Chinatown. During the week, the visits were to 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:39.839 the basement restaurants with the duck in the window right, 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:43.760 which I loved, by the way, absolutely loved. But on 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:48.320 the weekend it was a very fancy, enormous restaurants that 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:51.280 take up like a whole floor, and they're filled with 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:55.360 gold and red and actually have white tablecloths, and there 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:59.360 was a dais where the most important people, the VIPs, 0:03:59.400 --> 0:04:02.680 got to sit up on dis and Poppy would take 0:04:02.720 --> 0:04:06.160 my brother and I, who we were just little brown 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:10.000 children with black curly hair who didn't look very much 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:13.000 like him, you know, have us trailing behind him and 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:17.839 take us up to introduce us to the Dawn basically 0:04:17.880 --> 0:04:20.960 his boss of the gang, and just kind of brag 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:22.839 about us. And it was very cute, but it felt 0:04:22.839 --> 0:04:27.320 made us feel important. It made us feel valued, even 0:04:27.360 --> 0:04:30.760 though he was not a very good father to be honest, 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:36.040 we got the message from my grandmother, especially really doting 0:04:36.080 --> 0:04:38.799 on us and then Poppy Wong bringing us and parading 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:42.520 us around that we had value and that was really 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:45.640 really important. So that's one big lesson he gave to us. 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:49.160 And then the second landscape was when my mother divorced 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:55.359 Poppy and remarried Anglo American gentleman who my stepfather moved 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:59.880 us out of the city to New Hampshire, which in 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:02.880 the late seventies and early eighties was could have been 0:05:02.920 --> 0:05:05.800 the moon. I might as well have landed on another planet. 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:09.880 Compared to the first landscape of my life, it was 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:14.120 more than suburban, rural, all white landscape that we were 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:15.520 quite alien in. 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:21.080 So it was your stepdad Marty, who you eventually began 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:24.800 to call dad, and your older brother Alex, Yes, and 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:29.359 your mother Lupe, and yourself Yes. What was that like 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:33.640 for you growing up in that landscape? In which you 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:37.880 and your mom and your brother just looked different from 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:39.160 everybody around you. 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:42.480 Growing up as a kid in New Hampshire, you know, 0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:47.360 around essentially people who It wasn't just about the color. 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:50.599 It wasn't just the fact that it was whiteness and 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:54.240 we were brown and you know, basically light skinned black 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:57.800 people with Chinese as well. It was culture. It was 0:05:57.920 --> 0:06:00.960 literally everything from the way my mother dressed me, the 0:06:00.960 --> 0:06:06.080 way she dressed or done her hair, or the food language. 0:06:06.120 --> 0:06:08.440 We weren't allowed to speak Spanish anymore at home, or 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:12.560 eat Latin food or Chinese food, any kind of ethnicity 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:16.719 at all was very much erased. It was the first 0:06:16.760 --> 0:06:19.440 place too, I mean, that was the internal process was 0:06:20.400 --> 0:06:23.800 you know, all the things that I had known were 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:27.760 suddenly told that I wasn't allowed to be those things anymore. 0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:32.039 And there's that feeling too, of being othered, which is 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:35.080 something I had never experienced up until that point. Nor 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:38.000 my mother, even though she was an immigrant. She came 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:41.000 to a community in New York City where so many 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:43.760 people were just like her all around the city, but 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:46.880 in this place there was nobody like us. So it 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:50.760 was the first time we were othered, and it didn't 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:54.719 come with good feelings. I didn't know it was bad 0:06:54.960 --> 0:06:59.600 or wrong or lesser than to be brown or ethnic 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:03.560 or black or whatever else. And it was a hard 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:06.159 lesson to learn that that's the way it is in 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:13.000 some places. Hair to African American women is incredibly important. 