CANR
WORK TITLE: WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME?
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://carmenritawong.com/
CITY: New York
STATE:
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
LAST VOLUME: CA 400
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born in New York, NY.
EDUCATION:Fairfield University, B.A.; Columbia University, M.A., 2000.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Journalist and financial advisor. Time, Inc., special projects editor, 1999-2002; Essence magazine, wealth contributor, 2005-07; Latina Media Ventures, financial advice columnist, 2005- 07; Rodale, Inc., financial advice columnist, 2007-09; NBC News, contributor, 2007-14; CNBC, host and cocreator of On the Money, 2008-10; Glamour, financial advice columnist, 2009-11; CBS Early Show, personal finance contributor, 2010-11; CNN, personal finance contributor, 2011; Good Housekeeping, Inc., financial advice columnist, 2011-13; American Public Media, host of Marketplace Money, 2013-14; New York University PolyTech, assistant professor, 2013- 15; Wong Ulrich, LLC, president and founder, 2010—; Malecon Productions, CEO and founder, 2014—. Board member, New York Urban League and Council of Urban Professionals; advisory board member, VIVABroadway; advisory board member, Dress for Success.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Carmen Rita earned her master’s degree in psychology and went on to become a financial advice columnist and television host. Her first book, Gener@tion Debt: Take Control of Your Money—A How-To Guide, was published under her full name, Carmen Wong Ulrich, and released in 2006. It was followed five years later by The Real Cost of Living: Making the Best Choices for You, Your Life, and Your Money, also released under the Carmen Wong Ulrich byline. In the latter volume, Rita draws on her background in psychology to explore personal financial decisions as a series of life choices that take emotion and desire into account. Indeed, the choices to marry, have a family, get divorced, or pursue a college degree are entirely personal and emotional choices that also have measurable financial impacts and outcomes. Life is not about money, the author explains, but living has real costs. Thus, the author explores the aforementioned decisions as well as decisions to buy or rent a home, start a business, or go out to eat, along both psychological and financial lines of inquiry. She also touches on more straightforward financial issues, such as investing, saving, and credit cards.
Reviews of The Real Cost of Living were largely positive, and critics noted that the book is evenhanded and engaging. For instance, a Publishers Weekly contributor found that The Real Cost of Living is “a must-read for anyone eager to make sense of their financial lives.” Carol J. Elsen, writing in Library Journal, was also impressed, and she announced that “this book will help readers consider personal financial decisions from a more holistic vantage.”
Never Too Real
Rita turned to fiction with her 2016 debut novel, Never Too Real. Billed as the first book in a trilogy, Never Too Real portrays four successful Latina women and their friendships over time. Each woman turns to the other for support as they manage life challenges and clear the hurdles they encounter on the road to achievement. Magda owns a venture-capital firm, but after she comes out to her family, she feels rejected and judged. Gabi is a well-respected therapist, but despite her talent, she is unable to save her own marriage. Cat works as a television host, but when her show is cancelled she finds that she has no identity outside of her job. The fourth character, Luz, has become a top executive at her advertising firm, but then a family secret threatens to unravel her hard-won accomplishments.
Sharing her inspiration for the novel in an online Rewire interview with Ilana Masa, Rita explained: “I was having a party, celebrating my wonderful, successful girlfriends. We all came up together, we’ve all supported each other, and we’re all women of color, mostly Latina. I looked around and wondered, how come nobody knows we exist? So I thought, all right, you know what? Now’s the time. This has just got to get done. I’m in a position to do this, I need to do it. It was very much a mission; I didn’t approach it as a side project.” She went on to note that Never Too Real “is really about real issues in your life as you try to do well, if you try to be the first generation to do better than the previous. I think that’s one of the uniting factors of these four women—they’re all … first [in their families] to be born in the United States, and grow up and finish college.”
Several critics praised Never Too Real, noting that the characters are engaging while their stories are interesting and heartfelt. A Kirkus Reviews Online contributor wrote that the tale is “brimming with smart dialogue and ricocheting plot twists,” and “Rita’s potentially clichéd tale is actually ripe for a screenplay.” The contributor concluded that the novel is “just in time for a beach read—or a guilty pleasure in a deserted boardroom.” An online Latina Book Club correspondent was equally laudatory, asserting that “ Never Too Real is a ‘savvy and wise’ novel by debut author Carmen Rita. It’s awe- inspiring and very real. It’s about fierce friendships that stay with you through lost careers, broken marriages, financial troubles and identity-crises. It’s about the family you make for yourself and a sisterhood that lasts forever.” In the words of Booklist columnist Magan Szwarek, “This deliciously fun read is perfect for fans of Kimberla Lawson Roby or Jennifer Weiner.” Another positive assessment appeared in Library Journal, where Jane Jorgenson advised that “fans of workplace chick lit will find a lot to like in this first novel.” Sarah Frobisher offered further applause on the RT Book Reviews Web site, asserting that Never Too Real “is a funny, witty and beautiful novel of friendships that turn into family.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, June 1, 2016, Magan Szwarek, review of Never Too Real.
Library Journal, January, 2011, Carol J. Elsen, review of The Real Cost of Living: Making the Best Choices for You, Your Life, and Your Money; June 1, 2016, Jane Jorgenson, review of Never Too Real.
Publishers Weekly, December 19, 2005, review of Gener@tion Debt: Take Control of Your Money—A How-To Guide; November 29, 2010, review of The Real Cost of Living.
ONLINE
Carmen Rita Home Page, http:// www.carmenrita.com (November 18, 2016).
Carmen Rita Wong Home Page, http:// carmenritawong.com (November 18, 2016).
