Listen Now: Model Minority Moms

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Add to Cart with Kulap Vilaysack & SuChin Pak" Episode Title: Listen Now: Model Minority Moms
Release Date: February 25, 2025
Hosts: Kulap Vilaysack & SuChin Pak
Produced by: Lemonada Media

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of Add to Cart, hosts Kulap Vilaysack and SuChin Pak delve deep into the nuanced experiences of Asian American mothers navigating the intersections of culture, family, and personal identity. The episode features a heartfelt conversation with SuChin Pak, focusing on her groundbreaking documentary, "Origin Story", which unpacks her intricate family dynamics and personal struggles.

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Guest Introduction: SuChin Pak and Her Background

Timestamp: [02:26] - [05:25]

The episode kicks off with an introduction to SuChin Pak, highlighting her diverse background as an Asian American working mother. SuChin shares her roots, explaining that her parents were war refugees from Laos who fled the aftermath of the American war in Vietnam and the secret war in Laos. Born in Washington, D.C., her family soon relocated to Minnesota, where she spent her childhood until moving to Los Angeles at 18.

Notable Quote:

"I was the first sales rep for the Ed Hardy clothing line before that became huge. And then I started taking Second City classes, which led to the Upright Citizens Brigade theater." — SuChin Pak [04:09]

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Creating "Origin Story": Unveiling Family Secrets

Timestamp: [05:25] - [26:58]

SuChin Pak discusses the impetus behind her documentary, "Origin Story", revealing deeply personal and traumatic experiences. At the age of 14, she discovered that her father was not her biological parent, a revelation that strained her relationship with her mother. This discovery led to SuChin feeling unloved and unworthy, sentiments that lingered into her adulthood.

Key Points:

• Revelation of Her Biological Father's Identity: SuChin recounts how learning about her biological father at 14 shattered her sense of self and trust within her family.

• Impact of Trauma on Relationships: The documentary explores how these early traumas influenced SuChin's relationships, both familial and romantic, highlighting struggles with trust and emotional investment.

• Turning Point with Miscarriage: SuChin shares how her first miscarriage at 33 prompted her to confront lingering issues with her mother, ultimately leading to the creation of the documentary.

Notable Quotes:

"Everybody involved is an unreliable narrator. I was gaslit most of my life." — SuChin Pak [06:19]

"The documentary was a life-altering project for me." — SuChin Pak [10:13]

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Fertility Journey: Trials and Triumphs

Timestamp: [44:05] - [81:06]

A significant portion of the conversation centers around SuChin's arduous fertility journey, marked by multiple miscarriages and medical challenges. She details her experiences with Intrauterine Insemination (IUI), egg retrievals, and finally, the heartbreaking decision to pursue surrogacy after exhausting all other options.

Key Points:

• Multiple Miscarriages: SuChin shares that she endured six miscarriages, each taking a severe toll on her mental and physical health.

• Medical Complications: Discovering she had a septum in her heart-shaped uterus led to surgical interventions that unfortunately compromised her fertility further.

• Decision to Pursue Surrogacy: Faced with declining chances of a successful pregnancy, SuChin and her husband Scott decided to explore surrogacy, navigating the complexities and emotional challenges it entailed.

Notable Quotes:

"I have six miscarriages. And it is brutal. It is brutal." — SuChin Pak [46:54]

"She makes me drop my cynicism and see the world anew again." — SuChin Pak [64:07]

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Family Dynamics Post-Documentary

Timestamp: [26:58] - [35:57]

Post-documentary, SuChin reflects on how sharing her story has reshaped her relationships with her parents and sisters. While her stepfather acknowledges the truths revealed, her mother reacts with shock and denial, leading to further estrangement.

Key Points:

• Parental Reactions: SuChin's mother struggles to accept the truths unveiled in the documentary, leading to strained interactions and limited communication.

• Sisterly Bonds: Despite the familial tensions, SuChin maintains close relationships with her sisters, Anita and Alyssa, who support her through her tumultuous journey.

• Role as the Matriarch: As the eldest sister, SuChin shoulders significant responsibilities, both financially and emotionally, serving as a pillar for her immediate family.

Notable Quotes:

"Now my parents don’t speak at all. I see my dad when I see him, and he doesn't really make an effort." — SuChin Pak [31:08]

"I'm the matriarch of this family and I endeavor to be fair and to be hospitable. But I have developed such strong boundaries." — SuChin Pak [62:29]

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Parenting and Personal Growth

Timestamp: [35:57] - [81:06]

Transitioning into motherhood has been both a healing and challenging process for SuChin. She emphasizes the importance of setting boundaries and fostering a safe, nurturing environment for her daughter, Emmy.

Key Points:

• Protecting Her Daughter's Childhood: SuChin is committed to ensuring that Emmy grows up with a sense of autonomy and emotional safety, free from the traumas she endured.

• Balancing Career and Family: SuChin discusses how becoming a mother has redefined her career aspirations, prioritizing stability and creative fulfillment over relentless pursuit of projects.

• Advice to Fellow Immigrant Moms: SuChin offers heartfelt advice to mothers battling similar traumas, advocating for open communication, personal responsibility, and self-compassion.

Notable Quotes:

"I do everything I can to protect her childhood so she can be a kid." — SuChin Pak [66:07]

"I'm going to do everything I can to protect her childhood so she can be a kid." — SuChin Pak [66:07]

"If you f**k up and you apologize, I think that's a good idea." — SuChin Pak [71:29]

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Superhero Inspirations and Closing Thoughts

Timestamp: [73:24] - [81:06]

In a lighter yet meaningful segment, SuChin shares her admiration for comic book heroes who embody resilience and strength, drawing parallels between their stories and her own journey.

Key Points:

• Superhero Identification: SuChin cites Wonder Woman and Storm from X-Men as her superheroes, resonating with their narratives of overcoming trauma and embodying empowerment.

• Empowerment Through Storytelling: By sharing her story, SuChin aims to empower listeners to confront their own traumas and redefine their narratives.

Notable Quotes:

"Gail Simone's run of Wonder Woman is, to me, Chef's Kiss." — SuChin Pak [75:02]

"I have confidence in protecting her childhood so she can be a kid." — SuChin Pak [72:01]

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Conclusion

This episode of Add to Cart with Kulap Vilaysack & SuChin Pak offers an unflinching look into the complexities of being a Model Minority Mom. Through SuChin Pak's candid storytelling, listeners gain insight into the resilient spirit required to navigate cultural pressures, familial expectations, and personal trauma. SuChin's journey serves as a beacon of hope and inspiration for anyone grappling with similar challenges, emphasizing the power of vulnerability and the importance of forging one's own path to healing and fulfillment.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

1. "Everybody involved is an unreliable narrator. I was gaslit most of my life." — SuChin Pak [06:19]
2. "The documentary was a life-altering project for me." — SuChin Pak [10:13]
3. "I have six miscarriages. And it is brutal. It is brutal." — SuChin Pak [46:54]
4. "I'm the matriarch of this family and I endeavor to be fair and to be hospitable. But I have developed such strong boundaries." — SuChin Pak [62:29]
5. "I do everything I can to protect her childhood so she can be a kid." — SuChin Pak [66:07]

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This summary encapsulates the depth and breadth of the episode, offering a comprehensive overview for those who haven't yet listened while highlighting the most impactful moments and insights shared by SuChin Pak.

Transcript

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[Kate Wong]

Lemonade.

[Auntie Cuckoo]

Hey Carters, it's your Auntie Cuckoo. I recently did an in depth interview about my documentary origin story with three Asian American millennial moms on the podcast Model Minority Moms. One of the co hosts is Susan Liu, who we had on the show last year to talk about her stunning memoir the Manicurist Daughter. We wanted to share this episode of her podcast because talking about your life story with three other women who just understand you so well because they are fellow parents, fellow women, fellow immigrants. It just lets you get to another level of your story real quick. Model Minority mom started as a lengthy text chain between a couple of working moms who were having babies during the pandemic and it morphed into a podcast that gets into the honest and deep conversations about parenthood, careers, relationships, growing up as an immigrant, and everything in between. After you listen to this episode, search for Model Minority Moms on Spotify or Apple Podcasts for more real conversations on the topics no one wants to talk about or see our show notes for a link. We hope you enjoy the show.

[Jeanette Park]

Welcome to Model Minority Moms, where we talk about the meaning of success in career, family and life.

[Coola Belisa]

We are Jeanette Park, Kate Wong and.

[Jeanette Park]

Susan Liu, Harvard classmates, and Asian American working moms who get real about the pressures of fitting in while standing out.

[Kate Wong]

Greetings, Greetings and welcome to another episode.

[Susan Liu]

Of Model Minority Moms.

