Lisa Ling says her Take Out docuseries made her "really connected to my Chinese American identity"

The Cut

"I’ve spent more than 30 years working as a broadcast journalist, and I think I’ve gotten fairly decent at sharing other people’s stories," Ling says while discussing her six-part HBO Max docuseries delving into Asian food in America. "This show was a unique journey for me into my own family’s heritage — especially in light of the violence that has been happening over the past couple of years against Asian American communities in this country. So I really encourage other Asian Americans to do the same thing, because we come from a culture that is not the most communicative and asks us to keep our heads down for the most part. But after really exploring my family’s roots, and also the roots of the Chinese in my hometown of Sacramento, for the first time in almost 50 years, I’ve felt really connected to my Chinese American identity. Since Asian American history isn’t really taught in school, it’s easy for us to feel like we don’t entirely belong. When there’s no inclusion of our experiences or our contribution to a country, it becomes easy to overlook and even dehumanize an entire population. So I think the past couple of years have been this real reckoning for Asian Americans, and it’s really challenged us to know our stories, know our histories, and to try and communicate them to a wider American audience."