0:07:13.760 --> 0:07:17.600 It's a soul thing, right, It's a really about identity 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:21.640 and pride. And my mother, you know, being of African descent, 0:07:21.800 --> 0:07:24.000 she had been straightening her hair for a long time, 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:26.640 which was you know, typical Dominicans are known for how 0:07:26.640 --> 0:07:29.120 they straightened hair so well because the hair is so mixed. 0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:34.360 But in New Hampshire, you know, she really felt the 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:41.280 pressure to erase any outward signs of her African ancestry, 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:43.320 so her hair was straightened. He was put in a 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:48.520 bun every day, and she was kind of chafing a 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:51.960 couple of years. In chafing at all the erasure, she 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:55.840 started sneaking in Spanish music. When Marty wasn't home. She 0:07:55.920 --> 0:07:59.720 found a market that actually sold things like yuca casava, 0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:02.880 and she would bring that home and boil it or plantains. 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:05.560 She'd go way out of her way to find some 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:08.680 and do it when he wasn't there. And one day 0:08:09.600 --> 0:08:13.040 we kids were at home and she walked in the door. 0:08:13.560 --> 0:08:15.000 I had been left alone with the kids, which was 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:17.560 totally normal for an eleven year old to be left 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:22.520 with four babies, including newborn. She came home and instead 0:08:22.520 --> 0:08:27.120 of her pulled tight back, straight gun, she had a 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:34.280 short auburn afro, and I thought it was amazing. I 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:37.400 was like shocked and in awe. And she had seen 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:41.640 it like that earlier that week on someone she loved, 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:46.680 Rita Moreno was on Sesame Street, and of course we 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:49.400 kids all watch that, and Rita Modena had a short 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:53.160 auburn afro, and my mother just fell in love with it. 0:08:53.440 --> 0:08:56.839 She came home with that. My first reaction was, oh, 0:08:56.880 --> 0:09:00.319 my gosh, this is amazing. It felt rebellious, it feltnxiety, 0:09:00.440 --> 0:09:04.680 it felt very authentic. And then the second reaction was, 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:11.280 oh no, and my gut just dropped because I realized 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:15.520 that this was going to be somehow conflict. And she 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:17.160 was very happy. I talked to her about her hair. 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:19.839 I said it looked beautiful all these things, and then 0:09:19.880 --> 0:09:22.880 Marty came home and he took a look at her 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:27.960 in silence and gestured for her to go upstairs with him, 0:09:28.320 --> 0:09:33.600 and she came back down by herself maybe twenty minutes later, 0:09:34.280 --> 0:09:39.200 with a scarf covering her hair, and she kept that 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:43.120 scarf on her head until her hair was long enough 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:45.720 to pull it back again into a bun. 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:50.240 If Ever, a hairstyle is a metaphor. 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:55.679 Yes, very much so. And the message I received as 0:09:55.720 --> 0:09:59.160 a kid was don't be yourself. 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:04.680 After Carmen and her family moved to New Hampshire, her 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:08.400 mother and her stepdad, Marty, have four kids together, all 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:13.320 girls in quick succession. Carmen's mother is a mercurial woman. 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:17.160 She's incredibly loving and caring, but she also has a 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:21.040 real temper. Her rage just seems to ignite and explode 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:25.200 at the slightest provocation. At one point, Carmen and her 0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:27.920 brother Alex even call her Dragon Lady. 