Why didn't you tell me? : a memoir / Carmen Rita Wong.
Material type:
TextPublisher: New York : Crown, [2022]Copyright date: ©2022Edition: First editionDescription: x, 216 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 25 cmContent type: - text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9780593240250
- 0593240251
| Item type | Home library | Collection | Call number | Materials specified | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adult Book
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Dr. James Carlson Library | Biography | WONG, C. W872 | Available | 33111010990758 | ||||
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Adult Book
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Main Library | Biography | WONG, C. W872 | Available | 33111010860977 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
An immigrant mother's long-held secrets upend her daughter's understanding of her family, her identity, and her place in the world in this powerful and dramatic memoir
"Riveting . . . [Wong] tells her story in vivid conversational prose that will make readers feel they're listening to a master storyteller on a long car trip. . . . Hers is a hero's journey."-- The New York Times Book Review
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: PopSugar, Kirkus Reviews
My mother carried a powerful secret. A secret that shaped my life and the lives of everyone around me in ways she could not have imagined.
Carmen Rita Wong has always craved a sense of belonging: First as a toddler in a warm room full of Black and brown Latina women, like her mother, Lupe, cheering her dancing during her childhood in Harlem. And in Chinatown, where her immigrant father, "Papi" Wong, a hustler, would show her and her older brother off in opulent restaurants decorated in red and gold. Then came the almost exclusively white playgrounds of New Hampshire after her mother married her stepfather, Marty, who seemed to be the ideal of the white American dad.
As Carmen entered this new world with her new family--Lupe and Marty quickly had four more children--her relationship with her mother became fraught with tension, suspicion, and conflict, explained only years later by the secrets her mother had kept for so long.
And when those secrets were revealed, bringing clarity to so much of Carmen's life, it was too late for answers. When her mother passed away, Carmen wanted to shake her soul by its shoulders and demand: Why didn't you tell me?
A former national television host, advice columnist, and professor, Carmen searches to understand who she really is as she discovers her mother's hidden history, facing the revelations that seep out. Why Didn't You Tell Me? is a riveting and poignant story of Carmen's experience of race and culture in America and how they shape who we think we are.
"Carmen Rita Wong-media entrepreneur, former national television host, author and advice columnist-has always craved a sense of belonging. First, in a warm room full of Black and brown Latina women cheering on her dancing during her childhood in Harlem. Then, among the almost exclusively white playgrounds of New Hampshire, after her mother married her stepfather, Charlie, who seemed to be the ideal of the white American dad. She had always believed what her mother told her: that her father was a man named Peter Wong, a Chinese hustler whom she was forced to marry for a green card. But then, as Carmen's mother was dying of cancer, Charlie revealed that he was actually her father-a painful revelation made all the more confusing when a DNA test later proved that neither Peter nor Charlie was her father. It was too late for answers. Her mother had passed away. Carmen wanted to shake her mother's soul at its shoulders and demand: "Why didn't you tell me?" What follows is Carmen's search for understanding of who she is as she peels back the layers of her mother's history and the secrets that seep out. Why Didn't You Tell Me? is a riveting and poignant story of Carmen's experience of race and culture in America and how it shapes who we think we are"-- Provided by publisher.