[Kate Wong]

We've been having a number of amazing guests on our podcast, and I'm so excited to have Cool up Belisa to our show. You might already know her. You might run into her on the street and be like, hey, I know you're somewhere. Like, oh, my God, I know you. And she's just sitting there going like, yo, that's because I'm in Hollywood. You might have seen her on the Office Parks and Rec. She was also a showrunner for Bajillion Dollar Properties, a writer there. She's a producer. She's a podcaster for Add to Cart podcast on Lemonade. This woman has been everywhere, and she also created her own documentary called Origin Story that we're totally going to double click into. I'm so excited to have her on the show. She is also a fellow Model Minority Mom. She's gonna talk about her fertility journey, which is so intense and insane, and I would have given up a long time ago. She is a fighter, and she is here to tell her story. Cool. Welcome to the show.

[Susan Liu]

Oh, wow. Wow, what an intro. Loosen me up.

[Kate Wong]

Yeah, it's like a wrestling ring. It's a wrestling ring. You're doing some lunges.

[Susan Liu]

I'm doing burpees right now. Wow.

[Kate Wong]

Thank you for being here. God. I watching your work and following your journey, I just feel like I know you and I'm so honored to have you here. And when we have guests come on the show, we always love to start off with. Give us a little bit about your background of your family, your immigrant story, and where you are in your own family. Okay.

[Susan Liu]

So my parents are war refugees from Laos, and I was born in the U.S. but my parents were escaping the aftermath of the American war in Vietnam and the American secret war in Laos. And so I was born in Washington, D.C. and very quickly our family moved to Minnesota, where I spent my childhood up until I was 18. And I moved to Los Angeles right after high school. I went to the Fashion Institute of Design and merchandising. Pretty quickly realized that wasn't for me, but not before working in the industry. I was the first sales rep for the Ed Hardy clothing line before that became huge. And then I started taking Second City classes. Second City Los Angeles classes led to the Upright Citizens Brigade theater. And that's where I trained, where I did a bunch of shows, where I met my lifelong friends. Friends and built true community there. And now I am 43.

[Jeanette Park]

Oh, nope.

[Susan Liu]

I'm 44. And I have a two year old daughter named Emerald. Yes.

[Kate Wong]

And we were able to learn so much about your family story by the documentary that you directed, wrote, produced, did everything for called Origin Story, which we watched on Amazon. How do you want people to watch it?

[Susan Liu]

That's a great way. I mean, it always changes anywhere you can grab it. Please do. And I appreciate it. Oh, yeah.

[Kate Wong]

Five stars. And that's where we learned that you were also the oldest of three sisters. Three daughters.

[Susan Liu]

Yeah. Yes.

[Kate Wong]

Okay. Sorry.

[Susan Liu]

Growing up, you were the oldest of three. And my sisters, Anita and Alyssa are nine and 11 years younger than I am.

[Kate Wong]

Got it. Okay. So you have a need to pursue this documentary called Origin Story. And can you explain to listeners why?

[Listener/Host]

Yes.

[Susan Liu]

So when I was 14, I found out my dad wasn't my real dad in a really terrible way. And it speaks everything to my relationship with my mom. And that relationship is complicated, to put it softly, to put it gently. And on that night, my mom wasn't so soft and gentle with me because she was having a fight with my dad. And he was just somebody I tended to relate better with. I tended to side with him. And on that night, I defended him while she was complaining to me. And she said, why are you defending him? He's not your real dad. And that's how I found out. It was incredibly difficult. I thought I looked like my stepdad, and so that was quite painful. And pretty soon I found out that my birth father basically wasn't interested in having a relationship with me. So at 14, I kind of buried it. I put it to bed because I didn't have the tools to deal with it. The adults around me were not helpful at all. And so there's a lot of things going on when you're 14, if you guys recall. I put a pin in it, if you will, and then cut to around 33, I think it was 34. I have my first miscarriage. And that sort of made me think in that moment in time, my relationship with my mom, who has a very fluid relationship with the truth, also at the time, a horrible gambler. My parents relationship was very, just to put it bad would be, to put it again, mildly. Things were the worst they had ever been really with my mom. And I had this feeling of nesting because I thought this unfortunately didn't work for me right now to become a mom. But I think it's coming. I think there's this dad shaped piece in my life that I should investigate. Essentially 20 years later, I start finally asking follow up questions. And I decided to do a documentary because everybody Involved is an unreliable narrator. I was gaslit most of my life. That was a big part of my parents child rearing style. And so not only did I felt like the camera was going to be truthful and I felt like everybody, including my own memories, would betray them. And so I felt like if I asked my parents questions and they answered and if I told you Jeanette, Susan and Kate, maybe you wouldn't believe me. And that was a problem that I've had. That night when I was 14, really, that is my origin story. And the joke, like when you think of Batman or superheroes, that was the moment in time that I think things shifted for me because that's where I identified as somebody. Somebody left, important people left, parents left as somebody who was good enough. And by the way, I was told directly that I wasn't good enough.

[Kate Wong]

But.

[Susan Liu]

But there was also this like deep seated sort of sadness that started there. And so that's why I decided to do a documentary. And I didn't really want to do it, but I was so compelled to do it. And I actively tried to quit multiple times during doing this because if a person can bury their head in the sand for so long, that's the type of person I was like, this was a herculean task and I did not intend to be the subject. And it's so ridiculous in hindsight to think that I thought I was going to be on camera like that. That's how it started. I wasn't going to be on camera.

[Kate Wong]

Yeah.

[Susan Liu]

But then you just have to go where it goes and to surrender like that. For a person who grew up in my household, one of constant conflict, violence and uncertainty, it's hard to have faith and move forward in such a manner. So it was like this really life altering project for me.

[Jeanette Park]

Yeah, I really love the documentary and I'm not just saying that because you're a guest on our show.

[Susan Liu]

Thank you.

[Jeanette Park]

I thought that it was really powerful and I just appreciated it because it tells like this story of that I think is shared across many people, like many immigrants. But also there's elements of your story that I think a lot of other non immigrants can relate to that's not really widely shared on mainstream media. I was so glad that there was something out there that people could say, like I'm not the only one dealing with this. Unfortunately, like some of the hard parts of your story are like they're not necessarily that uncommon.

[Susan Liu]

Right.

[Jeanette Park]

A lot of people experience it in different forms, but what we see on media sometimes doesn't like really reflect that or acknowledge that. So I feel like that was pretty powerful for me.

[Kate Wong]

I remember when I was watching, I was on the edge of my seat, like, the first third. So cool up is like texting her mom, will you be on camera? Or can I just ask these questions that I've never gotten to ask? And she was like, hard, no. And then she was asking you for money because she had to pay off some gambling debts. And when you said no, then she just so manipulative, and she was minimizing you. And I was sitting there going, like, wait, this is the first third of the movie. Like, if she doesn't participate, what do we have? I was sitting there going, like, what is going to happen? I was invested in the story because, like you, I had a family secret that we never got to talk about, which was my mom and her death. And we just pretended like it was not a thing. And in that sense, it was like its own form of abandonment. And that played out the rest of my life with my relationships and what I did and how I processed life. Even if we try to avoid things that are secrets or things that are shameful, they still show up.

[Jeanette Park]

And I think, like, also just parenthood, right? And motherhood has this force of. I mean, you even put in your documentary, like, in the beginning, I think you mentioned the miscarriage. You're, like, in the process of starting to consider becoming a mother. And I think for men, too, but I think for women maybe especially, it has this way of needing to dig out all the crap and just excavate that stuff before, or as much as you can do, this kind of realization that the stuff that you left buried for a long time, on some level, I think instinctively we know that that shit is not going to stay buried once we become parents.

[Susan Liu]

Yeah, yeah. And just jumping way ahead, thank God I did this. As painful and just so shocking to the nervous system, even just physically, I sit with you and we're gonna get to how we get to this place. I'm so, so grateful that I was brave. And then I moved forward, and then I did this, like, wrestling, like, shadow work. I don't know what else to call it.

[Kate Wong]

Shadow work. Yeah. You said that there were so many times you wanted to give up. What kept. Propelled you to keep going? Was it your husband? Was it your friends? Was it like, I have a tendency to need to complete things? Like, why did you stay on board? Even though so many times on camera you were sobbing and I wanted to hold you and say, this does suck. Why keep going it looked like it was breaking you at some points.

[Susan Liu]

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. There are moments like the first time there were people who were close to me. Like one of my best friends, June Diane Rayfield. I was going to go to Minnesota on my own and do this. And June was like, let me go with you. And I was like, what? I'm just so used to doing everything on my own. I only identify as an oldest child. A lot of responsibility was put on me. I never even thought to ask Scott to come with me. It's my stuff, it's my family, and Scott's my husband. And when June was talking to me and offered to come with me, I was like, you wanna come with me? Like, she actually is the first one who put me on camera. While I was talking to my stepdad. She pulled her iPhone up and saw me, like, crying while I was talking to my dad and he was talking. She was the one who was like, you gotta go on camera. I was like, ah, I know a lot.

[Kate Wong]

She. She shot the shot where it's between all the camera equipment and you can see her face.