Kirkus Reviews Online, https:// www.kirkusreviews.com/ (November 18, 2016), review of Never Too Real.
Latina Book Club, http:// www.latinabookclub.com/ (November 18, 2016), review of Never Too Real.
Rewire, https://rewire.news/ (November 18, 2016), Ilana Masad, author interview.
RT Book Reviews, https:// www.rtbookreviews.com/ (November 18, 2016), Sarah Frobisher, review of Never Too Real.*
Carmen Rita Wong
Born New York, New York, United States
Status Divorced
Education Fairfield, B.A.
Columbia, M.S. in Psychology
Occupation Author, journalist & personal finance expert
Notable credit(s)
CNBC On the Money (2005) host,
financial contributor for CBS This Morning,
Marketplace Money host
Author, "Generation Debt"
Family one daughter
Website http://carmenritawong.com/
Carmen Rita Wong, is an American radio, television and online journalist, and personal finance expert at CNBC where she was the former host of the 2005 version of On the Money, a personal finance program. She was a contributor to The Dr. Oz Show and iVillage. Wong also writes a blog for CNBC.com that focuses on taking control of your personal finances.[1]
Contents
1 Career
2 Generation Debt
3 Education
4 Personal
5 References
6 External links
Career
In October 2013, she was named host of the weekly radio program Marketplace Money, produced by American Public Media, beginning with the program of November 2, 2013.[2] While giving financial advice on the Marketplace Money program of October 26, 2013, she also revealed that she is now divorced and a single mother. As of February, 2014, Marketplace's website refers to her as a "Former Host."[3]
Wong's blog made its debut on Qvisory.com and her advice columns appear monthly in Glamour, Men's Health and Latina as well as online. Wong also makes contributions to Essence and Diversity Women magazines. She has been making her name as a money expert appearing on CNN, The Rachael Ray Show, and Oprah Winfrey's XM radio network.[4]
Business Pundit named Wong one of the 25 Hottest Women of Business in January 2009.[5] And in March 2009 Wong's accomplishments were honored at the eighth annual New York City Women's History Month Celebration.[6]
Generation Debt
Wong is the author of Generation Debt: Take Control of Your Money—A How-to Guide published by Grand Central Publishing in 2006. This 272 page book concentrates on the under-40 crowd giving tips on what to do about student loans and consumer debt. The guide also provides recommendations on how to establish a goal-oriented budget, make the most of payback options, and utilize employee savings and investment plans. Her book has appeared on the recommended reading list of The Wall Street Journal and her advice has been highlighted in The Washington Post.[4]
Wong's second book entitled The Real Cost of Living: Making the Best Decisions for You, Your Life and Your Money was released by Perigee/Penguin in December 2010.
Education
Wong received a Bachelor's degree in psychology and art history from Fairfield University (Connecticut) and a Master's degree in psychology from Columbia University in New York City.[7]
Personal
Wong is of Dominican descent. Her father Peter Wong, is of Chinese descent, though he is not her biological father.[8] Formerly known as Carmen Wong Ulrich, Carmen Rita Wong has a daughter, Bianca (born 2006).
References
"Carmen Wong Ulrich's blog". CNBC. 2008-08-22. Retrieved 2008-08-24.
"Carmen Wong Ulrich, Marketplace.org". Marketplace.org. Retrieved 2013-10-30.
"Carmen Wong Ulrich". Marketplace.org. Retrieved 2016-01-20.
"Carmen Wong Ulrich's CNBC bio". CNBC. 2008-02-07. Retrieved 2008-08-24.
Jeff Springer (2009-01-01). "25 Hottest Women of Business". Business Pundit. Retrieved 2016-01-20.
"Legacy Url - Office of the New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer". Comptroller.nyc.gov. Retrieved 2016-01-20.
[1] Archived January 6, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
"Three Who Took Writing Classes Write Their Own Ticket | New York University - SCPS". Content.scps.nyu.edu. Archived from the original on 2013-11-03. Retrieved 2016-01-20.
I’m A Writer And You Can Order My Memoir Now.
This Book Was Written Alongside A Twenty-Plus-Year Career In Media And Many Years Of Nonprofit Work. I Was Vice Chair Of The Planned Parenthood Federation Of America And Nominating Chair Of The Moth (Now, On The Artistic Council).
I Co-Created And Hosted My Own Television News Show; Was On-Air And On Staff At Three TV Networks; And Was A Magazine Editor Then Advice Columnist For Four National Magazines.
I Now Also Head Up My Own Production Company, With A Focus On Women-Led Content, And Created And Hosted A Podcast Featuring Some Incredible Women.
I Also Have Written Two Novels In A Series And Two Advice Books.
I’m A Speaker And Former Professor As Well.
If You’d Like Me To Join You, Send Me A Note.
Beyond Words, My Life Is My Daughter And Our Pooches In Downtown Manhattan.
“CARMEN RITA” is Carmen Rita Wong, CEO and Founder of Malecon Productions, a multimedia content company. A successful entrepreneur, she was one of the few Latinas on American television to host a daily national news program, CNBC’s On the Money and has been a national advice columnist for Glamour, Latina, Essence, Men's Health and Good Housekeeping, as well as an expert with NBC’s TODAY Show, MSNBC, CNN, CBS This Morning, a regular on ABC’s The View, and has written for The New York Times and PARADE. A guest of the White House as a member of President Obama’s ‘Business Forward’ initiative to further African-American, Latino and Asian business owners, Carmen was also a faculty professor at New York University and is the author of two best-selling financial advice books, including The Real Cost of Living. A seasoned speaker, moderator and native New Yorker, Carmen serves on the board of several nonprofit organizations and most-importantly, is ‘Mami’ to a young daughter and rescue pooch.
