US journalist Connie Chung’s legacy? A generation of Asian-American girls named after her
Connie Chung, so ubiquitous on American TV news that hundreds of Asian-American women have been named after her, tells all in a new memoir
Some public figures are honoured with namesake buildings or monuments. Veteran broadcaster Connie Chung has a strain of marijuana and hundreds of Asian-American women as legacies.
Chung was contacted five years ago by a fellow journalist, Connie Wang, whose Chinese immigrant parents gave her the chance as a child to pick an Americanised first name. She thought of Connie, after the pretty woman she saw on television, and also suggested some random cartoon characters.
Her parents chose wisely.
After reaching university, Wang learned she was part of a special sorority. There were all sorts of Asian-American Connies around her, many given the name by parents who saw Chung as a smart, accomplished woman whose professional success their daughters could aspire to.
Until Wang told her this, Chung had no idea.
