0:00

The Moth is brought to you by

0:02

Progressive, home of the name your price

0:04

tool. You say how much you want

0:07

to pay for car insurance and they'll

0:09

show you coverage options that fit your

0:11

budget. It's easy to start a quote.

0:14

Visit progressive.com to get started. Progressive

0:16

Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Price

0:19

and coverage match limited by state

0:21

law. Reboot your

0:23

credit card with Apple Card, the only credit

0:25

card designed for iPhone. It gives you up

0:27

to 3% daily cash

0:29

back on every purchase. Plus, Apple

0:31

Card has no fees, not even

0:34

hidden ones. Apply for Apple Card

0:36

now in the Wallet app on

0:38

iPhone. Apple Card issued by Goldman

0:40

Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City

0:42

Branch. Subject to credit approval. Variable

0:45

APRs for Apple Card range from 19.24% to 29.49% based

0:47

on credit worthiness. Rates

0:53

as of February 1, 2024. Terms

0:57

and more at applecard.com. How

0:59

does the brain process memories? Why

1:02

is AI a solution and a problem

1:04

for our climate? What is

1:06

leadership in 2025 and beyond? The

1:09

TED Radio Hour explores the biggest

1:11

questions and the most complicated ideas

1:13

of our time with the world's

1:15

greatest thinkers. Listen now to

1:17

the TED Radio Hour from NPR. This

1:32

is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX, and

1:35

I'm Katherine Burns. This

1:37

time, we'll hear stories about genetics. We're

1:40

learning more and more about our DNA, for better

1:42

or for worse. Genetics

1:44

can shed light on mysteries in our lives, but

1:47

can also sometimes reveal things that folks would

1:49

rather have kept in the dark. DNA

1:52

can shake the family tree, settle

1:54

disputes, stir up old secrets,

1:57

and pass on traits that are beloved or

1:59

may be feared. That's

2:01

the case in our first story, told by

2:03

many time Moss storyteller and host Mike Brabiglia.

2:06

It concerns the genes that get passed

2:08

down from grandparents to parents to children.

2:11

We recorded Mike at a show we did

2:13

one evening in Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn. Cemeteries

2:17

are outdoors, obviously, so you can hear the

2:19

sound of cricket and even a few planes

2:21

going by. Here's Mike Brabiglia,

2:23

live at the mall. Thank

2:27

you guys so much. This

2:30

is a really special thing. I'm really honored

2:32

to be a part of it. It

2:35

is an ominous thing

2:38

to tell a story in a

2:42

graveyard. I've never done

2:44

it before. It's particularly

2:46

timely for me because

2:49

yesterday I turned 41 years old.

2:55

I celebrated with my wife Jenny and my

2:58

daughter Una, who's

3:00

four. But

3:03

it's got me thinking a lot about mortality

3:05

because my dad had a heart

3:08

attack at 60 and his

3:10

dad had a heart attack at

3:12

60. So I'm just

3:14

setting aside that whole year and

3:17

I'm getting an Airbnb by the

3:19

hospital and

3:22

I'm keeping a flexible schedule. It's

3:28

not just that. I actually

3:30

have a lot of medical issues.

3:32

I have a dangerous sleepwalking disorder.

3:34

I had a bladder tumor when

3:37

I was 19. Two

3:41

years ago, I went for my annual

3:44

checkup and my doctor took blood and he

3:46

called me and he said, you have Lyme

3:48

disease and? I

3:51

was like and diabetes.

3:53

And I was like one at a

3:56

time. Everybody's going to get a chance. But

3:58

it was. It

4:01

was truly shocking. A

4:04

39-year-old diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, he

4:06

says, is there anything in your diet

4:08

that might be spiking your blood sugar?

4:10

I said, sometimes I eat pizza until

4:12

I'm unconscious. He said, I think that

4:14

might be it. I

4:17

have terrible habits. I travel for

4:20

my job, and I never

4:23

drink the tiny liquor

4:26

bottles in the mini fridge, but

4:30

I'm triple digits on glass jars

4:32

of peanut M&Ms. If

4:36

you suck on a peanut M&M long enough,

4:40

it's just a peanut. And

4:45

if you suck on that peanut long enough,

4:47

you can taste pure shame. But

4:51

at a certain point, the shame pivots into pride,

4:53

and you start to think, actually, this is pretty

4:55

healthy. I've been meaning to

4:57

eat more nuts, and then you start

5:00

eating a couple hundred, and

5:02

you get a sugar high, and

5:04

you think, I should run a marathon, and

5:07

then you don't, and then you end up with type

5:09

2 diabetes. And so that's

5:12

unfortunate. But my doctor wanted

5:15

to put me on medication. I really didn't

5:17

want to do that. I

5:19

said, let me give it a shot. I'm

5:22

going to try to change my diet drastically.