'Never Too Late'
summary:
They’ve had each other’s backs through major changes—and maximum bad news. But now Cat, Magda, Gabi, and Luz find unexpected drama from their pasts threatening their bond, along with everything they’ve fought to build.
Always upfront and out-there in her career, Cat won big with her solo online interview show. However, risking romantic commitment will mean confronting her deepest fears—and a stunning secret.
Hotshot investor Magda finally has a stable, happy life. But with her worst mistake about to go viral, how far will she push a friend—and break the rules—to stop it?
It took a lot of self-help for sensitive therapist Gabi to start over. A sizzling new love now offers some straight-up delicious healing—but honesty can be one dangerous illusion…
Wealthy socialite Luz will do whatever it takes to care for her newfound teenage half-sister. But a life-changing choice is putting more than their still-fragile relationship on the line…
Now what these close friends don’t know about each other will test everything they believe about themselves. And finding the courage to understand and the strength to forgive will be their only chance to come to terms, move on—and live for real.
Carmen Rita Wong shares how she came to terms with a lifetime of family secrets
BYJODI HELMER
July 13, 2022 at 11:15 PM GMT+2
carmen rita wong
Carmen Rita Wong hopes sharing her story will help end the practice of keeping family secrets.
SEHER/COURTESY OF CARMEN RITA WONG
Carmen Rita Wong might be best known as a personal finance expert and television host on CNBC, but the author and media personality is also an expert on family secrets.
In her new memoir, Why Didn’t You Tell Me, Wong shares how “a Chinese-tea-sipping, Abuela-cafecito-drinking ‘China-Latina’ city girl” uncovered a tangled web of secrets that challenged everything she believed about her family and her identity.
Wong spent her early days in Harlem with a Dominican mother, Guadalupe “Lupe” Altagracia, and a Chinese father, Peter Ting Litt “Papi” Wong. After her parents divorced, she moved to New Hampshire with her older brother, Italian-American stepfather and, before long, four little sisters.
The move, according to Wong, triggered resentment in Lupe, who left behind all she held dear in New York to follow a “white savior” to an unfamiliar town where she took her disappointment out on her children. Wong recalls being slapped and pinched, having her hair pulled; being force-fed “white” foods she didn’t like, and threats of being forced to lick the inside of the toilet if she didn’t clean it well.
“I became terrified of her, though I loved and needed her so, as we do our mothers,” she writes.
Wong also had a fraught relationship with her father. Papi Wong was a drug runner, mobster, and a Chinatown gangster who was abusive to her mother, but he was also a charming man and sometimes doting father. Papi Wong was eventually arrested, and Wong had no contact with him for almost a decade.
Years of trauma and abuse that continued into adulthood led Wong to sever ties with Lupe. The decision, she explains, was never meant to be permanent.
“Cutting her out for a couple of years isn’t the same as no contact forever,” she tells Fortune.
Two things happened that led Wong to reconnect with Lupe: At the age of 31, Wong’s stepfather dropped the bombshell that Papi Wong was not her father. The revelation, which Wong called, “jostling to [her] soul,” came at the same time Lupe was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer.
“It’s difficult to care for parents that you have a tough relationship with, but I did,” Wong says. “Why? To settle souls. To settle their souls and my soul and the souls with the next generation and the people I love. I believe that coming from the family history that I came from, which was filled with trauma on both sides, I wanted to end that and bring peace to the whole thing.”
After receiving news of the diagnosis, Wong didn’t immediately rush to Lupe’s bedside. Instead, she kept her distance and “went into problem solving mode,” using her journalism skills to read journal articles about colon cancer treatments and her media position to get Lupe into a drug trial. Doctors estimated that Lupe had two months to live; she survived two years thanks to the drug trial.
Before long, Wong went from helping Lupe at arm’s length to sitting at her bedside, taking on the role of caregiver. Knowing that her time with Lupe was limited, Wong wanted to learn the reasons why Lupe kept so many secrets; Wong confronted her mother about the lies that had come to light; lies that ranged from her paternity and extramarital affairs to abortions and abuse.
In the book she writes, “Mom was good at telling stories. Obviously. But as I found out in a life-changing way, I couldn’t trust them….I was all about finding out why the lie. Why the secrets. How could they have done this to me?”
Lupe died in 2004. Although Wong cared for her mother at the end of her life, she still struggled to find forgiveness for the years of secrets that Lupe kept from her eldest daughter.
“Sometimes the only way you can see a parent, a difficult parent or a traumatic parent, abusive parent, as a separate human being is years after they pass,” Wong explains. “Because until time goes by, you can’t see them clearly; everything’s muddied with all of the feelings you have.”
Although the revelation that Papi Wong wasn’t her father upended her identity, Wong was adamant about one thing: She was still a Wong.
“Growing up with the name Carmen Rita Wong is so substantially different than growing up with a common name…and I love my name; I love the history that it holds; I love the identity that I’ve attached to it,” she says. “But I sometimes greatly miss being Chinese…there is a separation that still hurts.”
Papi Wong died in 2022. Wong never told him that he wasn’t her biological father.
In her memoir, Wong details the series of twists and turns (and a DNA test with surprising results) that led her to the truth about her biological father. It was a path filled with deception and unexpected discoveries and, according to Wong’s own daughter mirrors the plot of a telenovela.
Now, Wong is sharing her family secrets with the world. She admits that it’s “terrifying” to think about others reading about her life, she also hopes the risk will encourage others to share their stories and end the practice of keeping secrets.