[Susan Liu]

Yes.

[Kate Wong]

Good job, June.

[Susan Liu]

Yeah, that's June. That's June. And then before add to cart, I've been podcasting for over a decade now. My first podcast was called who Charted With Howard Kramer? And I don't know if I just asked for or just talked about how I'm like, I have a camera. I bought a camera. I know how to use the camera. And there's just like, sharing things. And two listeners offered, two strangers offered to shoot for me. Oh, wow. And so June and I were meeting. Two amazing guys were with me who were the cameras for filming that scene.

[Jeanette Park]

Yes, they were part of your listeners. They heard that you were doing this and. Yeah, that's amazing.

[Kate Wong]

Wait, did they go to Laos with you?

[Susan Liu]

They did it, but two other people did. And my dp, Jonathan Nicholas, and my producer, Erica Kraus. I don't know about you, but the way that I operate, it's like, left to my own devices, shit doesn't really get done. When other people start to get involved, when other people are depending me, that stuff always happens first. Right? And for me to see people offering to help, how could I not say yes? And anytime there would be some sort of roadblock, I'd go, well, let's call it. And then, I don't know, in a grace like situation, and hand would come out and it would be an offer that would be so flat. Foolish not to take. That would be so foolish not to hold that hand, right? And Silk was like, I guess we're still going. Don't want to. This is so uncomfortable for me. But we have to keep moving forward. We must move forward. And so it was such a lesson. I don't know if I necessarily learned how to complete things before this. Not in this way. This was really a life changer, a catalyst. I like to say that this documentary was a catalyst for me.

[Kate Wong]

It feels like divine intervention. It feels inevitable. It feels like the alchemist when he says moktub. Like it is written, like it was written for you to do this. That had to happen. It had to happen in your life. You know what I mean? Like with all these. Yeah, collective support. Just like they were catching you and they're like, no, you can't run away.

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[Auntie Cuckoo]

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[Jeanette Park]

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[Auntie Cuckoo]

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[Susan Liu]

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[Listener/Host]

When I was watching the documentary and then just listening to what you said about people just putting themselves there for you and really helping you through this documentary, I'm wondering in light of your childhood, where you suffered such a betrayal of trust.

[Susan Liu]

Right.

[Listener/Host]

And that your mom and your non bio dad, your stepdad, didn't tell you for 14 years that he was not your dad. I don't know if get over is the right word, but how were you able to thereafter, let's say, meet your husband Scott and be able to trust him? It seems like he was a huge support to you in the documentary. And then these friends who are really amazing. How did you go from that state being betrayed by your closest family to being able to then really trust and accept the hands that were reaching out to you? I'm curious because it's such a trauma, right?

[Kate Wong]

AKA have healthy relationships after traumatic childhood. Yeah, right.

[Susan Liu]

I mean there's a like a number of ways. And I think putting form to my dysfunction, that's what this documentary was, has helped me understand the. How I could answer that in many ways. I think in the documentary I introduced my sponsor family, the Danielsons. Yeah, they were a Baptist family that took in my parents and I when we moved from D.C. to Minnesota. And what's revealed in the documentary and was new to me while I was doing the documentary is I didn't know that I lived with them solo for some time. And that time is disputed between the Danielsons and my mom. She says a couple months they were like years. And I think those were formative years. And there's, I don't want to perpetuate a white savior sort of stereotype, but they were a very loving and stable household. They always remained in my life from that point. So I think that's important to say. I also want to call up when I was 28 and I got engaged and I called my dad. And I said, dad, I'm engaged. He was like, congratulations. And then within the same breath, started complaining about my mom, wanting me to do stuff about my mom. I thought, you know what? Maybe therapy is a good idea. Let me look into therapy. And so since then, I have been steadily in therapy. And that was a time it's just taken a lot of work. And it's not just been therapy. It's been a lot of women in the mirroring. I've done standard therapy. I've done various healing modalities to an Israeli woman telling me to breathe while I held my breath stubbornly. I've done so many things because I wanted to break cycles and I needed to rewire myself. And it really didn't happen for me. I was just lucky until I put the work in. And I didn't really have these relationships I have now till that journey began, which was 28 and the decade of my 30s.

[Jeanette Park]

Yeah, I remember you talking about the Danielsons in your documentary. And we're not gonna go too deep into this, but I feel like for each of us, the three of us, we had various difficulties, traumatic events, like growing up, but there were also, like, these little lifeboats here and there that I think made a big difference, like, for me when my dad immigrated to the US first and I would say injected a lot of chaos and, like, fear into our family. But while he was gone, we actually lived with my grandmother and this older woman who I thought was, like, my great grandmother, but she actually turned out to be my grandmother's employer. And I didn't find this out.

[Susan Liu]

Oh, wow.

[Jeanette Park]

Until I was an adult. It was like this oasis of two years. I like, my fondest memories of being in Korea are, like, from that time, but again, like you said, like, very loving, very stable environment. And I don't have a lot of, like, big memories from that time period, but it was basically from when I was, like, three till almost six. So a very formative time in a kid's life, even if you can't remember it at a very kind of fundamental level, somehow get ingrained into you things, experiences from that time. One thing I also wanted to ask you about the documentary is just if you received any pushback from your parents or your family members about why you were pursuing this, and then, like, how you also felt about sharing your story. You're a public figure, and so I feel like some of that might just come with the territory. But I'm always curious about that because these stories that we have with our family members, they are Our stories, too, because they impact us, and we were there. But there are also other people's stories. And I feel like, especially in Asian families, there's such a cultural prohibition. Like, it's, like, taboo to air out your family's dirty laundry. But then I also feel like it's a way of further victimizing people. Right. To say, oh, you went through this, or, we subjected you to this experience, but you cannot even talk about it. You have to keep it silent. And it's also a way of gaslighting you to live in this reality of maybe we just pretend like it never happened. And so there's a certain amount of shame question, but also, like, an empowerment that comes with sharing your story anyway. So I just want to toss it back to you and ask, like, how you felt, how your family received the whole project, and then, like, where you are on that whole issue.

[Kate Wong]

Well, yeah.

[Susan Liu]

I mean, what you're speaking to is like, it's not the done thing.

[Kate Wong]

It's just not done.

[Susan Liu]

It's. Susan could speak to the sealer. Sure.

[Kate Wong]

His family.

[Susan Liu]

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, you went through something. I'll tell you what I went through. It's like, oh, well, tell me.

[Kate Wong]

No, I don't want to.

[Susan Liu]

Yeah. No. I think the thing also is things my parents at. In the timeline of when I start bringing the cameras and asking the questions, my parents are going through a very acrimonious divorce. And I think that there was a desire and a need to testify and that I was shocked by my dad, who doesn't speak much. I have hours and hours of footage. I turned the camera on, and as nervous as he was, it was like, he needed to talk, he needed to speak. My mom was, like, stonewalling me. But, man, camera turns on. Can't get her to stop talking. Can't get her to stop. Can't pull the mic away. She's kind of funny. She is very funny. And so that's the charm. She's very charming. And so I think where things push back. My stepdad, I feel, was like, this is a good thing. And he says it on camera. I think it's a good thing to meet your dad up that part, because I think he was like, I think your mom lied about stuff. And then his main worry, though, was, like, about me going back to Laos by myself without my parents and it being a communist country where people still get disappeared. He didn't get disappeared. He's like, you can't act like an American. You can't just running around with a camera. Willy Nilly I knew that. I read that message. I understood. I hired a fixer. All these things. I knew what needed to be done.

[Kate Wong]

Wait, did you say I hired a fixer?

[Susan Liu]

Yeah. What does that mean when shooting in a different country? Like somebody who'd get my permits. I mean essentially bribe the government, get the permit. I'm doing quotes around the permit. When I say bribe, I mean permit. You get that and make sure everything is copacetic to. And also the nuts and bolts of like travel within Laos. I was bringing. I brought my dp, I brought my producer, but second camera and sound and driver and all that stuff was handled by a business in Laos prior to this. I've gone back twice, but always with my parents and they're handling everything. This is the first time I go on my own dime.

[Jeanette Park]

Yeah, you just don't want somebody like showing up and giving you trouble for some bullshit reason. You're just trying to hit that off.

[Susan Liu]

Yeah. And then in terms of my mom's pushback, she was all fine and dandy. She was like, I wish I could go with you. She never thought I was going to move when I was 18. I think she is completely shocked about. I just do things, you know, And I don't think she ever expected me to do this. And then I think she kind of had this like, wait, wait, wait thing. But where she kind of lost it was when I came back. And this is not even in the documentary. I asked my father who named me and he said he did. And her stories that she did. And I think that pulled a card in her house of cards in such a way she started to free. I don't know. She never writes emails, but long, broken English emails that came my way. Very upset. Just to give some background, I go to Laos. I start to work on the documentary for about a year. But I think at that time I'm just too traumatized and too inside of it. I also sell Bajillion dollar properties. And so the documentary gets put on hold while I do that show for four seasons. And at the end of those four seasons, I have basically gone to my version of film school because as the creator and showrunner, I'm a part of everything. I go into post production, I'm working with the editors. I learn how to finish a story. And with that knowledge, I go back to the documentary once bajillion is over and I complete the documentary. And so none of my family or my parents are part of any of the editing process of the documentary. And my mom does not see the documentary. Until we are at a screening in Minnesota and we're sitting side by side.

