By now, I’ve talked to dozens of Connies within this sisterhood, and learned we have a remarkable amount in common - that it is not by chance that our families and, in particular, our mothers, all gravitated toward the same name. Over the years, I’ve come to realize that I’m part of a phenomenon: Generation Connie. And still, I’ve had an enormously difficult time securing social media handles, usernames and company email addresses. In 1987, the year I was born, even “Priscilla” was more popular. According to the Social Security Administration, “Connie” peaked in the 1950s, when it was the 40th most popular name for girls. And, yeah - it is weird, isn’t it, that they’ve never met a non-Asian Connie their age either?īecause Connie is not a popular name - not now, not when I chose it and not for many decades prior. Yes, they grew up watching Connie Chung on TV. And with each of them, I’ve found it’s always the same story: No, it’s not short for Constance. Today, it’s common to join an organization, take a new job or attend a conference and meet an Asian Connie at every workplace I’ve been one of a few. Asian American families from the late 1970s through the mid-’90s - mostly Chinese, all new immigrants - had considered the futures of their newborn daughters and, inspired by one of the few familiar faces on their TVs, signed their own wishes, hopes and ambitions onto countless birth certificates in the form of a single name: Connie. What my family didn’t know was that a version of the same scenario was playing out in living rooms and hospitals across the country. What more could she hope for from her own Connie? So when I picked my name, my mom readily acceded. Chung any differently because of her appearance.Ĭonnie Chung hosting the “CBS Evening News” in 1991, the year after the author named herself Connie.Ĭonnie Chung was trusted and respected - qualities that my mother herself had enjoyed in China. Here was a woman with a face like hers, with great taste in clothes, who wore beautiful makeup and had stylish hair, yet asked aggressive questions of powerful people, most of whom did not seem to treat Ms. What gave her some comfort, though, was seeing Ms. So much of her early years in America felt both formidable and dull, isolating and overwhelming. Some friends told her that other Chinese immigrants had found employment at restaurants, so she tried that for a while, but the job was boring, and she quit. She’d been an editor of nonfiction books back in China, but found the prospect of attempting to climb the professional ladder in the United States without mastery of the language deeply intimidating. Chung had rejoined CBS News a year earlier she would eventually become the first Asian and second woman to be an anchor of a major weekday news program, appearing nightly alongside Dan Rather to deliver the world’s biggest news events to Americans at home, my family included.Īt the time, my mother, Qing Li, was recalibrating her expectations for what her life would look like. That ayi was Constance Yu-Hwa Chung, or, as the world knows her, Connie Chung. They asked for my 3-year-old’s opinion: What would I like to be called in this new place? I answered, the story goes, with Connie, after that pretty “ayi,” or auntie, we watched on TV. I already had one, of course - Xiaokang, my Chinese name, given to me by my maternal grandfather, which referred to the Communist Party’s commitment to achieving “a moderately prosperous society.” But in 1990, my parents decided to raise me in the United States, and we all had a chance to choose a new identity. Unlike most people, I was able to pick my own name. No wonder the university email address I’d wanted had been taken.Īll this time, I’d thought the story of my name was special little did I know it was the story of a generation. In my freshman class alone, there was a Connie Zheng, a Connie Guo, a Connie Xu, a few Connie Chengs, and multiple Connie Wangs. I found the girl from the sandwich line - and I also found many, many more. Instead, a girl standing nearby waved in response.Īfterward, I went back to my dorm room and typed “Connie” into the campus Facebook. I swiveled to see who it could be - I didn’t know anyone yet. While I was standing in line to order a sandwich at the campus cafe, I heard a voice from across the room: “Connie Wang!” Suddenly, I was among a student body that was almost 50 percent Asian. It was on my first day of college at the University of California, Berkeley, when I started to realize there were more of us out there.
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