Journalist William Gee Wong’s Memoir ‘Sons of Chinatown’ Chronicles His Family’s Chinese-American Experience

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KQED

News, Politics, News Commentary

4.2 • 726 Ratings

🗓️ 12 July 2024

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As a journalist, William Gee Wong focused many of his stories on the Asian American experience. And in his new memoir, “Sons of Chinatown,” Wong trains his reporter’s eye on his own family’s sometimes uneasy immigration and assimilation story. It begins in 1912 with the immigration of his father, known as Pop, who came to the U.S. as a “Paper Son,” an individual who purchased partially fraudulent documents to establish residency. Over decades, Wong’s family established a foothold in the United States, but never managed to fully escape discrimination and racism. We talk to Wong, a former Wall Street Journal reporter and columnist for the Oakland Tribune and San Francisco Chronicle, about his family’s story. Guest: William Gee Wong, journalist; author of “Sons of Chinatown: A memoir rooted in China and America” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:47.4	Music From KQED. From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Grace Wan, in for Alexis Magical.
0:52.7	Journalist William G. Wong likes to describe his family's history
0:55.8	in the U.S. as a successful illegal immigration story. It begins in 1912 when his father arrived
1:02.3	using a fictional identity to circumvent the Chinese Exclusion Act. And like many family stories,
1:08.1	there are secrets, heartaches, and in this case, even an attempted murder or two.
1:13.3	Wong, a native of Oakland, tells it all in his new memoir, Sons of Chinatown.
1:17.4	And he joins us to talk about the book, Oakland, and his life as a pioneering Asian-American journalist.
1:22.8	That's all coming up next after this news.
1:40.8	Welcome to Forum. I'm Grace Juan, in for Alexis Magical.
1:46.6	As children, we often don't consider our parents as people. We know who they are,
	...

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