[Jeanette Park]

Are you so nervous?

[Susan Liu]

I'm curious. I'm not gonna say I'm not nervous, but I'm so curious how this is going to go. The Danielsons are there as well. And just how is this going to go?

[Jeanette Park]

Oh, wow, everyone's there.

[Susan Liu]

Exposure therapy.

[Kate Wong]

Yeah.

[Jeanette Park]

I don't know. I'm just like, what's, like, analogous or, like, that similar feeling? Maybe one of your parents had, like, an affair, but you, like, never talked about it.

[Susan Liu]

My dad did. It wasn't in the documentary, but.

[Jeanette Park]

But you, like, make a documentary about it and then bring the whole family together, including the person who was on.

[Kate Wong]

The other side of the fair.

[Jeanette Park]

And you're like, I'm just talking about.

[Susan Liu]

And her reaction, I gotta say, is I think the only thing akin to is if you've ever seen Raiders of the Lost Ark, and he talks about how he hates snakes and then he finds himself with a lot of snakes. That's pretty much it. But after, she's really fine. She's like, I'm in a movie. It was weird. But at that point, I know this was a long way, and I don't think I'm fully answering all the parts of your conversation.

[Jeanette Park]

Oh, no, it's fine.

[Susan Liu]

At the end of the day, and I hope I succeeded in doing this, is my perspective on what has happened to me.

[Jeanette Park]

Yeah.

[Susan Liu]

And I tried to make great pains to be fair and to acknowledge that truth is probably the Venn diagram between my bio dad, my dad, my mom and me. The truth is somewhere in the middle. Wherever we cross over, there's obviously so much more to the story. But I hope I convey in what happened to me. Cool up. Was that I understood why they made those. The choices that they did. I would have made those choices. But at the same instance, I do not know anything about what it would be like to be under the circumstances that each of them were in. Because at the end of the day, as much as I give them shit, I stand on their shoulders. I was literally conceived in a refugee camp. They came to this country with nothing, with zero. I have the luxury to go to therapy. And the conflict really was when I was trying to get them to meet me where I was at, which is a impossible ask and an impossible task for my parents. Yeah.

[Kate Wong]

Yeah.

[Listener/Host]

How do you feel that the documentary, now that we're, you know, a few years out, how do you feel like doing that? The process and your family seeing it has impacted your relationship with them, it's.

[Susan Liu]

3,000 times more healthy. But, you know, what's the situation for me now with my parents is. Spoiler alert. Bio dad is not in my life at all. My stepdad, the dad that I grew up with, the best parent I've ever had, and he's complicated. And I just told you that he cheated on my mom. We didn't even get into that. There's not enough to get into. That happened when I was 18. There's so much trauma with these two. He's on his own thing. I love him, but. Oh, gosh, you guys. He, like, had a secret marriage with a really young woman in Laos. And then it was just like, what.

[Jeanette Park]

Was this a long running thing or.

[Susan Liu]

I'm trying to do the timeline here. It was like around 2016.

[Jeanette Park]

Okay.

[Susan Liu]

So like, so drama happens. This is while I'm doing bajillion. My mom goes. The divorce is final. She goes to visit her family in Laos. She does not bring her sleep apnea machine. She runs out of diabetes medication. She eats like. She's not a diabetic. She is induced in a coma. And on the day of the election of 2016, when we're flying over to get her because I was told she might die, Donald Trump is elected president. We're flying over China. I finally get to my mom. She thankfully awakes. And I find that then it was a whole thing where we had to go get her, where my sisters had to come out. We had to, like, she really fucked up. And after that, in 2016, she kind of retreated inside of herself. So she's not the lion of a person that she was back then. Really quickly around that time, months later, I hear, dad's going to Laos.

[Kate Wong]

How fun.

[Susan Liu]

He hasn't been back since then. That's so great.

[Kate Wong]

I'm cool.

[Susan Liu]

Dad went to Laos. Great. And then January, my sister's crying, upset. She found out through a family friend that dad got married secretly in Laos.

[Jeanette Park]

While he was there.

[Susan Liu]

Yes. So woman he'd been talking to on the phone, and they got married. And she's like, younger than my little sister and that my. Yes. Guys, this is just.

[Kate Wong]

This is.

[Susan Liu]

This is like.

[Listener/Host]

Oh, my gosh.

[Jeanette Park]

Yeah, but like, at least you're an adult. Right?

[Susan Liu]

But I've only had to adult my entire life. So now my sisters, he is the steady one. He's the one that. Who their entire life has done no wrong. They are shattered. I have to pick up the pieces for them because they've never seen dad in this light. Yeah. I say I Have to talk to dad once again, Like, I've always had it. Like, dad, they're upset. Well, why are they upset? Well, dad, she's younger than Alyssa. Well, you want me to date someone my age? Yes, dad, yes. So both of my sisters develop anxiety that they're still living with now. And I'm just like my family. So the way things are set up in my family these days is my parents don't speak at all. I see my dad when I see him, and it's good when I see him, but he doesn't really make an effort and that's fine. And then with mom, there's a whole other saga where she was scammed. And her and my sister have not been speaking for three years. Oh, boy. I'm in charge of her finances. All her money comes to me. I pay her bills and then whatever's left I put in her account so she can do whatever she wants. Oh my God. I parent her. And then I have my daughter. I'm a sandwich. I'm a sandwich between my mom and my daughter. I'm literally sweating, you guys. I haven't really fully gone through that, talked it down.

[Kate Wong]

I'm sorry you're sweating. But it's not just sandwich between your mom and your daughter. It's also your sisters too. Right. Because you're essentially their surrogate mother.

[Listener/Host]

I was just thinking as you talk about all this co op and I got this sense of. Coop and I were watching your documentary, which is that as the oldest in your family, I was remembering the scene where I think it was Alyssa. Is that your youngest sister?

[Susan Liu]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Listener/Host]

Where she said things are really bad because your mom had come to her for money because she normally comes to you for money. And I was like, oh, it's because Cool Ops, the oldest one in Asian cultures.

[Susan Liu]

Yeah. I put a boundary down where it's.

[Listener/Host]

Just like the oldest. You have to take care of all this shit. And as I'm hearing you describe these more recent situations, like, oh man, Cool Ops, really shouldering all that shit. Cuz you're the oldest, right? How's that really important? I mean, you don't talk about explicitly, but I just feel that from your story, just being the oldest, having to shoulder a lot of this stuff.

[Kate Wong]

How do you feel about.

[Listener/Host]

Do you feel resentful?

[Kate Wong]

Do you feel.

[Susan Liu]

I think I used to feel resentful. Especially like growing up, I was their second mom. Like we were latchkey kids and there's such a distance between me and my siblings in terms of age. And I felt Incredibly guilty, leaving them behind. And that manifested in becoming more involved with my parents in a way because I wanted to try to help from afar. But it also made me like anytime my parents would call, I just would physically feel sick because I knew it was stuff. It was just so much, you know. And my sister's mom threw a remote control at me. I called my mom. Why'd you do that? Yell at my mom? And it's always been that way. Therapy has really helped me work on boundaries, work on like trust. But I have great relationships with Anita and Alyssa. We are very close. Alyssa's moved to LA. She's a 10 minute walk away. She is here right now staying with me as my husband's out of town touring. Like she's a big part of Emmy's life. My sister Anita is coming and my nephew Kai are coming in a couple weeks to visit, but also to help me out because my husband's going out again to tour for a long stretch. We're very close. I'm very protective of them after a while. I think this is just who I am. Like I'm an older sister. That's my sign. And it works a lot. For showrunning and directing. I have been told that my style of older sistering, I created a Lao community in LA called Los Angeles. And so I'm older. I'm essentially an elder to all of these. Thank you. I love a pun. My style of older sistering, everybody is something I was told I do, which is volunteering. So I voluntel a lot of.

[Jeanette Park]

What is voluntelling?

[Kate Wong]

Voluntarily sharing.

[Susan Liu]

Volunteering. Yeah, I'm volunteering people to do things, but essentially I'm telling them what they're going to be doing. But it's couch in a way that makes them think they have a choice.

[Jeanette Park]

Oh, that's good.

[Susan Liu]

That's my style.

[Jeanette Park]

I'm also the oldest, but I don't think I voluntel, I just tell. So I think that would probably be a good skill for me to pick up on a lot of fronts.

[Susan Liu]

Yeah, well, no, it's more manipulative because it's.