5:25

I'm going to cut red meat and

5:28

sugar and fries, and as he's

5:30

continuing, I'm just thinking about sugar

5:32

fries, which isn't

5:35

even a thing, but I was singing

5:37

a song about it and everything. So

5:41

I give it a shot

5:44

for a few months, and I lose a few pounds, and

5:47

I go back in, and my numbers are lower, but he

5:49

has me take a pulmonary test,

5:51

which is this thing where you're essentially getting

5:54

blowing out a candle, but it's a little ball, and

5:57

he goes, do it, and I go,

5:59

I do it. I just did. And

6:03

he goes, oh wow. I

6:06

just do it again. And

6:09

I go, I just did. And

6:11

he goes, well if I were going by just

6:13

this, I would say you're having a heart attack

6:15

right now. And

6:17

I said, well am I? Because

6:20

if I were having a heart attack, I would

6:22

ask you. I

6:25

wasn't having a heart attack. I

6:28

just wanna make that clear. But

6:31

he was worried. He sent me to

6:33

the cardiologist and they both agreed that

6:35

I should be doing cardio

6:37

five days a week. And as a matter

6:39

of fact, they both suggested that

6:42

I start swimming at the

6:44

YMCA. This

6:47

was a sore subject for me. I

6:50

spent a lot of my childhood at

6:52

the YMCA in

6:54

Worcester, Massachusetts. I went to the

6:57

nursery school. I

6:59

spent hundreds of hours with the half

7:02

blown up basketballs and the rowing

7:04

machine that's also a fan and

7:07

the vending machine room

7:09

that has a coffee maker that

7:12

also makes soup. So

7:16

two years ago, I walked to my Brooklyn YMCA

7:19

and I don't need directions. You

7:22

just follow the chlorine smell. They

7:24

are not shy about their use

7:27

of chlorine in the

7:29

YMCA pool. And I go

7:31

up to the front desk and I'd made an

7:33

arrangement for a lesson with

7:36

a woman named Vanessa and

7:38

she said, where's your swim cap? And I go,

7:40

oh, I don't wear a swim cap. And

7:44

she said, well, it's mandatory unless

7:47

you're completely bald. And I said,

7:49

I don't like how you leaned

7:51

on the word completely. I'm not

7:53

actually bald at all. I

7:56

have four distinct tufts of hair

7:58

that. formed this

8:01

Voltron that is my

8:03

hair and she said you

8:05

can borrow my extra and so I put

8:07

on Vanessa's swim cap and I

8:09

look like a condom and and

8:12

we walk into the pool area

8:15

which is basically pure

8:17

chlorine and and

8:19

she says hop into the instructional lane.

8:21

Now the instructional lane is

8:23

also the walkers and joggers

8:26

lane and so she asked me to do

8:28

the crawl to show her what I got

8:30

and I try but I'm just

8:33

these these aggressive elderly walkers

8:36

are just blowing past me

8:38

and one of them drops

8:40

an elbow on my head

8:42

and and I'm like Vanessa

8:44

like is it always this

8:46

crowded and and she goes

8:49

no it's uh it's because it's the spring

8:51

and everyone's getting ready for the

8:53

summer and I go oh they want

8:55

a body like this which

8:57

is a joke it's not a great joke

8:59

it's not stage worthy but it's sort of

9:02

the kind of conversational witty repartee

9:04

you might have to forge a

9:07

bond with a swimming instructor. She

9:11

didn't hear it and she

9:15

just goes what? They

9:18

go they want a

9:22

body like this and

9:26

everybody in the pool looks

9:28

over all the elderly walkers and

9:31

toddlers and the and the

9:34

and the lifeguard and they're like this

9:36

has this guy seen his own body

9:39

there are there are mirrors

9:41

everywhere at the YMCA

9:44

and for the people only listening to this

9:47

and not seeing me I don't have

9:49

a swimmer's body I have what I

9:51

call a drowners body where it seems

9:53

like I'm drowning at

9:56

all times even when I'm not

9:58

in water And

10:01

so after about a

10:04

half hour of this, I get out of the

10:07

pool and I dry myself off

10:09

with 15 or 20 of those

10:11

YMCA dish rack towels. And

10:16

I even put two on my

10:18

feet because Vanessa explained that there

10:20

is fungus in the

10:22

puddles. And I was like, this place is a

10:25

death trap. I have to get

10:27

out of here. And she says something

10:29

significant to me. She

10:31

says, you know, you can take the lessons,

10:33

but really you're going to have to come

10:35

back on your own and practice. And so

10:38

that's what I did. For

10:40

the next two years, I went

10:42

swimming at the YMCA and I

10:45

also did pilates and I did yoga

10:48

and I even did, believe it

10:50

or not, kickboxing. And

10:55

a month ago I went to my doctor and he

10:57

took blood and he called me

10:59

and he said, you reverse

11:02

the diabetes. I

11:05

was quite shocked by

11:07

this. And

11:09

I thought, I'm thinking to myself, like, what was it? Like

11:12

was it a diet or the exercise? And

11:14

so the next time I saw my doctor, I said to him,

11:16

I go, what do you think it was that reversed the

11:19

thing? And he said this really

11:21

simple phrase that stuck with me. He

11:24

said, you chose

11:26

to live. And

11:32

I think that's true. I think I really did. I

11:34

think I chose to live.

11:36

I think I really want

11:38

to see my daughter grow up and go

11:40

to high school and maybe college. And

11:44

in 19 years from now, she'll

11:48

be 23 and she'll be

11:50

out of school and maybe out

11:52

of the house. And

11:55

I will

11:58

be 60 Years old. And.

12:02

Like my father. And

12:04

his father. I.

12:07

Will have a hard to test. But.

12:11

There will be a difference. Because.

12:13

I will be checking in. To.

12:16

My Air Bnb. And

12:20

it and if I have. Any say

12:22

in it? I. Would

12:24

choose to live. Eating

12:35

at all local comedian was so he

12:38

served a new was when all the

12:40

way to broadway the one the drama

12:42

desk or would. He expanded on

12:44

the so it is for. The new

12:46

I'm painfully true stories from

12:48

Reluctant Bad. She. Was also take

12:50

for Netflix and is available along with his

12:53

last two says. Thank God for

12:55

jokes and mcgrath. How.

13:02

Well known writer and comedians that he told

13:04

his first three way back in two thousand

13:06

and three and a month so we produce

13:08

from us com the arts festival and Aspen

13:11

Colorado. I got to work with Mike and

13:13

the story and was actually the first masri

13:15

I average arrested so we got our start

13:17

to gather. Here's my talking about his history

13:20

with a mass. I'd always how storytelling

13:22

and something I wanted to do but whenever

13:24

I would try to tell stories as stand

13:26

up as a stance me the time I

13:29

really felt and secure. Our

13:31

that I was losing the audience's attention

13:33

so. When the folks

13:35

who the moth ask me to

13:37

perform at Aspen seems like. A

13:40

really exciting opportunity him when I didn't realize

13:42

is that it would change the way that

13:44

I. Perform. The rest of

13:46

my career so I told a story and

13:48

aspirin it which is an early version of

13:50

a story there and have been my my

13:53

solo show. My girlfriend's boyfriend. and

13:55

was about my first girlfriend in high

13:57

school and how i was so excited

14:00

but that she told me not to tell anyone

14:03

that she was my girlfriend because she

14:05

actually had another boyfriend. And

14:08

that was a pride swallowing event in my life. And

14:10

I had literally never told

14:12

people, nevermind a

14:14

group of strangers. And so I was so nervous when

14:16

I told the story on stage and asked and that

14:18

I was literally trembling. And sometimes

14:20

I'll tell people who want to

14:22

try storytelling that I think if they're nervous about

14:24

telling a story, that it's actually a good sign.