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:35.760 I really worked hard and over the years to see 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:39.240 my mother as not a villain, to really humanize her, 0:10:40.120 --> 0:10:47.680 because for decades I was sincerely angry at the i'll 0:10:47.720 --> 0:10:51.520 say it trauma and abuse that we endured and the 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:54.960 role that she put me in as essentially a mother. 0:10:55.160 --> 0:11:00.000 I was parentified or parentified, so I became a parent. 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:04.240 I was also taking care of her and Marty psychologically 0:11:04.320 --> 0:11:07.200 and in many ways, and I really resented that, so 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:11.040 it was very, very difficult. My mother wasn't the most 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:15.160 affectionate person and loving person. She was very much about 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:18.079 do as I say, you know, keep your head down, 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:21.040 don't cry, don't be angry, don't have emotions, that sort 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:23.160 of thing. Don't rattle me. So it was a lot 0:11:23.200 --> 0:11:28.040 of walking on eggshells. And it got worse because in 0:11:28.080 --> 0:11:32.480 New Hampshire she was completely isolated from her family, from 0:11:32.480 --> 0:11:36.480 her culture, from everything she knew, and her world simply 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:41.200 consisted of that house and all those babies and Marty. 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:43.680 And the trouble is is that my mother, as I 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:46.680 got to know her, really examining her life and looking 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:53.359 at her, she was incredibly ambitious, intelligent. I found boxes 0:11:53.559 --> 0:11:58.520 of her writing, which was pretty amazing for someone whose 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:03.560 education stopped at fifteen. And she was frustrated that she 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:08.840 was basically living her life through her reproductive organs, and 0:12:08.880 --> 0:12:11.719 she took it out on us. The dragon lady part 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:14.000 was as she pushed and pushed my brother and I 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:18.400 academically to our wits end, we also had to work 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:21.320 as well. I was working twenty thirty hours a week 0:12:21.360 --> 0:12:23.959 in high school and get straight a's and take care 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:25.640 of the kids. All of these things. She pushed and 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:29.920 pushed yes, because of course immigrant parents they want the 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:33.880 best for you. But she also resented the freedom I 0:12:34.000 --> 0:12:40.520 had to dream and plan and leave and live a life. 0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:45.520 So I felt the brunt of that resentment often. Back then, 0:12:46.000 --> 0:12:48.120 Here's the thing. You grew up with this kind of 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:54.920 a little embarrassing, boisterous, over the top, slick rick Chinese father, 0:12:55.760 --> 0:12:57.679 and then you go to New Hampshire where you have 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:02.120 this graduate school eduction. I hated, you know, Anglo father 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:07.160 who exposes you to cars and chopping wood and stock 0:13:07.240 --> 0:13:10.000 market and all of these things that American culture says 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:14.079 are the best things. Right. So I had this contrast, 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:17.839 and I also wanted to be part of this new 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:22.120 family where he and my mother had my four little sisters. 0:13:22.640 --> 0:13:25.880 I didn't like feeling like I wasn't part of that. 0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:30.280 So I really tried to get close to Marty. You know, 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:32.280 his head was behind the Wall Street Journal, and I'd 0:13:32.280 --> 0:13:34.360 ask him about, you know, the stock, what's the stock, 0:13:34.440 --> 0:13:36.679 and what's this? And it all served me great professionally, 0:13:37.520 --> 0:13:42.720 but I always still felt on the outside. Moving to 0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:47.679 New Hampshire, we would drive back to New York at 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:50.440 least four time career. I say, I joke, I say, 0:13:50.440 --> 0:13:53.080 it's like once a quarter. So once a quarter. Usually 0:13:53.120 --> 0:13:55.320 on holidays and long weekends, my mother would pile all 0:13:55.360 --> 0:13:59.760 of us babies. Marty would stay home during school breaks 0:13:59.800 --> 0:14:02.520 and pile us all in the van, the mini van, 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:05.560 and go back down to the city Trall department and 0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:08.640 stay with our grandparents. And that's where we would see 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:11.840 Poppy again. And his thing was is he would show up, 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:14.560 you know, take us, of course again to Chinatown. But 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:16.160 he would show up and he'd have like a wad 0:14:16.760 --> 0:14:20.080 a roll of bills. If we were lucky, it was 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:23.160 a role which meant he was flush, you know, and 0:14:23.280 --> 0:14:26.280 he would take off bills and be like you want one, 0:14:26.360 --> 0:14:29.200 you want too, you know, and give us spending money 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:32.320 which would end up in my mother's pocket. But that's fine. 0:14:32.720 --> 0:14:34.800 He had to take care of us somehow. But he 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:37.960 really showed us a whole other world and that kept up. 