“Keeping secrets is a really bad tradition,” she says. “Our legacy is really about these stories…and our family histories, [and] we all deserve to tell our stories and have them heard.”
Dispatches from the Moth · Posted On: May 05, 2020
The MOTHerview with Storyteller Carmen Rita Wong
by Suzanne Rust
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Carmen Rita Wong
“It’s scary as a kid to realize that your parents keep secrets, big ones.”
What did it feel like to finally share this story on The Moth stage?
It felt like an incredible honor and responsibility. It also felt like the best challenge—the challenge to simply be me and tell a very personal and at times painful story. I loved it. I’ll even say that I needed it.
You said that, as a brown girl growing up in New Hampshire, you often felt like an alien. Sometimes there are gifts that come from being treated differently. How did being an "outsider" shape you?
The true “alien” gift was being a part of many cultures and races, even though not fully belonging to one. But in New Hampshire, I learned how to survive and advance in a majority white culture that did not value me. It gave me a tremendous professional edge to be able to code switch. However, contorting myself, even losing myself at times, in order to fit in to get ahead, was a high price to pay. I’m glad I don’t pay it anymore. Though I still do great impressions.
I wanted to ask you more about that encounter at school when Sister Rachel said that your math smarts must have come from your Chinese side. When you talked to your mother about it afterwards and noticed the smirk on her face, you knew something was up. Was that the first time you were aware that your mother might have had some secrets?
I knew she was hiding something with that smile but, it’s scary as a kid to realize that your parents keep secrets--big ones. Secrets can feel like betrayals. Keep in mind that this was a generation of parents whom you did not question. You’d get shut down with a look. But I was savvy enough to know that every time my mother met a question about her life or family with silence, I took it as a clue that I was on to something. It’s why I used to sneak into my parents’ bedroom when they were out and dig into the box of photos my mother kept in the back of her closet. Sometimes I’d get lucky enough to discover new faces and feel just a bit closer to knowing who my mother really was.
You credit your stock market-savvy to Charlie and your street hustle to Papi Wong. What did you get from Lupe?
Fortitude. Goddamn fortitude. At my core, I’m a rock. I’m far from level, but if I get knocked down, I always swing back up. Always. And usually better off than before. She made sure that I knew I came from a long line of women fighters and survivors and that my legacy as the first girl to be raised in this country was to lay claim to its possibilities and grab them by the nuts, (She literally would pantomime: “Grab dem by dee nuts!”), in spite of my color and gender. It was not an easy way to be raised but I’m happy that I can now take the fortitude and hunger she gave me and use it for art and justice, not only opportunity.
Who are your favorite storytellers and why?
Oh, I could never choose a favorite Moth storyteller or even rank them! Each stands alone in such a special way and feels like a friend. But storytelling is everywhere. I’ve found reading difficult during this crisis, so I’ve been leaning more towards visual storytelling that expands the idea of who gets to tell stories, like the Moth does. Paola Ramos of ViceNews is doing incredible investigative journalism. Firelei Baez is a fellow Dominican-American artist who fills your eyes with the real and surreal of Caribbean history. And Jeremy O.Harris the writer and creator of “Slave Play” on Broadway posts a mind-bending daily “Coronovirus Mixtape” on his social media. So exciting to see and hear storytellers like these now.
What was your proudest moment?
I’m glad you asked for moments not accomplishments. I am deeply proud of all I’ve accomplished, and it has all been extremely hard won. But as I’ve gotten older it’s the most personal moments that I’m truly proud of. Moments when I’ve been loyal to my self-respect, when I remain value-driven, when I’ve stood up for others and promoted equity (much of the nonprofit work I do), when I’ve reached ah-ha moments that move me forward personally. Finding inspiration in the life of my late older brother and dearest friend, and every day that I feel my child’s deep love.
If you could talk to your biological father, what would you ask him?
This is a tough one. First, I hope he’s alive and willing to answer questions. I’d want to know about his time with my mother, no matter how brief. What does he remember about her? I’d want to know what brought him to New York City from his country of origin (which I now know is actually Cuba). Who the rest of his family is (my family, I guess?). And, really, does he want to know me? That may be a hard answer to hear but I’m being realistic.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to buy a DNA kit?
Er, be ready? I doubt most people using genetic testing are going to find giant secrets like mine but, I’m sure, with the history of this nation, folks will find secrets regarding race or ethnic origins that may be surprising to them. Just, be ready. And, use it as a tool to connect with the story of your family and the world.
Please finish this sentence: storytelling is important because…
It’s uniquely human. It weaves us together as human beings. And yes, it can be a tool of power. True power. That’s why it’s more important than ever to hear more stories from more kinds of people, especially those who have been and are usually silenced.
Finally, Lupe asked you, and so will I, "Carmen, are you an A or B?"
I transcend grades. Everyone should.
Wong, Carmen Rita: WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME?
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Date: July 15, 2022
From: Kirkus Reviews
Publisher: Kirkus Media LLC
Document Type: Book review; Brief article
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Wong, Carmen Rita WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME? Crown (NonFiction None) $28.00 7, 12 ISBN: 978-0-593-24025-0
The gradual unraveling of lifelong deceptions about her parenthood teaches a Dominican Chinese woman unsettling lessons about the mutability of identity.