14:28

So as a fan of The Moth, that's what

14:30

I've always found the most compelling and exciting about

14:33

their shows. When people tell their

14:35

most embarrassing and gut-wrenching confessions in a way

14:37

that we can all relate to, I

14:40

think that's really special. I mean, I remember after performing

14:42

at The Moth for the first time, I thought, I

14:44

think I'm better at this than just

14:46

traditional stand-up comedy. I think this is what I'm

14:49

supposed to do. So now

14:51

it's, I think, more than 15

14:53

years later and this is what I do. That

14:58

was Mike Rbiglia. Coming

15:01

up, a family takes a

15:03

DNA test just for fun, but then...

15:08

I need to read a book of the news. The

15:28

Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods

15:30

Hole, Massachusetts and presented by PRX. For

15:35

over a century, Brooks has been propelled by

15:37

a never-ending curiosity with how humans move. It

15:40

drives their every decision and every innovation

15:42

because they believe movement is the key

15:46

to feeling more alive. And

15:48

we're all moving towards something. It could be to run

15:50

a 5K and raise money for a

15:52

cause you believe in. To take

15:54

the lead on your family's annual Thanksgiving Day hike

15:56

or... For

16:00

me, I love how clear my

16:02

head feels after a long run. But

16:04

living in Brooklyn means I'm running on

16:06

cement. So my head feels great, but

16:08

my knees, not so much. That's why

16:10

I'm so happy to have the cushioning

16:12

of the Brooks Ghost Max shoes that

16:14

let me go a little bit further

16:16

and feel a little bit clearer. And

16:19

with my new reflective run visible vest,

16:21

I can chase this high before the

16:23

sun is even up and kickstart my

16:25

day. So let's run there with gear

16:27

and experiences specifically designed to take you

16:29

to that place, whether it's a

16:31

headspace, a feeling, or a finish line. Let's

16:34

run there. Head to brooksrunning.com to

16:36

learn more. This

16:40

is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm

16:42

Katherine Burns. In this show,

16:44

we're talking about genetics. DNA

16:46

doesn't lie, and having access to

16:48

our own genetic histories has fundamentally

16:50

shifted the world. That

16:53

was the case with our next storyteller, Carmen

16:55

Rita Wong. She tells

16:57

her story at the Terry Town Music Hall in

16:59

the Hudson Valley. So we partnered

17:01

with Music Without Borders. Here's Carmen.

17:07

Here's where in Manhattan in the

17:09

1970s to a Chinese father

17:11

and a Dominican mother. Now

17:14

there was no mistaking that my mother was my mother. Guadalupe

17:17

y otra gracias go mecere es. A.K.A.

17:21

Lupe. She was

17:23

the constant in my life and very

17:25

much my Latin mama. Now

17:27

when I was a toddler though, she divorced my

17:29

Chinese father, Papi Wong, as I call

17:31

him. But my older

17:33

brother and I still saw him on the weekends and

17:35

here and there. And we loved it

17:37

because he'd take us to Chinatown shopping or to

17:39

our favorite restaurants. I loved the

17:41

ones that had the fancy chopsticks. They went click,

17:43

click. And

17:46

even though he didn't live with us, I was

17:48

raised as his daughter. I was raised as a Wong.

17:52

Now my mother didn't stay single long. She

17:55

remarried and we picked up and moved from

17:57

Harlem to New Hampshire. Now,

18:03

I've got to say, my stepfather, my new

18:06

dad, Charlie, he was like

18:08

a dad out of the Golden Books when

18:10

you were kids, right? He was

18:12

a white guy, wore a suit and

18:14

tie, carried a briefcase to work every day,

18:16

and came home at the same time Monday

18:19

through Friday to dinner on the table. Well,

18:22

little Carmen thought she had hit the American

18:24

Daddy jackpot. Here's

18:28

the thing, the best thing he gave

18:30

me were my four little sisters, who

18:33

I loved and adored, pains in the butt,

18:35

but I loved them so much. And

18:38

I wanted to be a part of

18:40

that family. I wanted him to be my

18:42

daddy, too, but

18:45

he wasn't. And so

18:47

I grew up always feeling like an outsider,

18:49

like an other. And

18:52

you better believe, in 1980s New

18:54

Hampshire, I was an other. I

18:57

might as well have been an alien

18:59

that landed there, an unwelcome alien in

19:01

a place that was supposed to be my

19:03

home. The little

19:05

kids would make fun of me and pulling up their eyes

19:07

or bucking their teeth or all these

19:10

new creative slurs were thrown my way for

19:13

being brown. And

19:15

every once in a while, the grownups would get

19:17

on that train. When

19:19

I was in fourth grade at parent-teacher conference,

19:22

Sister Rachel said to my mother, my Latin

19:24

mother, mind you, that the reason why I

19:26

was getting all these straight A's well was

19:28

because, you know, it's Carmen's

19:31

Chinese side. Now,

19:36

I may have been only nine years old, but

19:40

I knew enough to be insulted

19:42

and embarrassed for my mother and me.

19:46

I liked Sister Rachel a lot less after that. Because

19:50

here's the thing, even though my mother wasn't

19:52

the Asian parent, she was what some people

19:54

would call a tiger mom, right?