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:42.200 And I'm telling you, Chinatown for us was essentially home 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:45.680 for Poppy, even though he lived in other chinatowns. When 0:14:45.680 --> 0:14:47.960 I was an adult, he lived in the Chinatown by 0:14:47.960 --> 0:14:52.760 Sunset Park in Brooklyn. He really kept us close to 0:14:52.800 --> 0:14:54.440 that identity. On purpose. 0:14:58.000 --> 0:15:01.360 There's a lot Carmen doesn't know or understand about Poppy. 0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:04.840 When Carmen is sixteen, her mother sits down on her 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:08.160 bed one evening while she's studying. Her mother is holding 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:12.200 a crumpled Kleenex in her hand. She's been crying. Carmen's 0:15:12.240 --> 0:15:15.400 stomach is in knots because she knows something big is coming. 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:19.800 And then her mother says, your Poppy has been arrested. 0:15:21.640 --> 0:15:25.640 I just couldn't believe it. I didn't understand it at all. 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:29.080 I mean, when you're sixteen, a teenager, and somebody says 0:15:29.080 --> 0:15:33.000 a parent has been arrested, and you know it's very bad, 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:35.680 you have a feeling. It creates such a storm in 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:38.760 your brain. I didn't know how to comprehend what I 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:41.960 was hearing. And she made it worse by telling me 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:45.040 that he had been picked up with my brother, who 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:49.520 had just graduated, the first in the family to finish 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:52.400 high school for Peasack and graduate from college. She just 0:15:52.440 --> 0:15:58.000 graduated from Georgetown University. And he really was a When 0:15:58.040 --> 0:16:01.920 I talk about straight and narrow, this guy was straight edge, 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:04.560 as we used to say. And I felt so bad 0:16:04.600 --> 0:16:07.280 for him, and thankfully they let him off, but my 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:10.520 mother told me he'd been arrested for transporting drugs. 0:16:11.600 --> 0:16:14.240 Your brother, Alex had absolutely no idea what was going on. 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:16.520 He was just absolutely he was in the wrong place 0:16:16.960 --> 0:16:19.360 at the wrong time, just being with Poppy. 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:22.960 Yeah, poor Alex. Part of the reason why they let 0:16:23.000 --> 0:16:26.840 him go so quickly was because the poor man boy, 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:29.200 I mean, he was only like twenty two twenty one, 0:16:29.720 --> 0:16:33.120 was crying so much. He was so shaken up. He 0:16:33.200 --> 0:16:36.040 had no idea. Because the thing is is that we 0:16:36.120 --> 0:16:41.040 knew Poppy Wong as someone who made jewelry, costume jewelry 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:45.040 that went to places like Macy's and Bloomingdale, you know, 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:48.560 all the earrings and bracelets and all that stuff. Basically 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:51.960 Chinese immigrant women would put the jewelry together. He would 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:55.560 transport it in these boxes, and Alex and I always got, 0:16:55.640 --> 0:16:57.720 you know, the extra stuff, like I loved, I got 0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:01.920 boxes of extra jewelry. My brother didn't know that underneath 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:08.240 that jewelry sometimes were drugs. And he had absolutely no idea. 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:10.879 And Poppy was like, oh, go, you know, go on 0:17:10.920 --> 0:17:12.560 and run with me. I have to go drop something 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:14.960 off before we have dinner. And my brother was like. 