"I wish I could tell you a loving story," writes Wong near the beginning, "a cross-cultural heart-filled fest of American melting-pot dreams, of how a teenage Dominican immigrant girl ended up married to a thirty-something Chinese immigrant man, but no." In 12 chapters named for answers to the titular question--"...Because We Lost Our Way," "...Because I Thought We Had Time," etc.--the author traces the often maddening story of her quest for truth in a warmly immediate narrative voice. She begins with a hard fact: Peter Wong, the man she calls Papi to this day, was paid to marry her mother, Lupe, so Lupe's family could get green cards. Lupe and Papi separated when the author was young, and she and her adored older brother were moved from the lap of the Dominican community to the apartment of the man who would become her mother's second husband. "Marty was a white self-proclaimed 'honky' academic type with glasses," writes Wong, "a head of Italian curls and a bushy mustache, driving a tiny AMC Gremlin hatchback." The author's masterful ability to bring characters to life is a key component of the lively narrative. As soon as Lupe became pregnant with the first of four daughters, Marty moved the family to New Hampshire, a bastion of Whiteness. Though Wong's relationship with her mother was somewhere between fraught and disastrous, and though Lupe died without correcting her most serious lie, the author does a commendable job of trying to understand who her mother was. Regarding the dire outcome of the New Hampshire move, Wong writes of her mother: "from earning her own money, living her freedoms, dressed to the nines, red lips and beauty-shop hair, to sitting at a kitchen table, makeup-less, hair pulled into a utilitarian bun, toddlers at her feet, two hundred miles from all she'd known."
Snappy writing, unusual empathy, and an unexpectedly satisfying resolution send this memoir to the front of the pack.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2022 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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"Wong, Carmen Rita: WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME?" Kirkus Reviews, 15 July 2022, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A709933359/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=bab7b8ea. Accessed 28 July 2022.
Why Didn't You Tell Me? A Memoir.
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Date: May 2, 2022
From: Publishers Weekly(Vol. 269, Issue 18)
Publisher: PWxyz, LLC
Document Type: Book review; Brief article
Length: 225 words
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Why Didn't You Tell Me? A Memoir
Carmen Rita Wong. Crown, $28 (240p) ISBN 978-0-593-24025-0
In this propulsive account from former CNBC host Wong (Never Too Late), a life built on secrets unfolds to reveal a suspenseful story about race, family, and identity. Born in 1971 to immigrant parents who were separated, Wong was raised with her brother by her Dominican mother, Lupe, and extended family in Harlem, while rheir Chinese farher, Perer, plied them with extravagant dinners in Chinatown. Her early childhood, shaped by "Dominican, Chinese, and Black uptown cultures," was abruptly uprooted when Lupe married an Italian American man and moved the family to New England. Once there, five-year-old Wong was forced to navigate a new world of white picket fences that, she writes, "scrub{bed] our souls of our culture like a giant eraser... our brownness... blown off the page." As she whisks readers from her adolescence with her tight-lipped mother to her adulthood in New York City in the 2000s, explosive trurhs are revealed about Lupe's marriages in the wake of her death, leaving Wong with the task of finding out who het teal biological father is. Packing in raw emotion, sharp cultural commentary, and plenty of intrigue, this has all the makings of a book that's destined for the big screen. This hits the mark. Agent: Johanna Castillo, Writers House. (July)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2022 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
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"Why Didn't You Tell Me? A Memoir." Publishers Weekly, vol. 269, no. 18, 2 May 2022, p. 57. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A703277494/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=3d5f392b. Accessed 28 July 2022.
Rita, Carmen. Never Too Late
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Author: Anika Fajardo
Date: Feb. 24, 2017
From: Xpress Reviews
Publisher: Library Journals, LLC
Document Type: Book review; Brief article
Length: 157 words
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Rita, Carmen. Never Too Late. Kensington. Apr. 2017. 320p. ISBN 9781496701329. pap. $9.95; ebk. ISBN 9781496701336. F
In many ways, best friends Cat, Gabi, Luz, and Magda have nothing in common. Cat is a television personality-turned-Internet sensation, while Gabi is a single mother whose ex cheated on her. Luz has an incarcerated father and a teenage half-sister who might be pregnant, and Magda is a powerhouse lesbian whose father condemns her lifestyle. But even though these fierce Latina women come from different backgrounds and live very different lives (albeit universally luxurious and trendy ones), they each struggle with their relationships. The only relationship safe from turmoil is that of the women's friendship with one another.
Verdict Rita's follow-up to her first novel (Never Too Real) holds high the value of female friendship, and any reader who likes gal pal stories with plenty of glamorous fashion, style, and scandal thrown in will enjoy this novel.--Anika Fajardo, St. Paul
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Library Journals, LLC
http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/reviews/xpress/884170-289/xpress_reviews-first_look_at_new.html.csp
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Fajardo, Anika. "Rita, Carmen. Never Too Late." Xpress Reviews, 24 Feb. 2017. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A489080903/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=dcdbfa3d. Accessed 28 July 2022.
Carmen Rita Wong reckons with her identity after learning a secret hidden for decades.
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Date: 2022
From: All Things Considered
Publisher: National Public Radio, Inc. (NPR)
Document Type: Audio file; Broadcast transcript; Interview
Length: 1,409 words
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HOST: AILSA CHANG
AILSA CHANG: Imagine living your whole life believing a certain story about yourself - where you came from, who your family is - only to see that story upended because you discover your mother has been lying to you your entire life. Well, this is exactly what happened to Carmen Rita Wong. In her new memoir "Why Didn't You Tell Me?," she confronts the true origin of her origin story. And as the truth unfurls, she's forced to rethink her family, her race and the choices her mother made. It's a story about how your entire identity can shift over one lifetime, rocking your very sense of belonging. Carmen Rita Wong joins us now. Welcome.
CARMEN RITA WONG: Thank you so much for having me.