19:57

Lupe expected excellence from me at

19:59

all. times. If

20:02

I dared to bring home anything but an

20:04

A, she would say, well,

20:08

are you an A or are you

20:10

a B? Lupe

20:14

saw education as a way of

20:16

escaping her fate, working

20:18

full time at 15 years

20:20

old to help support her family, married off by

20:23

her father at 19 and there at that conference

20:26

night in her 30s pregnant with

20:28

her fifth child. She

20:31

wanted more from me. So

20:34

in the car ride home from that parent teacher

20:36

conference though, I was still nice

20:39

and I just had to ask, I just had to

20:41

say, mommy, mommy, sister

20:44

Rachel said I'm smart because of Poppy

20:47

because I'm Chinese. And

20:50

my mother, the parent who was

20:53

actually present, the one who would kick

20:55

my butt if I didn't do well in school, she

20:58

just kept her eyes straight on the road and

21:00

there was a little smile. She

21:03

shrugged and she said, that's okay.

21:05

And in

21:08

that smile, which was more of a smirk, I

21:11

realized there was a lot of things my mother

21:13

wasn't telling me. See,

21:16

mommy came from a world of secrets.

21:19

In the 1950s, 1960s Dominican Republic,

21:23

this was a place where speaking your mind

21:25

or telling the truth could get you beaten

21:27

or killed or

21:30

kidnapped in the middle of the night like my

21:32

grandfather who was tortured but

21:36

then who later escaped the hospital dressed as a woman

21:38

by his sisters. I

21:41

mean, talk about secrets.

21:43

This is cloak and dagger on a

21:45

family level. This was my mother's normal.

21:51

By the time I was in my 30s,

21:54

my mother received a devastating cancer diagnosis. And for

21:56

the first time

21:58

in her life... She was about to

22:00

lose control of the narrative. My

22:04

stepfather Charlie called me months after we found out

22:06

that she was sick and said, he needed to

22:08

see me urgently and alone. A

22:12

couple weeks later, I'm sitting across the kitchen table from

22:14

him and he says to me, Carmen,

22:19

Poppy Wong is

22:22

not your father. I

22:24

am. The

22:27

first thing that came to my mind was, aya,

22:30

I'm not Chinese anymore? And

22:34

two, damn you two,

22:38

all these years that I so

22:40

much wanted to be a part

22:42

of that family, that picture book

22:45

American family, his family, and

22:48

they both knew it was

22:52

painful. Now

22:55

I had to confirm this story, of course, with my

22:57

mother. Who I then

22:59

told him, and she confirmed it pretty much with

23:02

a lot more dramatic flair. She

23:06

was mostly just upset that he'd gotten to me

23:08

before she did. But

23:10

mommy, even stage four colon cancer, how long were

23:12

you going to wait? Right? So

23:16

there was many tears and

23:18

questions and blame. But

23:20

I made peace with my mother before she

23:22

passed the following year. My

23:25

relationship with Charlie, however, unfortunately

23:28

has never been exactly the same. How

23:31

could it be? Well,

23:34

years go by and now we're living in

23:36

a time when genetic testing is

23:39

available to everybody, to the public, and

23:42

affordable. And there's one thing

23:44

my family loves, it's a sale. So,

23:47

we're at holiday season, we all bought up

23:50

a bunch of 23 and me and

23:52

took the test at the same time. Mom,

23:55

how about I result back

23:57

first? And I'm opening that up.

24:00

And what I'm expecting to see is I'm

24:02

expecting to see a confirmation of this family

24:04

secret, right? I'm expecting to

24:06

see that I'm half Charlie, which

24:08

is Italian, and then half

24:10

my mother, which would be African and Spanish.

24:15

Well, that's not what I thought. Portuguese.

24:20

It says I'm half Portuguese.

24:24

I frantically texted my sister Nina. She

24:26

texted right back. She said, okay, don't

24:28

worry about it, okay? Relax. Once we

24:31

all get our results back and we

24:33

connect, right? Because once we see our

24:35

relationships and we connect our data then

24:38

we'll know what's right, right? So

24:42

I pick up the phone and say my brother. He says pretty much the

24:44

same thing. He says don't worry about it. You know what?

24:46

Maybe it's a mix-up. Once we connect and see

24:49

our relationships and we're all linked up, then

24:51

you'll see. You know, plus Italy and Portugal

24:53

are kind of close to each other. So

24:58

no, no, that's not

25:00

what happened. Once we all

25:02

connected. Now remember my sister Nina, my

25:05

baby sisters, I'm supposed to be the

25:07

same as her. I was supposed to be full

25:09

siblings. And

25:11

there it was in large,

25:15

extra large font, half

25:18

sister. There

25:21

was a third father. Six

25:24

kids in my family and

25:27

I didn't share a father with any of

25:29

them. I

25:31

felt so alone. But

25:35

damn it, I was gonna solve this mystery. So

25:38

I went digging in the past and I dug

25:40

up my godmother who I hadn't spoken to in 20 years.

25:43

I tracked her down and I

25:45

called her up and I said, Pimpa. This is her

25:47

nickname. We called her Pimpa. I

25:50

said, we all took this genetic test and we found out

25:52

that any of a different father from everybody.

25:56

And she was really surprised because Pimpa, she thought

25:58

she knew all of them. So all my mother's

26:00

secrets, she was my mother's best friend, she lived

26:02

down the hall from us growing up. And

26:05

she was a scholar now, she was a dual

26:07

PhD. She looked at

26:10

historical records to find shipwrecks in

26:12

the Caribbean. My godmother

26:14

was a treasure hunter. That's

26:17

what I wanted right now, that's what I needed. But

26:20

she was surprised. Because

26:23

even though she knew as well,

26:26

seems like everybody knew, that Poppy Wong was

26:28

not my father, she also

26:30

thought that it had been Charlie. I

26:33

said, no, Bimba, it says

26:35

I'm Portuguese. Oh.

26:39

Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.

26:42

Oh. Oh. Oh.

26:45

The Argentinian optometrist on Delancey Street.

26:47

Oh. Oh. Oh.