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:20.080 Oh, okay, And thank god he got out, but it 0:17:20.119 --> 0:17:23.040 was devastating for us, not just because we then couldn't 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:27.000 see Pobby for years because he was convicted, but because 0:17:27.640 --> 0:17:31.000 he had been the source of money to support my 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:31.639 brother and I. 0:17:32.680 --> 0:17:38.119 Marty was not supporting Alex and I, and I was 0:17:38.160 --> 0:17:40.800 heading to college myself, and all of a sudden, I 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:46.600 had no money. Marty was not supporting my brother and 0:17:46.640 --> 0:17:49.760 I at all. Besides, we were living in the same house. 0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:53.520 We had our bedrooms, we had food to eat, that 0:17:53.560 --> 0:17:59.399 sort of thing, anything like clothes, school tuition, any of 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:03.680 that stuff came from Poppy. So I asked my mother 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:08.080 why you know we lived in the house with him, like, 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:11.159 and they were divorced, and I was curious. And I 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:13.680 don't know why I felt entitled to it, frankly as 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:17.119 a stepfather, but I think as a kid, I just assumed, well, 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:19.280 you know, I call you dad now, and you know 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:23.040 we're here. Help us out. What my mother said that 0:18:23.840 --> 0:18:27.960 Marty had no responsibility for my brother and I, and 0:18:28.000 --> 0:18:31.960 she wouldn't let him have responsibility for us. It was 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:35.600 just Poppy. So when he was put away, all of 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:38.560 a sudden, I was completely supporting myself. From the age 0:18:38.600 --> 0:18:39.640 of sixteen. 0:18:42.880 --> 0:18:51.000 We'll be right back in a couple of years. Carmen 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:53.960 goes off to college and the situation with Marty becomes 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:57.760 even more tenuous. He loses his job, doesn't find a 0:18:57.800 --> 0:19:01.240 new one for many years, and eventually he and Carmen's 0:19:01.280 --> 0:19:01.960 mother divorce. 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:07.920 Things were getting really bad at home between my mother 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:12.080 and Marty, and it was severely affecting my younger sisters. 0:19:13.240 --> 0:19:15.520 I really felt for them, and we would talk sometimes 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:18.440 late at night on the phone and say, oh my gosh, 0:19:18.480 --> 0:19:21.679 if we could only adopt them, take them out of 0:19:21.680 --> 0:19:25.679 the house and adopt them, because the anger in that 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:29.560 house was so toxic. My mother kind of went free 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:31.959 on her own way and started traveling and being her 0:19:31.960 --> 0:19:36.240 own person and all that, and Marty kind of went downhill. 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:40.640 We had been very close, and it wasn't as good 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:42.240 as I would have liked it to be, but we 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:45.760 kept talking. Of course, he was, you know, my stepdad, 0:19:45.800 --> 0:19:51.440 my dad, and my sister's dad. Hobby was incarcerated for 0:19:51.560 --> 0:19:55.159 quite a few years, at least until my twenties. He 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:58.320 made it out to a halfway house for a couple 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:03.000 of years and then and by my early twenties he 0:20:03.119 --> 0:20:04.960 was back in our life. And I was back to 0:20:04.960 --> 0:20:07.600 living in the city after college, and he was back 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:09.879 to calling me up and saying he's gonna take me 0:20:09.960 --> 0:20:12.720 to Chinatown, and he had oranges and frozen shrimp to 0:20:12.720 --> 0:20:16.000 give to me and all these sort of things, wanting 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:18.639 to connect. So as I became an adult, and I 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:23.160 reconnected with Poppy once he was free and working again. 0:20:23.960 --> 0:20:26.760 I was the only kid in the city. I was 0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:30.040 the only one in the family who came back. My 0:20:30.119 --> 0:20:33.800 brother moved out to the suburbs with his wife and daughter, 0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:36.719 and it was up to me to be, you know, 0:20:37.000 --> 0:20:41.680 the devoted child and take care of our father and 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:44.120 all of that, even though Alex came back and hung 0:20:44.119 --> 0:20:46.160 out with us quite a bit. But so I got 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:50.920 to know Poppy more and more, and I spent a 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:53.359 lot of time also with him and my brother together 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:57.600 and all three of us. And sometimes Pobby could be 0:20:57.720 --> 0:21:01.679 way too much to handle, way too you know, just 0:21:01.720 --> 0:21:04.520 like my mother, no boundaries, you know, whatsoever. And I 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:07.520 just started to notice, or I started to look at 0:21:07.600 --> 0:21:11.840 him and look at my brother and not understand where 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:14.440 I fit. I've always been super close to my brother, 0:21:14.520 --> 0:21:17.360 but he's always been more We call it chino Latino right, 0:21:17.560 --> 0:21:21.199 is when you're both Asian and Latino. So we were 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:23.119 both Chino Latino, and I used to joke that he 0:21:23.200 --> 0:21:26.960 was the Gino and I was the Latino Latina because 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:30.840 I was much more Dominican and he was much more Chinese. 