CHANG: Thank you for being with us. So, you know, for much of your life, the story that you understood about who you were is that you had a Dominican mother and a Chinese father. And their marriage was this, like, transaction for immigration status. And I want to ask you about something you wrote early on in the book, something your mom had told you. She said your father was chosen for that transaction largely because, quote, "Chinese was the closest thing to a white man." That sentence, like, burned into my brain. Can you just tell me what you felt she meant by that?
WONG: Oh, well, that ties to Dominican Caribbean culture. I should say colonialism, colorism, right? So when the immigrant waves came in from the Caribbean, specifically Dominican Republic, from the '50s through the '70s, Dominicans come in all colors. So one of the things, though, is that it's communicated throughout the Caribbean and South America, because of colonialism, that white is best. And so that was part of, quote-unquote, "the American dream" - was to get whiter.
CHANG: And Chinese - why was Chinese the closest thing to a white person, in your mom's mind?
WONG: Well, I think she thought about that mostly because that's what her father said, my grandfather, Abuelo, who kind of arranged both his daughters to be married to Chinese men to start their migration into the country. I think in society, especially at that time, there are so many stereotypes which remain to this day. You know, Chinese, Asian - very hardworking, very smart...
CHANG: Right.
WONG: ...Do very well in business.
CHANG: The so-called model minority myth.
WONG: Oh, boy, do I hate that phrase - yes, model minority. And what a heavy, heavy mantle that can be.
CHANG: Yeah, absolutely. Well, as you were growing up believing that you had a Chinese father, how Chinese did you actually feel inside?
WONG: That's a funny question. I - you know, I was a kid. I was - I had a Chinese father for the first 31 years of my life.
CHANG: Right.
WONG: And even though they were separated, he was very much my father in all the ways that fathers are fathers if they're engaged still in their kids' lives.
CHANG: And we should just explain for our listeners who might be a little confused. It was because you later on in life learned that the person you thought was your father was not actually your father.
WONG: Yes, of course. That's - but that's only one big reveal of many...
CHANG: Right.
WONG: ...As you know.
CHANG: Right.
WONG: I don't think it's even the biggest in some ways. It's one of the most painful, if only because it is so tied to race and culture.
CHANG: Yeah. Well, the heart of this book - you know, it explores this specific relationship between you and your mom. She was the teller of your story, the keeper of the secrets that you would later discover. Can we just step back? Like, how would you describe your relationship with your mother as you were growing up?
WONG: Oh, difficult. In many ways, she made me the parent. I was the oldest. I took care of everybody. She had me do a lot of things and treated me like an adult. So of course that's going to cause problems because I was a child, you know? It's like, wow, where did my childhood go?
CHANG: Right. Well, she was struggling with her own burdens. Like, when she ends up leaving, at the time, your Chinese father, Papi Wong, and marries a white man, you all moved from New York City to New Hampshire. And you call your new white stepfather, Marty, your mother's, quote-unquote, "white knight," one who extracted a price from her. Looking back, how would you describe what that price was?
WONG: Oh, disconnection, disconnection. The mantra in those days was, you know, America is a melting pot, and it was all about assimilation. But assimilation into what? Assimilation into white America. What that meant for her, though, was not only did we leave behind a city that we loved so much but a city filled with people that looked like us - we could just exist and coexist - to a place where we knew no one. We had no family, and we stuck out because we were the only nonwhite people there. She became very isolated. So it extracted a big price from her wanting to have this American dream.
CHANG: Yeah. I was so struck that the only time she made Dominican food was when Marty was not home.
WONG: I got the sense that it wasn't allowed...
CHANG: Yeah.
WONG: ...To be honest. Like, this was - we weren't allowed to speak Spanish. And these were his rules. We did not eat and nor did my mother ever cook Dominican food for any of us or Chinese food unless he wasn't home. So just in that, you can see, like, what a shock it was to go to a place where basically everything that defines you is erased, which makes you feel very unmoored.
CHANG: It then eventually becomes even more confusing as you discover the secrets your mother kept from you while she was alive. And I don't want to give away the exact details of what you ultimately discover. But there is this larger question you ask, and that is, how do you let go of your racial identity after you have held onto it for so long?
WONG: Yes. I say in the book, how do you stop being Chinese? You know, it's - you can't erase the first 31 years of your life, that you had these two parents that happened to be of these races and ethnicities. That was your experience. Now, to discover biologically that I'm not is one thing, and I get that. And I've accepted that, of course. But I don't say now I'm Dominican Chinese. I say I'm Afro-Latina, but I say I was raised Chinese. And that's all I can say. But I'll tell you, I'm still - it's something very, very difficult because you don't ever want to appropriate. You always just want to respect what's happened and the origins and the truth. And so that's what I try to do - is respect the truth of that.
CHANG: You do still keep the name Wong. You still choose today to call yourself Carmen Rita Wong. What story about you do you think your name tells people about yourself today?
WONG: I'll tell you. I'm proudly a Wong. I was raised a Wong. I had a papi, Papi Wong, who passed away, actually, last month.
CHANG: Oh, I'm sorry.
WONG: So that stuff - it doesn't stop. Also, my brother was a Wong, my older brother. Alex was probably the only biggest fan and support I've ever had. So I'm a Wong with him and his daughters. As to what that means to everybody else, I'll tell you the short story. It depends if you want the short story or the long story.
CHANG: Let's go for the short story today.
WONG: I usually give the short story. And people say, oh, you're Chinese? And I'll say, stepfather.
(LAUGHTER)
WONG: That's what I say.
CHANG: Carmen Rita Wong's new memoir is called "Why Didn't You Tell Me?" Thank you so much, Carmen, for being with us.