[Kate Wong]

Yeah, you give us false choice. Like you want to make this salad and it's like, no, we're making the salad.

[Susan Liu]

And when done properly, it's like you don't even realize you've agreed to it. You don't even realize, like, just incept it. Yeah, exactly.

[Kate Wong]

Wait, can you give us an example?

[Listener/Host]

Benign dictatorship.

[Kate Wong]

Yeah, give us an example. Just fallen told me to do something just so I can see how subtle.

[Susan Liu]

Gosh, God, what could we do? To really be good at volunteering would be for me to know what your hopes and dreams are and the things you want to do. And it would come up like some sort of errand. And then somehow you would find yourself on the way to that errand. I'm trying to think about how to do that with my sister. It's usually done very sarcastically. You know, it's hard for me to do right now and I'm having a hard time of. It's so situational because the telling would be like to be like, susan, you can take class. You know what I mean?

[Kate Wong]

She goes, acting class.

[Susan Liu]

Yeah. Well, hold on. Did it work?

[Jeanette Park]

She's the youngest. So basically there's that dynamic of.

[Susan Liu]

But hold on. I just had class and you said acting class. So there, there's something there. I only said class.

[Kate Wong]

Oh, yes. I should go to etiquette class.

[Susan Liu]

You filled that in and so in that way. That was your idea, wasn't it, Susan?

[Kate Wong]

Oh my God, yes. I just, I feel so comfortable. You just know.

[Coola Belisa]

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[Auntie Cuckoo]

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[Susan Liu]

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[Auntie Cuckoo]

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[Coola Belisa]

And you know I'm cheap.

[Susan Liu]

You are.

[Coola Belisa]

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[Auntie Cuckoo]

The best part, all Quint's Items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. And I recently bought Emmy. The super soft fleece joggers comes in navy and black. They're so comfy cozy her hands in her pockets.

[Kate Wong]

These kids love pockets.

[Auntie Cuckoo]

Dripping with it, dripping with it.

[Coola Belisa]

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[Auntie Cuckoo]

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[Coola Belisa]

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[Kate Wong]

Okay, wait. All right, I know during the rest of this conversation you're going to volunteer us to do more things and it's going to be very exciting. But you are now mentioning Emmy, full name Esmeralda.

[Susan Liu]

No, Emerald.

[Jeanette Park]

Emerald.

[Susan Liu]

Esmeralda is the Spanish way of saying emerald.

[Kate Wong]

Thank you.

[Susan Liu]

Made me feel better.

[Kate Wong]

So we end origin story where you're.

[Jeanette Park]

Like, oh, I want to be a mom.

[Kate Wong]

And then there was like some tension around originally. You're like, can I be a good mom? Given that I grew up with a.

[Jeanette Park]

Bad mom and complicated, complicated mom. Sorry.

[Kate Wong]

Undo.

[Jeanette Park]

Okay, no, maybe collapse.

[Susan Liu]

Like we could stay bad.

[Jeanette Park]

That is fair.

[Kate Wong]

Okay. Anti hero mom. But like, so, so you're sitting there, you're like, okay, I've done this thing. I have sought the truth. I know where I come from, I can move forward. I'm unlocking so many parts of me creatively now. I feel free, I feel liberated. Here I go, like to the steps.

[Susan Liu]

Of I am of your pelvic area surrender over and over and over again. Because at the end of the documentary, I am on an IVF journey and I will remember the first time we decide to start working with a fertility doctor. And we begin by doing iui, which is for to be crude, essentially going into the office to be turkey basted. And that's not what they're actually doing, but that is that I want to say I do three rounds of that. I get pregnant twice that way in miscarry. Then we move into, to egg retrieval. Then that's where, then that's the shots and stuff the first time we sign. And this is very expensive, I think, I hope that's clear. It's very expensive. You see the doctor and they explain what's going on. Then you are ushered to sort of an area where we're talking about payment. And in, in these sort of contracts, they're like, look, if you repurchase like essentially multiple sessions, it's cheaper. Basically you buy bulk, like retrievals. I looked at my husband, I'm like, we're not going to need more than one. Having no idea, no understanding of what's to come, right? Then that's a series of egg retrievals. So harvesting eggs being just chalk filled with hormones and just medicine with big ass needles in my tummy for years, having embryos and starting with a lot of embryos, but then after testing, narrowing down to less and less, and then doing transfers where these embryos Are put into me and then getting pregnant. Miscarry again. More egg retrievals, more implantations. Put two in. This time pregnant. We lost one. That's okay. Keep ha. We still have this one. So I have six miscarriages. Six miscarriages. And it is brutal. It is brutal. So not only is it mentally harrowing, but I'm going through the physical. You've all been pregnant high.

[Auntie Cuckoo]

The high.

[Susan Liu]

The feeling of high. The one when I'm miscarrying, the crash is to say it's depleting. Is to say this is not give it its due. And I wonder if this is ever going to happen for me. And we're doing tests and tests. We find out at one point during my process, we finally do the test where they put blue liquid in me. They see if there's something going on with my uterus. At one point we realized that I have a heart shaped uterus. I have a septum. We do a procedure where they shave the back of my uterus to make. Not hard anymore, the tip of the heart. Great. Everything looks good. Go back, check it out. They take a little bit more. Take a little bit more on the top.

[Kate Wong]

Oh my God.

[Susan Liu]

I would later find out that they took too much. And that makes my uterus compromised. And so where I'm at is now I'm in a new. A new fertility clinic and I do another retrieval. We can only get one viable one. I try to do one more retrieval and I can't get any. We just can't get any viable. I'm talking to my doctor and she's like, let's talk about surrogacy.

[Kate Wong]

So when she says that, how do you feel?

[Susan Liu]

I'm like, why? I like, can't we repair my uterus? Can we repair the back of my. Essentially the lining in the back of was compromised and scabbed over. We can, but like at your age, we can definitely do that. But it's like a compromised uterus versus a proving uterus. I like those odds better.

[Kate Wong]

Okay, how old are you at this point?

[Listener/Host]

Great question.

[Susan Liu]

40.

[Jeanette Park]

And you started the journey when you started IUI?

[Susan Liu]

I wanna say 36.

[Kate Wong]

Y'all had miscarriage when you're 33 too? When you were.

[Susan Liu]

Yeah, that's natural. And then I was just like, oh, naturally, we'll get this. And it didn't happen for a couple years. And then I went back in. It was maybe 35, 36. Because by then I know when we're getting to this, we're talking about a geriatric uterus and that's usually. That's 37, I believe. So, you know, time's not on my side. Then I was like, okay, well let me look into adoption. Let's be looking at everything. Be looking at everything. And it got to this point where I think I just decided. I talked to friends who had done both. I talked to acquaintances I barely knew very intimately about their experience with both. And we made the decision to go with surrogacy, which is its own sort of really. It's a mind fuck. It was for me. But I think you never want to have a contract with a lady's body. It's weird. Another woman's body, it's weird. It's just weird. It's weird to think about that stuff.

[Kate Wong]

Can you have a surrogate in California? Because I think in Washington you can't. So my friend went to Colorado.

[Listener/Host]

Like there's some states that don't allow surrogacy for sure.

[Kate Wong]

Yeah. Was yours in California?

[Susan Liu]

I know my friend had a surrogate in Seattle.

[Kate Wong]

I don't know. It was two gay dads.

[Susan Liu]

Interesting. Yeah. Was it Oregon? So yes. Mine was in Riverside, which is Inland Empire, so it's like probably two hours south of where I live. This was during pandemic. We were doing this around like the first shot and some surrogates didn't. One surrogate that we started the process with said she would take the vaccine and then when it came to it, she decided she did not want to do that and that was a deal breaker for us. So then we had to find a new surrogate. Yeah, it's a really complicated and it's a long process. This was my moon. She was my moonshot. And by the time we decided we're gonna do surrogacy, I had come to a place where this was it. And if it didn't work out, I was going to accept that and I was gonna have a good life regardless. I know that I had come to that place and there was some lightness around it because there was some resolve that there was going to be an end. Yeah. And it wasn't so open ended as it was before. Yeah.

[Jeanette Park]

But oh like so much.

[Kate Wong]

Right.

[Jeanette Park]

I feel like motherhood is very heavy and there's a toll. But then even before that there's so much. That's how I'm feeling right now that like you've carried so much with your family and then with like pregnancy and I'm sure there's like other things with your work and that's a lot of stuff. And I don't say this in a negative way, but I just feel your burden and like everything you've had to shoulder over the years. Yeah.

[Listener/Host]

I'm also really curious and I thought about this watching the documentary, too, is. And let us know if you. How comfortable you feel talking about it. But your husband, Scott, you've had this whole really roller coaster up and everything that could be really hard has basically happened to you.

[Susan Liu]

Right.

[Listener/Host]

And then to the both of you.

[Susan Liu]

Right.