0:21:31.080 --> 0:21:34.639 But I something was gnawing at me that I couldn't 0:21:34.680 --> 0:21:38.159 put my finger on that. I just felt somehow that 0:21:38.320 --> 0:21:42.280 there was a piece missing. I was looking for where 0:21:42.359 --> 0:21:45.879 Poppy lived in me. It wasn't that I was looking 0:21:45.880 --> 0:21:50.080 for being Chinese. The culture was there, the ethnicity was there. 0:21:50.160 --> 0:21:53.680 I'm talking about like the human being of Peter, which 0:21:53.720 --> 0:21:57.159 was what his name was, Peter Wong. Where was he 0:21:57.320 --> 0:22:04.480 in me? His attitude, his personality, his temper, his jokes, 0:22:04.560 --> 0:22:07.199 like all these sort of things. Where was it? And 0:22:07.880 --> 0:22:09.520 I couldn't find it? And that's where kind of the 0:22:09.600 --> 0:22:13.359 seed was planted that something was up. I was also 0:22:13.440 --> 0:22:17.760 going through my own turmoil relationships and a divorce in 0:22:17.800 --> 0:22:20.520 my twenties, and all these things happening. I had just 0:22:20.560 --> 0:22:25.359 been through awful, devastating divorce or a starter marriage, as 0:22:25.359 --> 0:22:29.159 I call it. To a upwardly mobile Latino gentleman, we 0:22:29.560 --> 0:22:32.320 matched on that upwardly mobile thing, and unfortunately that was 0:22:32.400 --> 0:22:35.560 all we had in comment. But I was heartbroken. But 0:22:35.600 --> 0:22:37.280 I was on my own. I had my own apartment 0:22:37.280 --> 0:22:40.479 in Washington Heights. I was going to graduate school at 0:22:40.480 --> 0:22:43.679 Columbia University Teachers College, which is something I'd always dreamed of. 0:22:47.880 --> 0:22:51.080 During this time, already dealing with so much tumult and 0:22:51.119 --> 0:22:54.919 emotional difficulty, Carmen gets a call from her brother Alex, 0:22:55.400 --> 0:22:59.119 which brings forth even more. He says he has something 0:22:59.359 --> 0:23:03.320 very important to tell her. Their mother has joined an 0:23:03.400 --> 0:23:07.920 evangelical church. In her conversion process, she's been told she 0:23:08.040 --> 0:23:11.639 must share her sins, so she tells Alex that she 0:23:11.720 --> 0:23:15.600 had had three abortions, two before Carmen was born and 0:23:15.640 --> 0:23:16.320 one after. 0:23:17.720 --> 0:23:20.040 My brother and I were We were just shocked and 0:23:20.080 --> 0:23:22.439 we were just like, well, what does this mean? What 0:23:22.480 --> 0:23:25.720 does this mean? And something went click in my head 0:23:25.760 --> 0:23:29.840 and I said, Oh my god, why was she having 0:23:29.880 --> 0:23:34.000 these abortions? She must have been having an affair. And 0:23:34.040 --> 0:23:36.600 my brother's like, oh no, no, you know no, she 0:23:36.640 --> 0:23:38.520 wouldn't have done that. She wouldn't have done that. And 0:23:38.560 --> 0:23:40.760 I couldn't get out of my head the idea that 0:23:40.800 --> 0:23:43.280 there was something she was hiding and that she had 0:23:43.320 --> 0:23:45.200 been having an affair. I didn't know what it meant 0:23:45.200 --> 0:23:48.160 at the time. I didn't. I just knew that something 0:23:48.240 --> 0:23:51.680 had happened for her to do something like that, very drastic. 0:23:51.840 --> 0:23:55.520 And how did that knowledge sit with you? You know 0:23:55.560 --> 0:23:59.600 that feeling that we sometimes have of knowing something but 0:23:59.680 --> 0:24:00.480 not knowing it. 0:24:02.520 --> 0:24:06.520 Yes, the feeling of knowing something and not knowing it 0:24:06.600 --> 0:24:09.600 is probably one of the most common feelings I've had 0:24:09.640 --> 0:24:12.280 most of my life. Because if you grow up with 0:24:12.840 --> 0:24:17.760 parents who are quite to use a non technical narcissistic right, 0:24:18.680 --> 0:24:22.120 you don't necessarily get to know yourself. Really, it's all 0:24:22.200 --> 0:24:26.880 kind of buried in there because you're performing to please 0:24:27.080 --> 0:24:30.399 your parents and to keep things copaesetic in the house. 0:24:31.400 --> 0:24:34.800 But this feeling was there, and I knew it because 0:24:34.800 --> 0:24:37.199 it was familiar, and it didn't sit well because I 0:24:37.280 --> 0:24:40.640 was in the middle of a really tumultuous but also 0:24:40.880 --> 0:24:45.480 time of self discovery. There I was in Washington Heights again, 0:24:45.720 --> 0:24:48.840 living amongst the people I had known when I was 0:24:48.880 --> 0:24:54.400 a child. Is a Dominican community, and I felt very 0:24:55.119 --> 0:24:58.679 held in this community. It was a bit of nostalgia, 0:24:58.760 --> 0:25:02.119 but it was also comfort. We looked after each other. 0:25:02.119 --> 0:25:04.960 I knew that people were looking after me and watching me, 0:25:05.119 --> 0:25:06.760 you know, when I would leave and come back and 0:25:06.800 --> 0:25:08.880 make sure I was okay, that sort of thing. Because 0:25:08.880 --> 0:25:11.600 I live by myself. It felt good. And then I 0:25:11.640 --> 0:25:13.879