WONG: Thank you so much for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF BADBADNOTGOOD'S "LOVE PROCEEDING")
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"Carmen Rita Wong reckons with her identity after learning a secret hidden for decades." All Things Considered, 12 July 2022, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A709978700/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=98722353. Accessed 28 July 2022.
When the Results of a DNA Test Change the Family Tree
In their memoirs, Carmen Rita Wong and Chrysta Bilton open up about how they learned of secrets, lies and unkept promises.
Give this article
Credit...Monica Garwood
By Gabrielle Glaser
Published July 9, 2022
Updated July 15, 2022
WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME? by Carmen Rita Wong
NORMAL FAMILY: On Truth, Love, and How I Met My 35 Siblings, by Chrysta Bilton
A few years ago, a friend of mine sent a vial of his saliva to a DNA testing company hoping to gain clues about his late father’s Italian ancestry. The results were a shock. He had no Italian blood at all. The man who’d raised him from infancy, and whose name he carried, was not his biological father. After weeks of checking his results against those of cousins with whom he shared no DNA, he mustered the courage to ask his nonagenarian mother about the findings. “So I had an affair!” she said. “Whoever thought there’d be 23andMe, for chrissakes.”
Tens of millions of Americans have taken DNA tests, and stories of them linking up with unknown family, often separated by closed adoptions, have been a feature of news reports for years. Some, like my friend, learn of “misattributed parenting,” or what is known as an NPE, for Non-Paternity Event. Scores of others have found out that they were conceived through sperm or egg donation (or both) — and that they have rafts of half siblings. For decades in America, the law, branches of medicine and parents found ways to justify withholding origin stories from adoptees, donor-conceived people and those with misattributed parenting.
Podcasts, documentaries and now two new memoirs underscore the need for people to learn the truths about their biological families.
In “Why Didn’t You Tell Me?” the former CNBC host Carmen Rita Wong gives a riveting account of an early-1970s childhood that was molded by the cultures of her separated immigrant parents. As a toddler, she lived with her mother Lupe’s extended Dominican family in Harlem, while her Chinese father, Peter Wong, took her and her older brother to Chinatown for memorably elaborate meals. Before Wong started elementary school, Lupe married an Italian American man, Marty, and moved the family to New Hampshire.
There, Wong struggled to make her way in a bleached and predictable suburban world. Hardworking, withholding Lupe — who swiftly gives birth to four more daughters — wore an apron every night to make dinner, and Marty returned home from work carrying a briefcase and wearing a trench coat. Mainstream American culture presented this world as ideal. But to Wong, this prettily packaged image felt like a prison — and the gulf between it and the rich, gritty world of Manhattan was vast. Plantains and hanging roasted duck gave way to runny eggs with ketchup and microwaved bologna. The relief offered by a down-the-hall neighbor after a family spat was replaced with chilly New England solitude. The din of Chinese fish markets and subway station steel drums was supplanted by a new background noise: racist spite that poured out of teachers, neighbors and police officers.
Wong developed nimble survival strategies, weaving Lupe’s determination with Peter’s hustle and Marty’s financial know-how. She didn’t dare keep a diary, lest her prying, suspicious mother discover her thoughts (among other things). That Lupe did not grant her daughter privacy is perhaps no wonder: She herself harbored one secret after another — especially about her firstborn daughter. But when Lupe was dying of cancer, Marty revealed information that set Wong on her heels. It uprooted her identity once more — and not for the final time, either. Years later, a DNA test revealed the full truth.
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The subjects of “Why Didn’t You Tell Me?” are weighty, ranging from Wong’s (justifiable) rage at her mother’s narcissism to her crushing grief after the loss of a sibling. But she tells her story in vivid conversational prose that will make readers feel they’re listening to a master storyteller on a long car trip. She describes water pumped from an upstate stream that “tasted like the cleanest ice.” On a trip to Chile, she encounters a carved table so colossal, all the diners looked like children in grown-up chairs. Ultimately, Wong triumphs. After a painful divorce, she powers her way through a graduate degree at Columbia to a successful career as a media entrepreneur, and then to a cherished role as a sister, aunt and mother. Hers is a hero’s journey.
In “Normal Family: On Truth, Love, and How I Met My 35 Siblings,” the first-time memoirist Chrysta Bilton recounts a dramatically different family revelation from DNA testing. The book takes time to find its footing. It begins with a forgiving portrait of Bilton’s mother, Debra, as she ricochets through get-rich-quick schemes and struggles with addiction. Debra was brought up in Beverly Hills as the daughter of a prominent judge and, as we are reminded repeatedly, the granddaughter of a California governor.
Although Bilton says the book is based in part on written records, conversations and photographs, some aspects of Debra’s story seem implausible. Debra catalogs a long list of celebrity lovers and claims her rebuff of a sexual advance by Mick Jagger inspired one of rock’s most famous lyrics, a fact unconfirmed by music historians.
Bilton says she checked the facts of her memoir “where I could.” Yet she makes some basic errors. In describing Debra’s young adulthood from 1967 to 1983, she writes: “The Summer of Love, which she could have been the poster child for, had faded over the past decade and a half and been replaced by skyscrapers, Wall Street and the beginnings of the Cold War, special thanks to Ronald Reagan.” The Cold War, of course, began in the late 1940s.
Debra was clearly ahead of her time. A single gay woman, she decided to create her own family in 1983, offering $2,000 to a handsome, athletic stranger she met at a beauty salon to be her sperm donor. A musician, Jeffrey Harrison described an impressive family tree that he falsely claimed included, as a great-uncle, the Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. (Bilton misses a chance to note Holmes’s relevance to a tragic chapter of American reproductive history. He wrote the infamous 1927 Supreme Court decision authorizing compulsory sterilization with the words: “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”)
These oversights are regrettable, because when Bilton writes about her own experiences, away from the shadow of her mercurial mother, she shines a much-needed light on the impact of the secretive, unregulated world of sperm donations.
