Jiayang Fan on Navigating Her Mother’s Illness While Becoming a Target for Chinese Nationalists
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The New Yorker
4.3 • 3.9K Ratings
🗓️ 26 August 2021
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
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 Fan could attend good schools. In 2011, Fan’s mother was diagnosed with A.L.S., and Fan oversaw her care as her condition worsened. When the COVID-19 lockdown threatened to separate her mother from the health aides who kept her alive, Fan spoke out on social media. In response, she received a torrent of threats against her life and that of her mother. 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.
This episode originally aired on September 10, 2020.
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| 1:11.2 | This is the political scene, a weekly conversation with New Yorker writers and guests about |
| 1:16.2 | politics. It's Thursday, August 26th. I'm Dorothy Wickenden, executive editor of The New Yorker. |
| 1:23.5 | Cheyeng Fan became a staff writer at the New Yorker in 2016. |
| 1:28.3 | Since then, she has reported on the 30th anniversary of Tiananmen Square, the Hong Kong protests, |
| 1:34.3 | and China's experiences with everything from wine production to hospice care. |
| 1:39.3 | Her work is often critical of the Chinese government, which has made her the target of harassment |
| 1:44.5 | and threats from Chinese nationalists. |
| 1:48.1 | In an essay titled Motherland, published in the magazine last fall, Jiang tells a more intimate |
| 1:53.8 | story about her relationship with her mother and their struggles to adapt to life in the United |
| 1:59.0 | States. Jiang emigrated to the U.S. a month before her eighth birthday, |
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