[Listener/Host]

Because it's. Yeah, it's a journey together.

[Susan Liu]

But.

[Listener/Host]

Oh, tell us about that. Or however much you feel comfortable telling us about that partnership.

[Susan Liu]

Right.

[Listener/Host]

Because he seems like a real standup guy. Like in the documentary. Susan, I are looking at you. They'd be like, this guy seems really cool. Like, he seems really nice and supportive.

[Susan Liu]

But how did you.

[Listener/Host]

Because I think that's another big thing that we talk about here on our podcast is like, relationships, your partnerships, marriage. Like, you go through so much ups and downs, then if one or both partners come from a background where there's a lot of trauma or that if you have to undergo trauma together, fertility struggles. And the real trauma. How did you guys get through it? What got you guys through it?

[Susan Liu]

I have dated Scott since I was 19 years old. I mentioned to you all that I am 44. And we have evolved together many, many times. And he is. He has saved my life multiple times. Like, the way that I like to think about our relationship is that, like, we're two astronauts tethered to a space station. And so our lifeline is there. We can fly off and do different things, but we are always connected. We're tethered to one another. With him, I think all things are possible. And, yeah, we've been through a lot, and I'm just so grateful that we've been able to evolve complimentary. And he's a true partner.

[Kate Wong]

Well, we can start cloning humans. Maybe you can clone them out for the women's dating market.

[Susan Liu]

I mean, I'll look into it. Times get lean, you know, you know.

[Kate Wong]

Like passive income, baby. Passive income.

[Susan Liu]

That's. Yeah, exactly.

[Kate Wong]

Wait, sorry. Yeah, you two are both creatives. Like, you don't work in tech, where they subsidize all this. A lot of it. I don't know if you're the union part of the union or what. Or what that insurance looks like, but I'm sitting here cringing, not only with every miscarriage. I just feel like if it was me, I'd be like, oh, my God, how much money do we just spend? And I wonder if it just created more pressure and, like, more stress while you're trying to conceive again. I'm just sitting here going, like, the money part is stressing me out.

[Susan Liu]

I mean, and surrogacy. Wow. I mean, you have to, you have to create an escrow account immediately because, like, that, you know. Yeah, that, because you, as we go through this, as she's carrying your baby, you want to make sure she's taken care of and if something changes for you. Right. So you have to have a escrow account that is held for about two. I think we just closed it a year after Emmy's first year. I shared with you my background. I had food stamps growing up. I myself started working at my mom's restaurant really young. Like, I've always worked. I've always worked.

[Kate Wong]

What age?

[Susan Liu]

I was serving in a restaurant at 11. I was a holiday and housekeeper when I was 13. I've just always worked now. My parents taught me how to earn, and then we didn't really know much about savings. But I'm so glad. We've been fortunate to find success as two. Essentially, he's a college dropout. I did two years of a fashion school. But we've both been very clear in what we want to do, and so we've been able to come up with a great community. And to be frank, his podcast kept the lights on through a time of uncertainty in our business, through multiple strikes, through a pandemic. That's why he's out on tour. But here's the upside. She's completely worth it. She was worth every dollar, every tear, every dark night. When I tell you was brought to my knees over and over again. That little girl upstairs napping was worth every bit. I do not want to do it again, and I will not do it again. Like, I have another. It's like, shut the fuck up. Go away. If you knew the nine years it took me to get to her. Yeah, but she's worth it. She's my everything. We're so happy and delighted everything that I went through with my mom. And I'll thank God I did that all. I'm a way better mom for it, you know, I, I and think, you know what? Here's some grace in it. If we had kids even 10 years ago, we wouldn't be as financial stable as we are now. And so I have a nanny. Things that I wouldn't have been able to have before all the therapy I've done. I see her experiences as separate from mine, not how my Mom. For my mom, I was an extension of her and what she didn't particularly care for, which is very confusing because she puts me also on a pedestal. There was a lot of things going on with her and. Oh, I want to share this moment. My mom was visiting at the end of May, and Emmy likes my mom, but, you know, like, there's crying. I can't ever kind of, like, leave her alone with my mom. We were in her room in the morning, and Emmy was laughing with my mom, and the mom was tickling her. And then she was, like, tickling too much. And my Emmy goes in the clearest, crispest voice went, grandma, stop it. Stop it. Grandma was like, what? Stop it. She backed off, and her crib was like, stop it. And I was just, like, smiling.

[Jeanette Park]

Like, I mean, you're doing something right. Right. It's like, this is my.

[Susan Liu]

My therapist was like, isn't it mystical? She's able to do so plainly what you couldn't do?

[Kate Wong]

Yeah.

[Susan Liu]

For decades.

[Jeanette Park]

Well, there's so much we could go into there. Right. You've created an environment where she feels like it's okay. She's safe to say, no, I don't like that. Please stop. And I can say that very clearly, and I don't have a problem or. It's not like an existential issue for me to tell you to please stop touching my body that way. It's very profound, I think.

[Susan Liu]

Yeah.

[Listener/Host]

But it also reminds me of something that, Khalil, you said earlier, which you're saying you recognize that you are where you are now because of all these things that happened to your parents. And I think about your mom. Your mom was 18 when she had you, right?

[Susan Liu]

Yeah.

[Listener/Host]

She had you as a teenager with someone she didn't even really love. It was a partnership of convenience.

[Susan Liu]

Right.

[Listener/Host]

In a refugee camp. Like, your biological dad and your mom escaped Laos together, but they were just classmates in med school. They didn't love each other romantically in that sense, and they got together because apparently, I think the host family said it was easier to get sponsored in the U.S. if you were a married couple, and especially if you had kids. And who knows? Like, all this trauma surrounding how your mom came to the U.S. that was her. And then look at you. You're amazing. You were 42 when Emmy was born.

[Susan Liu]

Right. But you'd spent all these years and.

[Listener/Host]

Been brought to your knees working through all of this, just this morass of this trauma that you inherited and that you encountered. And of course it's going to be different, I think we talk about this a lot. That's our job. Like, we, the children of the immigrants who had that trauma. Ours is a double job, one of overcoming this trauma ourselves. Right. Which collab you had to do. And you really went through that doing the documentary. And then you have to reparent. Like, you have to consciously do things so differently from your parents. It's really hard.

[Susan Liu]

It's hard. But it's also been really reparative. It's a reparative experience for me to, like, repair. It's very poetic. Yeah.

[Kate Wong]

Sometimes people ask me, like, how's motherhood? And I'm like, I'm doing a lot more inner child work than I thought I was gonna do. I was like, this is the next stage in my personal growth phase. And then they're like, why are you not talking about your kid? And I was like, oh, oh, yeah, I'll talk about.

[Susan Liu]

You know.

[Kate Wong]

But there's so much inner stuff that is happening, and oftentimes people ask me publicly, so given the trauma that you went through, how are you different as a parent to your kid? And then I'm always sitting there going, like, yes, I do get triggered. But the number one skill I'm trying to teach my kid is for him to know, how does he feel? Can he identify it as a feeling word? Because growing up, the only time I heard I feel is, like, when someone was like, I feel like you're dumb.

[Susan Liu]

Right.

[Kate Wong]

No one knew how to use feeling words. Can he identify how he feels? Can he communicate that and can he ask for what he needs? What your daughter did between her and her grandmother was exactly that. Right. Where she can honor herself as part of this relationship equation, where it's just not like you're an elder. You're right. I had to be submissive to everything that you want, and my needs don't matter. It's because you did that work. Because you probably model it, and it's now natural for her.

[Susan Liu]

Good job. Thank you.

[Kate Wong]

You're good moms.

[Susan Liu]

Thank you. It's really sweet time. It's really sweet and special time right now.

[Jeanette Park]

I'm curious, like, if Emmy is not even two yet, I think. Right.

[Susan Liu]

So, yeah, I said two. I guess I'm getting ahead of myself. She's. Yeah. Not gonna. In October, she'll be two.

[Kate Wong]

Oh, so just so mature for her age.

[Jeanette Park]

She's pretty young, is my point, and I think probably too young to really understand the family dynamics.

[Kate Wong]

Right.

[Jeanette Park]

You know, I kind of have a complicated relationship with both of my parents and my daughter.

[Listener/Host]

I think she kind of looks a.

[Jeanette Park]

Lot like my mom. She just has this natural affinity for her and she ask, oh, I want a grandma to visit and of course she visits. But it's also complicated for me. I have to make sure I'm going to be in an okay place and find like a space arrangement that works for everyone. But where I'm going is like, how do you envision introducing her to your family of origin dynamics? I think the documentary is also interesting because you have this snapshot and maybe snapshot's not the right word, but you have this documentation of sorts of this story that has so shaped you.

[Susan Liu]

Right.

[Jeanette Park]

And I think in some ways that's such a gift to her that she gets it like all packaged up in a two hour documentary that she gets to watch and it will help her understand you and your side of the family. But like, I don't know, like how do you feel about it? Like, how are you thinking about it?