Harrison told Debra that he wouldn’t share his sperm with anyone else. But he soon learned of the high demand for an attractive man’s genes in the growing field of assisted reproduction. While artificial insemination had been around since the 19th century, by the early 1980s the development of in vitro fertilization had expanded the possibilities for people hoping to conceive children. He became a regular — Donor 150 — at one of the nation’s first sperm banks, making up to $400 a month for weed, gas and rent for eight years.
Bilton was 23 when Debra learned from a New York Times article that Harrison was the biological father to a number of other children, many of whom had met through a donor sibling registry. By then, Bilton had grappled with problem drinking, an abusive boyfriend and an eating disorder. Over the next few years, there would be more coverage of Donor 150 and his many offspring. The siblings formed a Facebook group, which, thanks to DNA testing, grew to include many dozens.
Throughout her unstable childhood, Bilton had longed for a traditional upbringing. After graduating from Barnard and moving to Florence for art school, she married and had two sons, eventually accepting the realities of her own deeply complex and thoroughly modern family.
Hovering over both books is the centuries-old question popularized by Francis Galton: Which matters more — nature or nurture? Wong asks what it means to lose one strand of your biography. Bilton is forced to revise hers when she learns she shares her troubled father with dozens of others.
Both Wong and Bilton were lied to, in the biggest possible ways. Wong holds those responsible for her plight — her mother and a sexist society — to account. Bilton feels betrayed by her mother’s half-truths and her father’s broken promise, but stops short of examining the highly profitable, largely unregulated fertility industry that allowed a single man to father at least 35 siblings — including a half brother she dated before discovering the reason people said they looked like siblings.
It would have been useful to note that partly because of such potential horrors, many other countries have regulations on the trade of sperm. But the United States has hardly any. Colorado is trying to bridge that gap. Recently, it became the first state to give donor-conceived people the right to learn their donor’s identity when they turn 18, and to obtain the donor’s medical history before that. Among other provisions, the law, which takes effect in 2025, also limits the number of families who can use a specific donor.
These restrictions are a useful first step. As Wong’s and Bilton’s deeply human narratives so aptly convey, no one should ever be in the dark about his or her own origins.
Gabrielle Glaser is the author of “American Baby.”
WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME? by Carmen Rita Wong | 240 pp. | Crown | $28
NORMAL FAMILY: On Truth, Love, and How I Met My 35 Siblings, by Chrysta Bilton | 288 pp. | Little, Brown & Company | $29
A version of this article appears in print on July 17, 2022, Page 17 of the Sunday Book Review with the headline: Family Secrets. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
Review: Carmen Rita’s (Latinx) American Dream
By hola | Published August 28, 2017 | No Comments
Carmen Rita’s novel, “Never Too Late,” follows four Latina friends as they navigate real-world issues dealing with parenting, relationships, prejudice, and professional success. The novel expands on Rita’s earlier book, Never Too Real, which introduces the group’s intertwined lives as career-driven yet family-oriented women.
Each woman finds herself struggling with a work-life balance as racism, estranged siblings, incarcerated parents, and ghosts of the past cause chaos in their lives. Much like many book and television storylines, the individuals’ plots cross one another’s frequently. The book’s common theme is one of affirmation: how Latina women can be and are successfully living the American dream.
I want to give women, especially Latinas, who have always been the pillars in their families, the ability to be vulnerable and be OK with it, a bit of permission to do that,” Rita told Vibe Magazine. “It’s then that we realize that we’re not alone, that we are communities and families, and we’re huge.”
Her writing, both “Never Too Real” and “Never Too Late” are based on own life and the lives of her friends who are successful women of color, Rita told Vibe. “People don’t see enough of it—successful Latinas, successful women of color.”
Rita is also the CEO and founder of Malecon Productions, a television host on CNBC’s “On the Money,” and a advice columnist for magazines such as Glamour, Latina, Essence, Men’s Health and Good Housekeeping, among her other professional highlights.
She spends a considerable amount of the book focusing on the details of each woman’s appearance, personality and backstory. The downside is that paragraphs and pages feel inundated with wordy explanations that distract from the central plot of the story. However, it allows readers to catch up on the characters and storyline without having read the book’s 2016 predecessor.
“Never Too Late” by Carmen Rita. Kensington Publishing Corporation
—Bria Charlei Baylor
Never Too Lateby Carmen RitaKensington. Apr. 2017. 320p. ISBN 9781496701329. pap. $9.95; ebk. ISBN 9781496701336. FCOPY ISBNIn many ways, best friends Cat, Gabi, Luz, and Magda have nothing in common. Cat is a television personality-turned-Internet sensation, while Gabi is a single mother whose ex cheated on her. Luz has an incarcerated father and a teenage half-sister who might be pregnant, and Magda is a powerhouse lesbian whose father condemns her lifestyle. But even though these fierce Latina women come from different backgrounds and live very different lives (albeit universally luxurious and trendy ones), they each struggle with their relationships. The only relationship safe from turmoil is that of the women's friendship with one another.VERDICT Rita's follow-up to her first novel (Never Too Real) holds high the value of female friendship, and any reader who likes gal pal stories with plenty of glamorous fashion, style, and scandal thrown in will enjoy this novel.
Reviewed by Anika Fajardo, St. Paul , Feb 24, 2017