'Where We Come From': Emily Kwong's Story
Where are you really from? It's a question immigrants of color — and their descendants — get asked over and over. But the answer is often complex, and not just about a place on a map.
In a new video and audio series called Where We Come From, immigrants of color across generations tell their stories conversation with family members, friends, and experts.
This episode features Short Wave host Emily Kwong. She's a third generation Chinese American, but she's never spoken her family's heritage language.
Now, at age 30, she's trying to learn Mandarin Chinese for the first time, and unpacking why she never learned it in the first place.
Christopher Kwong, Emily's father, stopped speaking Mandarin when he was five years old. His parents — Emily's grandparents — didn't want him to fall behind in school at the time. In conversation together, Christopher and Emily process what it means to stop speaking a language — the generational cost of assimilation.
Emily will also explore how being 'Chinese enough' gets tied up in language fluency and the feeling of racial imposter syndrome, in conversation with sociolinguist Amelia Tseng. She discovers how language is a bridge that can be broken and rebuilt between generations — as an act of love and reclamation.
Emily Kwong, age 2, and her grandparents, Hui and Edgar Kwong. Emily Kwong hide caption
Emily Kwong, age 2, and her grandparents, Hui and Edgar Kwong.
Emily Kwong
You can find more Where We Come From stories here.
Anjuli Sastry created and produced 'Where We Come From' with additional editing and production by Julia Furlan and Diba Mohtasham. Video reporting, production, and editing by Michael Zamora. Fact checking and research by Candice Vo Kortkamp. Our director of programming is Yolanda Sangweni.