[Susan Liu]

I am very much the matriarch of this family and I endeavor to be fair and to be hospitable. But I have developed such strong boundaries and when it comes to her, it's very clear to me what I will accept and not accept. Where for me it was all gray and the lines would be wavy and. But even with like my mother in law or like that side of the family as well, there's no way to put it. What I say goes.

[Jeanette Park]

Yeah. What I say goes.

[Susan Liu]

And when it comes to her, that's who I. I don't. Whatever has gone on with you, whatever you bring into this house, I will hear. But her safety and her well being is paramount to me. And so you got something else going on. You got. Not here, not here. I won't have it. I won't have it. I won't have it. Like I have it on the holiday. Not gonna turn her well being from the chaotic elements that certain people in my family occasionally bring. Yeah.

[Jeanette Park]

And I think it's very interesting, right. I think this is like a pretty common dynamic again, both for moms, dads, non hetero relationships, but just like becoming parents. But I think especially for moms, like things that you were like more okay, like tolerating and just maybe like people overstep your boundaries, whatever, you just let it go. But then you have a kid and everything just becomes more clear and like stark are my priorities.

[Susan Liu]

It has, it really, really has. It really, really has. I don't want to say that I'm. I don't want you guys to walk away and think that I'm not respectful to my elders. I just hope that in the background that I've shared with you in the documentary is that for my daughter, I do know what's best over them. I do. And so I have confidence in that.

[Kate Wong]

God, I just want to lap you all up. I just want to channel my inner cool up. Like whenever I'm in my own, like, family with my elders and just be like, no, when I say it goes. I just want to try on your pants for a little bit because I'm.

[Susan Liu]

Like, I would love that.

[Kate Wong]

Self assuredness and groundedness in that. I admire that.

[Susan Liu]

Thank you. I wasn't always like that. I am battle born and forged for everything that I've just. We've been talking about. And you just like, I mean, but don't you all feel like we give less fucks every year? Like, oh, yeah.

[Jeanette Park]

In so many areas. Like, also because I just don't have the energy for it anymore.

[Susan Liu]

Yes, that's with Emmy for me. I'm like, ah, I get it now. And I have gone around like first year. I'm like, I just want to. I don't know if I said this to a mom friend. I don't know how you got a single thing done, if I was annoyed that you didn't text me back or that you relate. I repent. I repent the amount of sky that a mom has to hold up. It's immense. But it really locked things in for me. That was like such a luxury to dwell on. That was the noise of before her. It's just not even important. I don't have the energy to do that. I barely have the energy to watch television shows that challenge me. I'm going to just watch America's Sweethearts, Dallas Love, cheerleaders. I'll watch that. That's what I'll watch after I put her down. You know what I mean? So, yeah, if it doesn't align with what my priorities now I'm like, no, no. And with love.

[Kate Wong]

Gosh, it's been such a journey to have her. Your journey to conceive was. You said 11 years, right?

[Susan Liu]

Nine, I think. Nine total.

[Kate Wong]

Yeah, nine. Which is a long time. And like I said in the beginning, I would have given up a long time ago. I was just like, I can't even believe how you persisted. So now she's here. What do you want for her? Do you ever project, is it loaded? Is it high pressurized, or are you like all grace? I now I'm like, what do you want for now that she's been a long time coming.

[Susan Liu]

I've been thinking about this because people will say things to me. They're like, she's, you know, she. What about modeling, acting? She'll lead sing alongs or. She's got a personality. Genetics are such a funny thing. And so things come up. My mom will bring it up. She's so pretty.

[Jeanette Park]

I'm so surprised.

[Susan Liu]

And I'm not prompting her. She's just doing these things. It's so funny when people bring it up. I'm like, absolutely not. Absolutely not. And why I say that is because I'm gonna do everything I can to protect her childhood so that she can be a kid. I was not afforded that. That's what I care about. I care about her. I want her to have the desire to learn, the curiosity to learn. She has interests. We're gonna do that. And people, they're like, why not? What if she really wants to do that? I'm like, that's a conversation we'll have. But there's a difference between performing and dancing and doing this stuff when it comes from yourself and from joy. And it's a different thing when there are a bunch of people depending on you to do it. A bunch of adults who are being paid to make you do things. It's different. It's just different. And regardless, it's just an example of a thing that I'm going to always do just again, is to protect her childhood so she can be a kid.

[Jeanette Park]

Yeah.

[Susan Liu]

So she doesn't have to be like at 6, be given the cash and checks from a restaurant, a mom's restaurant, be handed a really a bank envelope filled with it and be told to go to the bank and walk the money to a teller, get the slip. I don't want that for her. Now. She will do chores, but she will be doing. These are things I'm going to try to balance all that. But that's the thing I. I think about, and I think about teaching her about tricky people. Not just stranger danger, because strangers haven't hurt me as much as some very tricky people have. And having those conversations, there's lots of things that in my Instagram feed I've saved for Emmy, things to talk about. There's things about, for me, conversations like, I don't necessarily agree that hands aren't for hitting. Sometimes they are for hitting. So these are converse, nuanced conversations that I think about. That's a lot that I just try to take it day by day. Yeah. You know, start with be gentle with the dogs. Start with, no, I'm not going to clean up. You're going to help me clean up. And then at some point, maybe in a couple years, we'll begin her Hannah, like, training where we start to do martial arts and stuff like. That'll be later. But, you know, I see such, like, she's just so filled with life and joy and she makes me drop my cynicism and see the world anew again. And so that's what this time's for.

[Jeanette Park]

Yeah.

[Kate Wong]

So when she's 30 years old, how do you know you're like, I did a good job?

[Susan Liu]

I think when she comes and visits me.

[Jeanette Park]

Willingly, maybe tells me stuff about, like, what's going on with them.

[Susan Liu]

Yeah. And then she knows that if you ever don't feel safe at 3am at a party, I'll come get you. Yeah. Even if I'm mad at you, I love you.

[Listener/Host]

You know, I tell my daughter that now, actually.

[Susan Liu]

Yeah.

[Listener/Host]

I think you go up. There's a question as much for me as for. I think a lot of our listeners out there having come from a family that is basically fucked up. And I think all three of us, or four of us come from families that were fucked up in many ways differently. I see that a lot of my peers who come from these backgrounds, they're so afraid of messing up their kid. Like, they're afraid that if they don't say this or they don't do that. And there's so there's a tremendous amount of pressure and guilt. And I'm mostly talking moms because I think, let's be honest, that moms tend to feel the brunt of that. What can you say to these moms, these first second generation immigrant moms who are like, I don't want to be like my parents or whomever, but they're just like, but I don't want to fuck up. They're like driven by fear. I see a lot of this, like the parenting, because when I hear you taught, you're driven by this positive force, you're not driven by fear. I can tell that. But I feel like sometimes many people that I encounter, like, they're driven by fear. What do you want to say to them?

[Susan Liu]

My mom, it's hard for me to say this, but it's true. She was an amazing teacher. And in that very. She was. She is ruled by fear. She had a lot to fear, too. It's a cautionary tale. So I really do understand it because it can be really scary and they're so precious. There are little Treasures. And you don't want to fuck up, but you will. And, you know, I think it was really hard for my parents to take full responsibility. And again, they didn't have the words, the resources to be able to communicate. And I think communication is so key. So if you fuck up and you apologize, I think that's a good idea. I think you want to model for your kids, trying and to do something, and if it doesn't go their way or if they make a mistake or they make a choice, I think there's so much trust in that is guarded and created when in conflict, you apologize and mean it just to give yourself so much compassion and grace that you're trying the best you can with the circumstances that you find yourself in. And to be honest, if you don't do your best, because that was something that I remember a therapist said to me. I was like, they're doing their best. And she was like, they made choices. And sometimes that's true, too. And to man and woman up and just acknowledge what you're going through and communicate that appropriately to your kids. Unlike my parents, who shared everything and everything, I knew too much about the inner workings of their marriage. I'm not talking about that type of honesty. I'm talking about sharing with your kids and being responsibly honest.

[Kate Wong]

Yeah.

[Jeanette Park]

And responsible. I think what you might also be emphasizing is honesty about your role in whatever happened.

[Susan Liu]

Right. There you go. Yeah. Personal responsibility. That's the drum. Because, look, my mom was being honest. My dad isn't my real dad. I think that's not a good way to communicate that.

[Kate Wong]

Yeah.

[Susan Liu]

It's scary. It's scary to be a parent. This world is nuts. It's nuts.

[Jeanette Park]

Yeah.

[Susan Liu]

And. And you as a mom are. You have. You have agency and every right to be going through your own shit, too, because this is not just their childhood. It's your motherhood. Right. So.

[Kate Wong]

Ooh, snaps. You're going through stuff, too.

[Susan Liu]

You're, like, responsible for our kids, but stuff's happening to us.