26:50

Oh. Oh. Oh,

26:52

what's his name? I'm

26:54

Bia, how can I remember his name? It was almost

26:56

50 years ago. Listen, your mother,

26:58

don't judge your mother. She was lonely. Poppy

27:01

was already kicked out of the house and

27:03

so she was dating, you know. And I

27:05

was babysitting your brother when the dates would

27:07

come and pick her up. So yeah, there

27:09

was Charlie. And then the

27:12

optometrist, you know. She had a part-time

27:14

job at an optician on Delancey Street. But

27:16

he's dead. My

27:22

heart could barely bake it. You

27:25

know, have people really thought about the

27:28

fact that, you know, with genetic testing, we're

27:31

looking at the end of family secrets.

27:33

You're looking at the member of probably

27:35

the last generation whose parents could futz

27:37

around about their futzing around. Oh.

27:42

Really? Here's

27:45

the thing. My

27:47

origin story, as I like to call it, or

27:50

mystery, is still

27:53

happening to this day. But

27:56

here's what I do know. I

27:59

know that... Lupe did

28:01

everything she could and came so

28:04

far and did so much to give me options.

28:08

I know that Charlie, I used to

28:10

talk with him about the stock market to bond and

28:13

I ended up hosting my own Finance Daily

28:15

TV show on CNBC. And

28:18

Bobby Wong, well he taught me

28:21

the street hustle that helped get me there.

28:25

I got a good deal, but

28:29

I rail at my mother's ghost sometimes,

28:32

Lupe, for

28:34

leaving out this incredibly important little detail

28:37

of my life. And

28:40

I ask her to visit me in my dreams, to

28:43

drop me a hint or a clue as

28:46

to who it is I'm looking at when I

28:48

look in the mirror. The

28:53

morning after I talked to Pimpa, I called

28:55

my sister Nina. I said,

28:57

Nina, what

28:59

if I never find out who this man is? And

29:04

Nina, who's super Zen, said,

29:06

you know, does

29:08

it really matter, girl? Because

29:10

you know who you are. You

29:13

know who you are. She's

29:18

right. How

29:30

many of the Wongs in the former national

29:33

TV host, the gay pianist and the preface,

29:35

who is looking at the success of the

29:37

movie? We recently sat

29:39

down to discuss how this story came about

29:41

and what's happened in the aftermath of all

29:43

these revelations. So

29:45

I was having breakfast with you and

29:48

at the end of the breakfast, you

29:50

ended up telling me this story. But

29:52

at the time, the story ended with

29:55

you finding out that Charlie was your father. And

30:00

then, so you agreed to tell the story, and

30:02

then you came to the office like a month

30:04

later. Mm-hmm. We had the

30:07

meeting scheduled, and the

30:09

night before, I had

30:11

gotten the results with my family

30:14

that it actually was a

30:17

third man, daddy number three. Because

30:19

I remember you saying, before

30:21

we start, I have something to tell you. I

30:25

said plot twist. Yes, you did. The

30:28

mystery continues. At

30:31

the end of the story, you're

30:34

searching for the daddy who's the

30:36

optometrist on Delancey Street, but then

30:39

yesterday, you send me your

30:41

bio, and I read it,

30:43

and da-da-da. It was

30:46

not the optometrist on the

30:48

Delancey Street. Not Argentinian

30:50

at all. I did speak with my

30:52

stepfather, with Charlie, and finally kind of broke

30:55

the news to him. And new

30:57

revelations came out. And here's the funny thing is

30:59

that I was so concerned about his reaction, because

31:01

he had been, I'd been living with him as

31:04

my father, stepfather for so many years. I

31:06

didn't want to break his heart. Yeah. Instead, I was

31:09

the one who fell apart, and he was holding me

31:11

together. But then I picked

31:13

myself up and said, okay, dad, so

31:15

do you know who the hell this is? Can you tell me

31:17

anything? And he said, you know, I used

31:19

to pick up your mother from this

31:21

clinic in the Bronx. She

31:23

was working there, and I go and drive and pick her up. There

31:26

was this Cuban doctor. I

31:29

was little. I had bad feelings about this

31:31

Cuban doctor, and I was like, okay. And

31:33

then I go, of course, just like the

31:36

optometrist. I was like, well, at least he was a

31:38

doctor. And then 23andMe had an

31:41

update on its system. So

31:45

they sent me a notice and said,

31:47

we have a more specialized report for

31:49

you. And there it was. It

31:52

had the origins, the most direct

31:55

origins outside the US of my

31:57

family, and half of it

31:59

was Havana. Cuba. So

32:01

that's where we're heading and

32:04

I hired a genealogist and we're tracking down my

32:06

mother's work records because no one can remember who

32:08

this man is and we're

32:10

just gonna try to figure it out. That

32:16

was Carmen Rita Wong. To

32:18

see a photo of Carmen's mother and

32:20

Pepe Wong at their engagement party go

32:22

to themos.org. While there you

32:24

can call our pitch line and leave us a two-minute version

32:26

of a story you'd like to tell. By the

32:29

way for future show we're looking for

32:31

stories about animals. Dogs,

32:33

cats, tarantulas, llamas,

32:35

geese, bring them on. The

32:37

number to call is 877-799-MOS or you can pitch

32:42

us your own story at themos.org. We

32:53

have a woman missing a difficult decision

32:55

when faced with her family's genetic history

32:57

and later a Nobel Prize-winning geneticist

33:00

just a scramble to get his

33:02

green card removed. That's when

33:04

the MOS radio hour... The

33:36

MOS radio hour is produced by

33:38

Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole,

33:40

Massachusetts and presented by

33:43

the Public Radio Exchange, prx.org.

33:48

This is the MOS radio hour from

33:51

PRX. I'm Catherine Burns. Our

33:53

next story was told at one of our

33:55

open mic story slam competitions here in New

33:57

York City. We partner with Public Radio Station W.O.C.

34:01

Here's Buck Nooker, live at the Moss.

