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Assimilation has a cost. As a third generation Chinese American, NPR Short Wave's Emily Kwong is rediscovering the language her father once knew, and what that means for where she comes from.
Assimilation has a cost. As a third generation Chinese American, NPR Short Wave's Emily Kwong is rediscovering the language her father once knew, and what that means for where she comes from.
A Daughter’s Journey To Reclaim Her Heritage Language
Emily Kwong is host and reporter of NPR's Short Wave podcast. Michael Zamora/NPR NPR Short Wave host and reporter Emily Kwong is a third generation Chinese American, but she's never spoken her family's language. Until now. At age 30, she's trying to learn the language for the first time, and unpacking why she never learned it in the first place. NPR YouTube Emily's father, Christopher Kwong, stopped speaking his first language — Mandarin Chinese — when he was five-years-old. Born in New York City in 1958, he struggled to communicate with his kindergarten teacher and classma...