Carmen Rita Wong
speaker
98 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard Nov 2024
Carmen Rita Wong’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
And I said to him on those last few days, as I was holding his hand in the hospital, I was just like, man, you've got to go up there. You've got to talk to mom. You've got to, you've got to find me answers. And unfortunately, my brother passed away a year to the day of his diagnosis. The biggest devastation of my life is the loss of him.
I just wanted to get at the bottom of it. And frankly, though it was very important for me to find who my biological father was, More importantly, in some ways, was figuring out why my mother kept this secret. Why didn't she tell me?
So I write the book. I hand in my first edits. I hadn't checked my genetic sites in a while because I felt very, I don't know, just discouraged. I mean, there's only so much. You can only wait until the right person takes a test. And maybe that never would happen. I couldn't pin my hopes on it anymore.
I just hit refresh. And it happened. The right person took the test. My niece, my paternal niece took the test. Right away, she sent her a message. And I sent just a nice kind of basic note saying, here's who I am. And I understand if you don't want to know me or you don't know who I am, or I understand if you don't have anything to do with me. I just want to know who he was.
I got a response within hours. I got an email from my real biological half-sister the next day.
He lived right up the street. Right up the street. from when I was a kid in Manhattan.
Unfortunately, my biological father passed away many years ago. I cried as if my father died. That's what it felt like in that moment. Like I got the news my father was dead. Another father. A father I never knew, but it still was my father died.
Even though my mother said that I was named after my godmother, whose name is Carmen, I highly suspect I was named after this youngest sibling, Carmen. My middle name is the same middle name as my stepfather, Marty's sister. And my last name is Wong. My three names are literally three names from the three different fathers.
So my biological sister knew I existed. from the time that she was in her 20s.
Every decade brought a new father along. 30, finding out that it wasn't dad number two. 40, then it's dad number three. Then 50. We know who he is now. And it was a wild revelation. Then I needed to process and write about what this all meant to me to have these three fathers.
It wasn't the ending that I thought I was going to get, but sometimes the universe just gives you little gifts.
How your genes express themselves is only one part of your identity. How you were raised and who were your parents is another part of your identity. I think what's important is... Your self-identity, the truth of your life. So for example, now do I say I'm Dominican Chinese, which I said all my life? No, what I say is I was raised Dominican Chinese.
I also can say I'm Latina, but I'm a Wong because that's what's important because that was my experience. I'm a Wong. I remain a Wong. I always will be a Wong.
When you are from a community that's, you know, looked down on or seen as lesser than, any mistake is magnified greatly, greatly. Everything has to be perfect and clean. And, you know, my gosh, I mean, my socks were ironed and I wore a slip under my uniform and, you know, my hair was perfectly ironed and everything has to be perfect. So no one can say a word against you.
It's about understanding, especially if it's a parent. When you understand and you see them as a separate human being, so much of the pain stops.
Through all of this, I've learned to, in many ways, redefine what family is. And for me, family is who shows up. And that was my brother. He showed up for me. I'm still a solo moon, kind of floating around, but I don't feel so untethered. And I'm hoping my daughter has the gift of not feeling untethered and instead feeling much more belonging than I had.
Breaking cycles, a big part of it isn't just telling the truth. A big part of it is there's no shame in my mother's story. All these things I should be ashamed of, my mother, you know, sleeping around and all this sort of stuff. No, this is life. And the shame ends here with me. Because in shame, you only find isolation and pain. And it keeps us, especially as women, very quiet.
It's very oppressive. I was not going to let that continue. And if my story can help other people who feel shame about how they came into this world because their mother had an affair or they didn't tell them this or they didn't tell them that, if my story can make them feel less shame, that is so powerful because then they will not cause pain to the people they love around them.
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