{"id":336550,"date":"2018-12-01T04:32:26","date_gmt":"2018-12-01T12:32:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/?p=336550"},"modified":"2026-02-12T17:20:51","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T01:20:51","slug":"dvp-interview-ing-wong-ward-and-alice-wong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/2018\/12\/01\/dvp-interview-ing-wong-ward-and-alice-wong\/","title":{"rendered":"DVP Interview: Ing Wong-Ward and Alice Wong"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Alice Wong interviewed Ing Wong-Ward for the Disability Visibility Project\u00ae\u00a0at StoryCorps San Francisco on August 25, 2016. Ing shares with Alice how she became a journalist and a disabled parent. Ing also talks about her family and her daughter Zhenmei.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1360\" height=\"400\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?visual=true&#038;url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F538207842&#038;show_artwork=true&#038;maxwidth=1360&#038;maxheight=1000&#038;dnt=1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Text Transcript<\/strong><b>\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>ING WONG-WARD<\/strong>: And so, I grew up in Toronto and decided when I was a teenager that I wanted to be a journalist in part because one of my friends in junior high had, her mother had entered a contest with a local magazine. And the magazine profiled this girl as the great savior of me, the disabled girl, and it didn\u2019t go over well.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>ALICE WONG<\/strong>: Mm.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>ING<\/strong>: I thought at the age of 13 I could do better than this; I can write better than this person.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>ALICE<\/strong>: Mmhmm.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>ING<\/strong>: And so, that was my goal. I went to journalism school, Ryerson University, and graduated and soon thereafter got a job answering the phones in Human Resources at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. And I spent 22 years there and recently left in December to join the Center for Independent Living in Toronto as the Associate Director. I\u2019m married, married my university boyfriend, Tim, who also changed his last name \u2018cause he\u2019s a progressive kinda guy. And we have this\u2014well, you\u2019ve met her now\u2014she\u2019s like quite the character, eight-year-old Zhenmei.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>ALICE<\/strong>: She\u2019s a whirlwind!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>ING<\/strong>: Yeah, she\u2019s a total whirlwind. She\u2019s high octane. She\u2019s firing on all cylinders. She likes to read. She likes to eat.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>ALICE<\/strong>: When we were just hanging out a minute ago, we were just going through the exhibits and talking about art.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>ING<\/strong>: She\u2019s full of opinions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>ALICE<\/strong>: And it was just like I learned all about her dioramas.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>ING<\/strong>: Yep.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>ALICE<\/strong>: She did a horse and a panda diorama.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>ING<\/strong>: Yes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>ALICE<\/strong>: I learned all about that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>ING<\/strong>: Yes, oh my goodness. So, she told you everything basically in five minutes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>ALICE<\/strong>: Basically, yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>ING<\/strong>: Yeah, that\u2019s good. That means she likes you.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[mellow piano music break]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>ING<\/strong>: I think Zhenmei, you know, when we talk about understanding disability, she\u2019s had to deal with questions from her classmates about me. Like, there was one little kid that once ask her, \u201cDid your mommy have a wheelchair in her mommy\u2019s tummy?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>ALICE<\/strong>: Mmhmm.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>ING<\/strong>: And Zhenmei asked me. I said, \u201cNo, it doesn\u2019t work that way, you know,\u201d and explained why. And then one day, a kid said, \u201cDoes your mommy talk?\u201d And Zhenmei looked at the kid and said, \u201cYes, my mum talks. Go up to her and ask her a question.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>ALICE<\/strong>: Mmhmm!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>ING<\/strong>: So, the kid actually came up to me and said, \u201cI like your hair.\u201d And I said, \u201cThank you.\u201d And she said, \u201cThat\u2019s the one who thinks you can\u2019t talk. Now you\u2019ve proven you can talk!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, Zhenmei in her own way has been a very young advocate, and I sometimes wonder about that. I wonder if she feels pressure, and she does. And we talk about, \u201cAre you uncomfortable? Do you ever wish that your mom wasn\u2019t disabled? Do you ever wish that your mom wasn\u2019t in a wheelchair?\u201d She\u2019s like, \u201cNope. Nope. I just love you for who you are,\u201d you know? So, she rides on the back of my wheelchair. We do lots of things together.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>ALICE<\/strong>: That was one of the best photos I saw on Facebook.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>ING<\/strong>: Oh yeah!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>ALICE<\/strong>: Where you both did a, I think a friend of yours did a illustration, I think.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>ING<\/strong>: Yes, that was for the book.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>ALICE<\/strong>: It was a beautiful illustration! For the sake of the listeners, can you describe the image because\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>ING:<\/strong> Sure, yeah. My friend, Cory Silverberg, years ago wrote a book called <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What Makes a Baby<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. And <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What Makes a Baby<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> was a Kickstarter campaign. So, he wanted to do a progressive sex ed book for kids that didn\u2019t involve a mommy and a daddy. He came to me and said, \u201cWould you let Zhenmei be in the pitch for this book, a video?\u201d And I said, \u201cSure,\u201d you know. Not that big of a deal. I didn\u2019t think much would come of it. And the thing went viral, so now she has to live down that at the age of three, she was in a pitch for a book about sex ed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>ALICE<\/strong>: Mmhmm.