34:06

So, ten years ago

34:08

I underwent genetic testing for the

34:10

breast cancer gene. And I

34:13

did this because when I was five years

34:15

old I watched my mother die of breast

34:17

cancer. She was 26 when

34:20

she was diagnosed and she was 30 when

34:22

she passed away. And

34:24

her mother had also died when she was five

34:26

years old. And

34:28

my older sister died of a rare genetic

34:30

liver disorder when she was only nine months

34:32

old. So it really

34:34

only felt natural to me to try to

34:36

figure out why this kept happening to people

34:39

in my family. And

34:41

the person that had a front row seat

34:43

for all of this pain and death was

34:46

my Aunt Anna. Now

34:48

my Aunt Anna, she

34:50

took my mother in after their mother

34:52

died and she raised her along with

34:54

her eight children. She

34:57

left that sink in. And

35:00

then when my mother died she took in me

35:02

and my brother and she became

35:04

a mother all over again. And she

35:06

raised us with her brood of eight adult

35:09

children. And man,

35:11

she just did it. And she

35:13

did it well. And she did

35:15

it in that Irish Catholic, blue collar

35:18

way. You just, you put your head down

35:20

and you do what you need to do to take care of your

35:22

family. And she did

35:24

it with quiet strength. But

35:27

when I said quiet, I mean quiet. We

35:30

didn't talk about death. We

35:32

didn't talk about cancer. She

35:35

never talked about what she

35:37

had seen in her life. Until

35:39

I was older and in college and

35:41

on breaks I would drive down to

35:43

see her in Southwest Philly. And we

35:45

would sit around the table and drink

35:47

bad coffee and talk about life and

35:49

family and you know, you see stuff.

35:52

And then after enough of that she started to actually

35:54

open up about that time. And she

35:57

told me this story about my mom. And

36:00

she was in the hospital, which is a

36:02

lot. My mother died

36:04

a blind quadriplegic with steel rods

36:06

holding up her skull. She

36:09

suffered, unimaginably. But

36:13

that day, when Anna went to see her, she

36:16

went in and my mom was so happy and

36:18

she was smiling and she was excited. And

36:21

she grabbed Anna's hand and she said, Anna, you

36:23

never believe what the nurses told me this morning.

36:27

They're doing liver transplants. You're

36:30

doing it. You're doing it. That

36:34

was the thing that would have saved my sister's

36:36

life. And in 1975, they were

36:38

not doing that. And

36:42

it has really always amazed me that my mother

36:44

was able to find this joy and this happiness

36:47

despite being trapped in total health.

36:51

And I tried to remember that when my

36:54

own genetic test results came back and they

36:56

were positive for the BRCA1 mutation,

36:58

which was not a surprise, but

37:01

it took my risk from 12% to somewhere around

37:03

60 to 87% risk

37:06

of getting the disease that seemed

37:09

to get everyone. And

37:12

then around that time, we

37:14

buried Anna because

37:17

she got cancer and she

37:19

didn't tell anyone, because

37:21

she didn't want everyone to go through the same

37:24

thing that she had gone through and she didn't

37:26

want anyone to see what she's in. And

37:29

so quietly, she did. And

37:33

at that point, I had enough. I was really

37:35

done. So I elected

37:37

to have a prophylactic mastectomy. And

37:39

I made that decision ferociously.

37:43

And I made every decision after

37:45

that fearlessly and with strength. And

37:48

I was resolute right

37:51

up until I was alone in

37:53

a very small room in the hospital that

37:55

morning with my plastic

37:57

surgeon and bare ass

37:59

naked. naked with my hospital gown around my

38:01

waist. And he was making

38:04

all these marks on my breasts with this

38:06

dark blue grease pen. And

38:09

I got so scared. I

38:11

was so alone. And

38:14

then in that same instant

38:17

when I got so scared, I

38:19

felt over on the right hand side of the room

38:22

that there were people there. As

38:24

much as you all are here right now, they were

38:27

there. And it was my

38:29

grandmother, and it was my mother, and it was

38:31

Anna, and it was my sister. And

38:34

I was calm

38:37

and warm and

38:39

happy and excited. And

38:43

I thought about my mother and I looked over in

38:45

the corner and I went, look

38:47

mom, they're doing it. They're

38:51

doing this. And

38:54

that really is the spirit with which I've

38:56

moved forward after this, is every time I'm

38:58

walking through this world and I see something

39:01

awesome or amazing or just

39:03

beautiful, I look up at the sky and

39:05

I hear it within. And

39:08

then I tell them, look guys,

39:11

I'm doing it. Thank

39:13

you. So this

39:21

is Beth, who is

39:24

a passionate educator of students with learning

39:26

disabilities in ADHD. Having

39:29

ADHD herself, her mission is to show

39:31

her students what they're really made of and

39:33

prove to them that no matter what label

39:35

life throws at us, we can learn

39:37

to live beyond it. Since

39:39

this story aired, Beth celebrated her

39:42

40th birthday and underwent her

39:44

final risk-reducing surgery. She's

39:46

now considered to have the same cancer risk

39:48

as the general population. She

39:50

says that she's never been more thrilled to be average.

39:55

To get a link to Beth's website and to see

39:57

pictures of Beth and her family, go to themoth.org. Our

40:10

final story is a classic mock tale

40:12

that came out of our many year-long

40:14

collaboration with the World Science Festival. As

40:17

part of this annual event, we'd ask some of the

40:19

greatest minds in the world to stand

40:21

on stage and talk about themselves.

40:24

In our experience, most scientists would rather

40:26

be in a lecture hall talking about

40:28

anything with themselves, but every

40:30

year a few step up. One

40:33

year we were thrilled to have not one, but

40:35

two Nobel Laureate observers. Here's

40:38

one of them, the geneticist Paul Nurse,

40:40

live at the MOS. I'm

40:45

a geneticist. I study how chromosomes

40:47

are inherited in dividing cells, but

40:49

my story tonight will be more

40:51

to do with my own genetics.

