On March 30, the Let’s Talk! Conference, an initiative promoting the success and well-being of Asian and Asian American students, hosted legendary journalist Connie Chung at Askwith Hall. The event, moderated by Josephine Kim, highlighted Chung’s groundbreaking career as the first woman to co-anchor the CBS Evening News and the first Asian to anchor any news program on CBS, NBC, and ABC.
From the ashes of war to the heart of American news
Chung’s story begins not in a newsroom, but in the midst of chaos. Her family escaped the horrors of the Rape of Nanking during the Second Sino-Japanese War, eventually arriving in the United States in search of a safer life.
Chung, the youngest of 10, was the only child born in America. After losing five children, three of them sons, her father wrote a letter later in his life that would define her life’s purpose:
“Maybe you can be the son we never had. Maybe you can carry the Chung name.”
It became a mission that Chung carried with elegance, grit, and determination.
A woman in a ‘sea of white men’
When Chung entered the newsroom in the 1960s, it was exactly what she described: “a sea of white men.” There was no blueprint, no female mentor, no one who looked like her.
In the beginning of her memoir, she says “I didn’t want to be a guy … But I had to act like one to survive.”
She walked into rooms with bravado, mirrored the swagger of the men around her, even adopted their language. “I dropped F-bombs, and they were shocked,” she recalled, her voice a mix of humor and resilience.
She would walk past a mirror and be startled because staring back wasn’t the man she was emulating, but a Chinese woman.
“We wear our race on our face,” she reflected. “And that’s the first thing they see. But I made sure it wasn’t the last thing they remembered.” Her hard work and tenacity spoke for itself.
The ‘Jackie Robinson of journalism’
Her husband, veteran journalist Maury Povich, is her fiercest champion and cheerleader.
It was Povich who encouraged her to write her memoir and who saw her legacy long before she did. That kind of love sustained her in a world that too often didn’t know how to receive her. “You’re the Jackie Robinson of journalism,” he told her.
A name that became a movement: Generation Connie
Perhaps the most tender moment came during a video of Connie Chung meeting a collage of young Connies who were named after her.
One woman said: “I only knew two American names: Connie … and Elmo.” Thankfully, she picked Connie.
Photographer Connie Chung Aramaki expressed the weight of growing up with the name, until she met Connie Chung herself. With a smile, she said: “It means your parents wanted you to work hard, be brave, and take chances.”
To which Chung replied humbly: “Yeah … I did do that.”
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