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ING: And then he came up with the second book, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sex Is a Funny Word.<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> And there\u2019s an illustration in it with Zhenmei and I. It was clearly us. It was like a little kid riding on the back of a mom\u2019s wheelchair. And I remember we posted a photo, so we figure his illustrator used the photo, which is cool. That was totally fine. But it was just nice as a reflection of the different types of families that exist, you know.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>ALICE<\/strong>: And I think again, there\u2019s not enough\u2014speaking of media and reporting\u2014there really aren\u2019t enough stories of disabled parents.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>ING<\/strong>: No, and I think that\u2019s really, that is one of the things that I think about a lot that, in many ways, having Zhenmei was probably, as a person with a disability, one of the most radical things I\u2019ve done, as a radical act.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>ALICE<\/strong>: Yeah, yeah. And it\u2019s ironic because I think for most non-disabled people, having children is a ordinary, traditional act.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>ING<\/strong>: Yes. Yeah, and I mean for everybody else, it is considered traditional. For me, it was definitely radical. And I feel weird characterizing it that way because she is her own person, and we have a very typical mother-daughter relationship where sometimes I get really mad at her, and she gets really mad at me. We love each other very intensely. Sometimes she comes to me when she\u2019s upset. Sometimes I have to yell at her about cleaning up her room. But at the same time, I recognize that by having her and being her mother in public, I\u2019m making a major statement about a whole bunch of things: about being a disabled woman, about sexuality, about reproduction. And at the same time, it\u2019s like we\u2019re just a family, you know?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>ALICE<\/strong>: Mmhmm.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>ING<\/strong>: We have to do family things and make family decisions like any other family, with obvious considerations because I have attendants coming in and out of my home and people who are involved with our lives that other people may not have. But you know, Zhenmei is nonplussed about all of it. And the neighborhood that we live in is really great. No one\u2019s ever made a fuss. I\u2019ve never had\u2014 I was really scared when I was pregnant that when I had my baby, there would be this judgment of, \u201cWhat are you doing? How dare you.\u201d And that actually hasn\u2019t happened in eight years of her life, which I find says so much about Toronto.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>ALICE<\/strong>: Wow. Yep.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>ING<\/strong>: I think it says so much about my neighborhood. I think it says so much about my city.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Support Disability Media and Culture<\/strong><\/h4>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/donate\/\">DONATE<\/a> to the Disability Visibility Project<\/strong>\u00ae<strong>!<\/strong><\/h4>\n<h4><\/h4>\n<h4>Suggested Reference<\/h4>\n<p>Disability Visibility Project\u00ae. (2018, December 1). DVP Interview: Ing Wong-Ward and Alice Wong. Retrieved from:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/2018\/12\/01\/dvp-interview-ing-wong-ward-and-alice-wong\/\">https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/2018\/12\/01\/dvp-interview-ing-wong-ward-and-alice-wong\/<\/a><\/p>\n<h4>Image description<\/h4>\n<p>On the left is Ing Wong-Ward, a Chinese Canadian disabled woman with short black hair and a cream top with black decorative print on the sleeves. She is in a wheelchair with a belt across her chest. On the right is Alice Wong, a Chinese American disabled woman with short black hair and a black shirt with small white cat paw prints. She is in a wheelchair and wearing a mask over her nose attached to a tube for her ventilator.<\/p>\n<h4>Music<\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201c<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/freemusicarchive.org\/music\/Chris_Zabriskie\/Undercover_Vampire_Policeman\/01_-_The_Temperature_of_the_Air_on_the_Bow_of_the_Kaleetan_1165\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Temperature of the Air on the Bow of the Kaleetan<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201d by Chris Zabriskie. (Source: freemusicarchive.org. Licensed under an <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Attribution License<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.)<\/span><\/p>\n<h4>Credits<\/h4>\n<p>Produced for the Disability Visibility Project\u00ae\u00a0by Alice Wong. Interview recorded by StoryCorps, a national nonprofit whose mission is to provide Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share, and preserve the story of our lives. For more: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.storycorps.org\">www.storycorps.org<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.disabilityvisibilityproject.com\">www.disabilityvisibilityproject.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>For any questions, please refer to the <a href=\"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/about\/terms-of-useprivacy\/\">Terms of Use<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alice Wong interviewed Ing Wong-Ward for the Disability Visibility Project\u00ae\u00a0at StoryCorps San Francisco on August 25, 2016. Ing shares with Alice how she became a journalist and a disabled parent. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/2018\/12\/01\/dvp-interview-ing-wong-ward-and-alice-wong\/\" class=\"read-more\">Continue Reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">DVP Interview: Ing Wong-Ward and Alice Wong<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":336561,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[548705951,1],"tags":[159346,2443,328452821,12820890,37313,316,1323697,5309,1053,10234,43769,98564,587152564],"class_list":["post-336550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dvp-interviews","category-uncategorized","tag-ableism","tag-canada","tag-disabled-journalists","tag-disabled-parents","tag-families","tag-journalism","tag-media-representation","tag-parenting","tag-parents","tag-pregnancy","tag-reproduction","tag-sex-education","tag-toronto","post-has-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/IMG_5786.jpg?fit=3264%2C2448&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4H7t1-1pye","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}