Jiayang Fan on Navigating Her Mother’s Illness While Becoming a Target for Chinese Nationalists Online
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The New Yorker
4.3 • 3.9K Ratings
🗓️ 10 September 2020
⏱️ 29 minutes
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Summary
Jiayang Fan immigrated to the United States from China at age seven. Her mother, who had been a doctor, cleaned houses in Greenwich, Connecticut, so that Jiayang could attend good schools. In 2011, Jiayang’s mother was diagnosed with A.L.S., and Jiayang oversaw her care as her condition worsened. This year, when the COVID{:.small}-19 lockdown threatened to separate her mother from the health aides who kept her alive, Jiayang spoke out on social media. In response, she received a torrent of threats against her life and that of her mother. Jiayang Fan joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss how she and her mother struggled to adjust to American culture, and how she became a target for anti-American sentiments in China.
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| 0:48.2 | This is the political scene, a weekly conversation with New Yorker writers and guests about politics. |
| 0:54.5 | It's Thursday, September 10th. |
| 0:56.7 | I'm Dorothy Wickenden, executive editor of The New Yorker. |
| 1:00.5 | Jayang Fan became a staff writer at The New Yorker in 2016. |
| 1:05.2 | Since then, she's reported on the 30th anniversary of Tiananmen Square, |
| 1:09.5 | the Hong Kong protests, and China's perspective on |
| 1:12.8 | everything from wine production to hospice care. Her work is often critical of the Chinese |
| 1:17.8 | government, a fact that has made her the target of harassment and threats from Chinese |
| 1:22.4 | nationalists. In an essay titled Motherland, published in this week's issue, |
| 1:28.6 | Cheyang tells a more intimate story about her relationship with her mother |
| 1:32.4 | and their struggles to come to terms with their new lives in the United States. |
| 1:36.9 | Jiang emigrated to the U.S. a month before her eighth birthday |
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