Ebook Once There Was a Family: A Memoir, by Emma Medina Wong
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Once There Was a Family: A Memoir, by Emma Medina Wong
Ebook Once There Was a Family: A Memoir, by Emma Medina Wong
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Once There Was a Family... A blend of happiness, tragedy, and pathos. Follow the footsteps of a Chinese diplomat and his Mexican family through their trials and tribulations, stretching from the early 1930s through the 1950s. From the sleepy town of Chiapas in Southern Mexico to the Far East, the reader travels through countries, crosses the Pacific Ocean, and lands on the shores at the turbulent beginnings of the Communist Revolution in China. Each page is painted on the broad canvas of this touching, poignant memoir.
- Sales Rank: #3332342 in Books
- Published on: 2015-10-19
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.02" h x .75" w x 5.98" l, 1.06 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 360 pages
Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
More than a memoir, a historical perspective on humanity vs. humanity
By Benjamin E. Casey
“Once there was a family,” is far more than a diary about struggles endured by Emma Medina Wong’s family. Her family history was defined by historical events on the global stage.
The terms - gripping, compelling, spellbinding - are often used in book reviews, usually referring to suspense, drama, and fast-paced action. Such terms describe a more subtle drama detailed in this memoir.
The emotional stress Wong suffered in the first two decades of her life is recorded between the lines - but not hidden between the lines. The Wong family was a pawn in a chess game between warring countries all over the planet and between ideological factions within nations. Add civil wars, and strife between races and classes, both within and beyond national borders, to the game board. She provides insight on events in the Far East and the West during the first half of the 20th century, including her mother's native Mexico and the island state of Jamaica where her father served as its first Chinese Consul. She offers an informed historic perspective on events in the Far East which have often been obscured and overlooked by America’s focus on the West and parallel events which occurred in Europe.
Fragmentation almost singularly defines Wong’s family life. Her memoir reveals how supposedly civilized nations fragment people by race, class, and socio-economic standing. Her family members, already fragmented by racial, cultural, and language diversity, were further fragmented by citizenship status determined by differing places of birth for different members. These fragments presented life threatening challenges as different family members fended for themselves, shuffling from country to country, domicile to domicile, during the Communist take-over of China in the post WWII years.
Wong details her father’s ingrained instincts to keep his family, first alive, and then together. His effort was made even more difficult by her mother’s mental illness. A Chinese diplomat, he managed to provide at least some degree of meager support for family members living on different continents after he lost his status and income when Mao-Tse Tung seized control of Mainland China.
“Once there was a family” is a most useful reality check for those who have become complacent in the comforts of home not imperiled by the forces of fragmentation thrust upon Emma Wong’s family. Chapter to chapter, inventorying the challenging situations confronting her family, the reader’s interest is intensified, wondering how she will eventually survive what might be coming next.
Wong’s line, “Why dream of a possible peaceful earth if each country wears a different face?” portrays the hopelessness in circumstances that confronted her. She took extraordinary steps to survive and go beyond the despair of the day.
Perhaps a greater value in the book - beyond that of reading an intriguing personal memoir - is its value as a first hand account of historical events occurring simultaneously on multiple continents. In two sentences, she explained the Boxer Rebellion more clearly than some school textbooks. She vividly reminds readers how humans can be inhumane, coercing the reader to acknowledge the propensity of allegedly civilized peoples to do the uncivilized, subjugate a class or race - motivated by arrogant self-righteousness that camouflages personal and national greed.
The book is not without a few small challenges for the reader. The chronological sequence of historical events woven within the chain of personal anecdotes occasionally fragments the continuity and flow of the dialogue. Wong has been both precise and detailed in documenting the drama unfolding on the world stage that shaped the dynamics in her family. From an editorial perspective, the juxtaposition of historical facts in the dialogue could be tweaked.
A few more well-placed commas could have prevented a few re-reads of particular sentences. Metaphorically, considering the forest and the trees, there are a few trees in “Once there was a family” that perhaps would have made cruising the timber easier if they had been planted in places other than where they were planted. This is so minor considering the tremendous overall value of so many different timber species growing in this intercontinental woodland.
Putting aside trivial observations about editing, Wong has composed a distinct reality check on the history of humanity vs. humanity. Her memoir is entertaining to a degree. But to a much larger degree, it jolts the reader to engage critical thinking skills, aiding an understanding of human tragedies unnecessarily thrust upon humans by humans.
Ben Casey, veteran photojournalist, author, and contributing feature writer/essayist for several newspapers
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
DEEPLY MOVING MEMOIR
By Amazon Customer
The memoir is very relevant in view of today's immigration issues and the tragic effect on families. The memoir also touches on a little known "pogrom" in the North of Mexico against Chinese residents in the 1930s. Reminds me of "ethnic cleansing" that has occurred in recent years. The memoir describes how a Chinese diplomat, his Mexican wife and 4 children are caught up in the crossfire of world events as he attempts to rescue the Chinese population from persecutory pogroms in Northern Mexico in the early 1930s. There follows a short lived idyllic life in the south of Mexico and Jamaica B.W.I. during WWII, And finally, escape from Communist China in 1950. The long road to American citizenship and bringing his family together in America is fraught with pain and ultimately, bitter- sweet happiness. After reading this memoir, I recollected my own experience. Having left Cuba to study in America at a prep school at the age of 16, I savored the freedom and opportunity America would give me. After graduating from college, I became an engineer and took the steps to become a citizen. Ultimately, brought my Father and Mother who were still living in Cuba during Castro's takeover to join me. They happily lived to be 95 and 96 respectively.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
An Endearing Story of Love and Hardship
By Amazon Customer
What an incredible story of love, courage, culture, friendship, history and family. This memoir not only touched my heart it broadened my understanding of the historical events that took place in both Mexico and China. Emma has a gift for interweaving the raw emotions and experiences of her personal life while sharing the historical background of her youth. Her journey from China to America, and the events preceding that journey while living in China, were especially meaningful to me because my Father-in-Law was on the same ship as Emma and her sister, Anna. The timing for all of them to get out of China when they did was a miracle. Thank you, Emma, for sharing your endearing story of love and hardship.
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