40:55

You probably gather I'm English. As

40:58

brought up in the 50s and 60s in London,

41:01

my family wasn't very rich. I had

41:03

two brothers. I had a sister. My

41:06

dad was a blue collar worker. My

41:08

mum was a cleaner. My

41:10

siblings all left school at 15, and

41:13

I was a little bit different. I sort

41:15

of did quite well at school. I

41:17

passed exams, and then I somehow got

41:19

into university, got a scholarship, and then

41:22

did a PhD. But I wondered, why

41:24

am I different to the rest of

41:26

my family? Why did they all leave

41:28

school at 15, which is

41:30

in fact what happened? I

41:32

didn't really have much of an answer, but

41:34

I felt a bit unsettled about that. I

41:36

wondered about it occasionally, but I carried on

41:39

with my life. I got a job in

41:41

a university. I got married. I had two

41:43

children, Emily and Sarah, and just got on with

41:45

things. Then my parents,

41:48

who are living in London, they

41:51

retire to the country. We

41:54

used to visit them regularly, but the truth was it

41:56

was a bit boring. They Lived in the

41:58

middle of nowhere, nothing much. Happen there. and

42:01

then my kids who are packed

42:03

nine or ten or eleven got

42:05

a bit bored when they went

42:07

there and Sarah my eleven year

42:09

old had a project school and

42:11

the project was family trees that

42:13

to tell you family trees a

42:15

very bad projects that have a

42:17

spouse and them I said i

42:19

got a great idea You know

42:22

I know you get a bit

42:24

old grandmas why don't you talk

42:26

to grandma's about her family tree

42:28

so we get them. You. Know

42:30

we have dinner and then of

42:32

Sarah Trots takes Grandma next door

42:34

to talk about her family tree.

42:36

Five minutes later incomes My mom

42:38

absolutely right, absolutely right. and she

42:40

comes over to mean she said

42:42

sarah's been asking me about my

42:44

family tree. Am I have to

42:46

tell you something that I've never

42:48

told you? I was in my

42:50

thirties for news in my thirties

42:52

to success I never told you

42:54

My mom said is she says

42:56

it's actually I'm illegitimate This is

42:58

what my mom said she'd eat

43:00

or and religious myths she been

43:02

born in nineteen hundred and ten

43:04

a mom wasn't married, Am should

43:06

be born in the poor. How

43:08

she wouldn't put wasn't very. I'm

43:10

at from a wealthy family and

43:12

she was brought up by her

43:14

grandmother and her mother had married

43:16

somebody else who wants to was

43:18

my grandfather but that wasn't the

43:20

case. My grandfather was unknown side

43:22

lost a grandfather. Then

43:25

she turned to me and said and actually

43:27

the same for your father to. So

43:32

into sentences utmost to

43:35

grandfather's. Well

43:38

as with a bit of a shock and

43:40

then I began to think about it my

43:42

source for maybe this is where I got

43:44

some exotic genes from somewhere and they are

43:46

real combined and and that form of the

43:48

difference. And then I remembered that my middle

43:50

name was Maxime and I got it from

43:52

my my dad who was called Maxime. william

43:54

jones and you know he was a sort of

43:57

farm works in the country that's where he came

43:59

from in norfolk And I tell you,

44:01

in Norfolk, farm workers are not

44:03

called Maxime, usually. This is a

44:05

French-Russian aristocratic sort of name. And

44:08

it did seem a little odd, so I began

44:10

to sort of imagine that perhaps, you

44:12

know, I had an exotic grandfather's, you

44:14

know, French-Russian aristocrat and, you know, blah

44:16

blah blah, and that was why I

44:18

ended up how I was. And

44:23

so that seemed all okay, that seemed a

44:25

reasonable explanation, and, you know, I forgot about

44:27

things, and I got on with my career,

44:30

and I became an Oxford professor, then a

44:32

departmental chair, then they knighted me, and then

44:34

I got a Nobel Prize a few years

44:36

ago. So

44:38

that's all hunky-dory, and

44:41

then in 2003, I

44:43

decided to come to

44:45

New York City. Both

44:52

my parents had died, they lived to the 80s and 90s, and

44:56

so I came with my family to New York City

44:58

to be president of Rockefeller University, and

45:01

up at Eastside. And a

45:03

couple of years ago, 2007, I thought I should try

45:05

and get a green card. Have

45:08

you ever seen those poor bastards all there

45:10

queuing up when you come into immigration? They're

45:12

all people like me who have to wait

45:14

there for an hour and a half and

45:16

have their fingerprints all done anyway. And so

45:18

if you have a green card, residence card,

45:20

you avoid that, okay? So I applied for

45:22

a green card, huge amount of paperwork, you

45:24

have no idea. How complicated it is. Sent

45:26

the thing off, waited

45:29

a number of months, came back, and

45:31

I was rejected. And

45:34

I thought, how come I'm rejected? I'm a

45:36

knight, I've got a Nobel Prize, and I'm

45:38

talking about Rockefeller University, and they reject me

45:41

for a green card. I know home-known security

45:43

has high standards, but I mean, this did

45:46

seem more than a little

45:48

ridiculous. So

45:50

I looked through all the paperwork, and I

45:53

eventually found out they did not like the

45:55

documentation I'd sent with my application. So I

45:57

went through it, and I picked out. They

45:59

particularly did. didn't like my birth certificate, so

46:01

I got my birth certificate out. And it

46:03

was a so-called short birth

46:05

certificate, which we have in Britain, which names

46:07

who you are, where you were born, the

46:10

time you were born, your citizenship and so

46:12

on. It doesn't happen to quite name your

46:14

parents, okay? It's a perfectly official document, but

46:16

that's what I had. And so

46:18

I thought, well, I can go

46:21

and get the long certificate. I knew the registry

46:23

office would have it, so I phoned up London,

46:25

the registry office, and said, please send that in

46:27

the post. I told my secretary in my office,

46:29

when it arrived, bungled it all off again,

46:31

send it off to those silly jerks

46:33

in Homeland Security. I

46:36

went on holiday for a couple of weeks, went to

46:38

New Zealand, came back, undoing

46:41

all the mail, looking at my

46:43

emails and so on. Several people

46:45

in my room, I had my

46:47

secretary, her assistant, my wife came in,

46:50

my lab manager was around, so quite

46:52

a few people around. And then I

46:54

remembered, I told my secretary to get

46:57

this package sent off,

46:59

so I asked her, did you manage to do that?

47:02

And she turned to me and she said, well, I didn't

47:04

do it, she said, because the

47:06

certificate arrived, I

47:08

looked at it, and I thought, maybe

47:11

you got the name of your mother wrong. I said,

47:14

of course I didn't get the name of my

47:16

mother wrong, that would be absolutely ridiculous. So she

47:18

handed me the certificate, and everybody started to look

47:21

at me, a strange conversation to have. So I

47:23

open it, I look at it, and there, the

47:25

name nurse is my mother, and I say, well,

47:29

not a problem there. And then I look at

47:31

it again, and the name was Miriam

47:33

Nurse, and that was the name

47:35

of my sister. It was

47:38

not the name of my mother at all,

47:40

it was the name of my sister. So

47:43

I'm looking at this thinking, oh my

47:45

God, the registry office have cocked up again,

47:47

you know. And

47:50

then I look a bit further, and where it

47:52

says father, there's just a line, just

47:55

a dash, no father. And then my

47:57

wife comes up and says, you know

48:00

I don't know what this might mean, Paul. LAUGHTER I

48:09

was a bit slow, actually. LAUGHTER I

48:13

really didn't quite realise what it might

48:15

have meant. And

48:17

then slowly, you know, the clouds,

48:19

you know, roll away. My

48:23

sister was 18 years

48:25

and one month older than me. OK?

48:29

Now, I haven't told you, but

48:32

both, not only both my parents had died,

48:34

who are actually now my grandparents, but also

48:36

my mother. She died early

48:38

of multiple sclerosis three or four

48:40

years before. So I had

48:42

nobody, and all that generation had died, I

48:45

had nobody to confirm if

48:47

this story was true. However,

48:49

on the birth certificate was the place where

48:51

I was born, and it was my great

48:53

aunt's house, about 100 miles from London, in

48:56

a city called Norwich. And

48:58

my great-aunt had a daughter who was

49:00

11 years of age when I was

49:02

born, so I phoned her up and said, do

49:04

you know anything about this? And

49:06

she said, yes, I do. She said, your

49:10

sister became pregnant at 17 and

49:12

she was sent to her aunt's in Norwich, 100

49:14

miles away from home. This is like a Dickensian novel,

49:16

as you can see. And

49:20

she gave birth to you, and

49:22

her mother, my grandmother, came up

49:24

and pretended that the baby was hers.

49:27

And she sent your real mother back home,

49:30

and several months later she took you back with

49:33

pretending that she was your

49:35

mother. And we all

49:37

lived together in this two-bedroom department for two and

49:39

a half years, and then my real mother got

49:43

married and left home.

49:46

And there's a photograph of me in

49:49

this wedding. And my mother,

49:51

my real mother, was holding the

49:54

hand of her husband in one hand

49:56

and my hand in the other, because

49:58

you realize this was her mother's. leaving

50:00

me with her parents.

50:03

She never told her husband so

50:06

the whole thing was kept secret for

50:08

over half a century. Now

50:11

at the same wedding I crawled

50:13

under the table, a gate leg table, which

50:16

had the wedding cake and

50:19

I managed to move the leg and

50:21

the wedding cake fell off the table

50:23

and smashed into pieces. I wonder whether

50:25

I was revolting at the

50:27

thought of my mother being taken

50:29

away. Now this was a tragedy I'm

50:32

sure for my mother. I was brought

50:34

up happily, a little dully maybe by

50:36

my grandparents, but this is I'm sure

50:38

a tragedy for my mother. She had

50:41

three children and she kept

50:43

four photographs of babies by her bed.

50:45

I only learnt this after her death.

50:47

Three were her legitimate children and I

50:49

was her fourth illegitimate

50:51

child. Well what's

50:54

the final irony here really is I'm

50:56

not a bad geneticist and

50:59

my rather simple family kept my

51:01

own genetic secret for over half

51:03

a century. Thank you. That

51:15

was home. Dr.

51:17

Nurse is the former president of

51:19

the Royal Society and chief executive

51:21

and director of the Francis Cook

51:23

Institute. Along with two

51:25

fellow scientists he was awarded the

51:27

2001 Nobel Prize for discoveries of

51:29

protein molecules that control the division

51:31

of cells in the cell cycle.

51:34

Dr. Nurse was indicted by the Queen in

51:37

1999 in honor of his work in

51:39

cancer research. When I

51:41

wrote to Dr. Nurse and asked if he had any

51:43

updates on the story he wrote, The

51:45

only new thing to add is that

51:47

I've had a DNA analysis carried out and

51:49

definitely have close relatives that I don't know

51:51

and so may be related to my

51:54

unknown father. At present I've

51:56

not had a response from them. That's

52:01

it for this episode. We hope you'll join

52:03

us next time for the Moth Radio Hour.

52:19

With the Moth Artistic Director, Catherine Burns,

52:21

who also directed the stories in the

52:24

show, the rest of

52:26

the Moth directorial staff include Sarah

52:28

Haberman, Sarah Austin Genes, Jennifer Hickson

52:30

and Meg Bold, production support from

52:33

Emily Couch. Special thanks to the

52:35

World Science Festival. Moth Stories

52:37

Are True is remembered and affirmed by

52:39

the storytellers. Our theme music

52:42

is by The Drift, other music

52:44

in this hour from Corolla Dust,

52:46

Crung Bin, Wolfgang Moochfield and B.

52:48

Fleischmann. The Moth is

52:51

produced for radio by me, Jay

52:53

Allison, with Vicki Merrick at Atlantic

52:55

Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

52:57

This hour was produced with funds

52:59

from the National Endowment for the

53:01

Arts. The Moth Radio Hour

53:03

is presented by PRX. For more about

53:06

our podcast, for information on pitching us

53:08

your own story and everything else, go

53:10

to our website, themoth.org.