[Kate Wong]

Yeah. And speaking of stuff and responsibilities, I wanted to wrap on this other question about just how has your parenting journey, your role as a mother, how has that impacted how you see your own career and your own definitions of success? Because you're doing a lot in Hollywood right now.

[Susan Liu]

Not really. I'd like to do more. I've done stuff, but it's always this. We're going from gig to gig and just trying to get at the next thing, and I'm in between gigs, even though I'm Podcasting, I'm pitching and I'm driven now because it's like I want to model for her, somebody doing what they love. Like, I want her to see me doing what I love to do, which is like showrunning and producing and making fun shit with my friends and being on set. And I want her to see that's like, really important to me. And so that's become clear. And I've also with guardrails. Back in the day when we were like taking class or just trying to establish ourselves, we'd say yes to everything. You would travel far away, you would do non paying gigs, stuff like that. And now it's like, well, now family is so important to me and making decisions in that way too. So while I want to. Yes. Big things that I'm absolutely going to know, the little like, no, I don't have time. I don't want to do that. No.

[Kate Wong]

Well, we are honored that you had time for us then.

[Susan Liu]

Oh, come on. Happy to be here. Thank you for having me on. I haven't really talked about this stuff in a long time and there's certain pieces that I've forgotten and even just, oh, yeah, that's married. Like, it's just stuff that like, I've just either pushed or didn't have time for. So I really appreciate this time to loop it together in a way. Beautiful.

[Kate Wong]

I'm glad. We usually wrap our shows with an inside thought, which is a question, I think inside. And then I'm just so curious about. They're playful and fun and earlier you were talking about with origin story. Every superhero has an origin story. And just for fun, I'm curious for us, who is your superhero? Where you're like, oh, that's totally me. If I had to choose to be one superhero and become that one, which one is it? And I know Kulak. There's a real superhero.

[Jeanette Park]

Yeah, Named Kolak.

[Kate Wong]

So you could actually just choose the one you already are.

[Susan Liu]

But.

[Kate Wong]

Yeah. Who is your superhero that you channel or you always wanted or that was the playing card that you hoped you get or you would trade for that one that was like yours.

[Susan Liu]

Interesting. Okay, so Gail Simone is the writer who created Catharsis, the cool ufi livestock that lives in the DC universe. And I'm such a huge fan of hers because she did a run of Wonder Woman that I loved. And in it, I think you all would like it too. This was a Wonder Woman who basically was coming from trauma, coming from war. The way that her backstory was set up, I very much Related to. And so Gail Simone's run of Wonder Woman is, to me, Chef's Kiss.

[Jeanette Park]

Did she also do the movie? The movie Wonder Woman?

[Susan Liu]

No, she didn't.

[Jeanette Park]

Okay.

[Susan Liu]

But she's a straight up comic book writer. She might have. I don't even think she consulted okay. On that one. But she's a really number one special person, but a very, I think, accoladed comic book writer in a genre that is, of course, very male dominated. So she was like a comic book fan since she was a kid, but then started writing comic books when she was, like, cutting hair as a mom. So I also love her story as well. The other comic book that I am obsessed with, it is more of an image comic, which is less like Marvel dc. It's called Kabuki.

[Jeanette Park]

Kabuki, like Japanese theater Kabuki?

[Susan Liu]

Yes, exactly, Kabuki. It's written by David Mack, and it's this, like, epic tale of these Japanese superheroes. They all have the mask of the. No, but there's. It's very spy, like, also had a traumatic beginning and is now piecing together parts of her life. I actually brought one of the books with me to Laos, and there was something that I always came back to was there's a part where she was talking about alchemy, and the book is called Alchemy, and it's like turning your shit into gold. And that's what Susan's book is, and that's what origin story is to me. So I would say those are the two kind of characters that I think of in the comic book world.

[Jeanette Park]

I feel like, Susan, your question's a little bit challenging because I'm just like, how many female superheroes can I really.

[Susan Liu]

I can't.

[Kate Wong]

Storm from X Men.

[Jeanette Park]

Okay, Storm.

[Susan Liu]

Storm. You got Catwoman, Catwoman, Wonder Woman, Supergirl. Yeah.

[Kate Wong]

I mean, you could be a male one, like. Or Cyclops. I don't.

[Susan Liu]

I'll go first to give Jeanette a little more. Wait, no, I like.

[Kate Wong]

Cool. For context here. Jeanette knows a lot of just history and, like, war stuff. And, like, Kate reads a lot of Chinese. I don't know, like Chinese romance. They don't actually. Like, we're into.

[Listener/Host]

So basically we're boring is what she's saying. We're like, not cool.

[Kate Wong]

No. I'm just saying if you're having trouble, maybe it's because you're an intellectual.

[Jeanette Park]

Yes, that's also true.

[Kate Wong]

Kate's vocabulary is insane. Okay, Kate, what about you?

[Listener/Host]

Okay, I. First of all, I don't really. I'm not that Familiar with the Marvel universe, but I did last year. I finally watched, like, Wakanda Forever and I really enjoyed it. And I would say that I'm like Shuri. She's like the original Black Panther sister. And what's interesting, why I identify with her is because she didn't really want to be in this role.

[Susan Liu]

Right?

[Listener/Host]

Like, she didn't. Her brother died and she felt like a failure. And actually at the end of the movie that her brother actually had a son. I'm sure this is giving a lot more opportunity to. To put out feature movies, but I almost left with the feeling that she's just there for now. She's like the bridge between these two generations. I resonate with that because I feel like that's how I am with my parents who went through all of this cultural revolution, all of this trauma, and then my daughters who are going to have a totally different life. And I'm just that bridge, making sense of that, those two worlds.

[Susan Liu]

And also. You're stepping up.

[Listener/Host]

Yeah, I am stepping up. But she did step up.

[Susan Liu]

Yes. Hero is needed.

[Jeanette Park]

Yes. I think my inability to think of somebody as related to my lack of knowledge about this, all the superhero stuff. But I will say that the answer that came immediately to my mind is club. I know you already mentioned Wonder Woman, but I'm going to mention her again in the movie. One thing that really moved me is that it was the first time I felt like I saw in the movies where, you know, like, her brand of super superheroism and like, what she cared about was so feminine and so strong, like, at the same time. And I think I felt really moved by that, like, kind of towards the end of the movie, she's like, in the war zone with the soldiers. And, like, the things that she's doing are like, saving kids and like, moms, like, who are trying to get out of this war torn, like, area. She is a superhero. She's more powerful than all the men there. But that is, like, what she's doing. It just felt like such a different energy, Like a very feminine, but, like very superhero energy. I felt very moved by that. And I also felt like it was that feeling. And that perspective could only really be told by, like, a female director who really understands that. Like, I felt sorry, probably a straight man could not have given me that feeling.

[Kate Wong]

And I don't know.

[Jeanette Park]

Yeah. And I don't know if everybody came away with, from that movie with that perspective, but I love that it was lionized in this way. Like this ability to care deeply and notice the vulnerable. And that is so integral to her. Her like mo.

[Kate Wong]

Right.

[Jeanette Park]

Anyway, some things just really stick with you. And that's one thing that has stuck with me over the years.

[Kate Wong]

So you mean Wonder Woman didn't just save everyone and then go have sex with a younger guy. It was like, no, I'm gonna. Other children. It was much more than that flat storyline of then they just go have sex.

[Susan Liu]

Yeah.

[Jeanette Park]

Or like, I think I have to stew on it a little bit more. But I felt like the things that were emphasized and the things that were prioritized were just really different. It felt different than other superhero movies that I had watched prior to that.

[Susan Liu]

That totally makes sense. I love that. What about you, Susan?

[Kate Wong]

Oh, it's Storm from X Men.

[Susan Liu]

Storm is. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Kate Wong]

She was a bipoc baddie and she had no drama. She's not like getting in any, like, romantic stuff. She's just, what's the issue? Let's get it done. She was great. I might have kicked a kid in the balls. And they're great to get that card baby.

[Susan Liu]

I love it. Own it.

[Kate Wong]

Yes.

[Susan Liu]

Yes.

[Kate Wong]

Okay. My gosh. Thanks for being here. Thanks for sharing your story. I know it's going to resonate with so many listeners that fertility is hard. Mothering your motherhood journey doesn't start once the kid comes out is doing the work for ourselves so our kids can have a better childhood. Thank you for doing your work.

[Susan Liu]

Thank you. That means a lot. I appreciate it. I take it more seriously than I've ever taken anything before.

[Kate Wong]

All right, that's it for Model Minority Moms.

[Jeanette Park]

Thanks, Kola. We hope you found something helpful, reassuring or interesting in this episode of Model Minority Moms. If you enjoyed the episode, please help us spread the word by texting a friend about our show or leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. If you want to connect with us, please visit our [e-mail] or follow us on Instagram, where we love receiving messages from our listeners.

[Discover Representative]

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[Susan Liu]

Gloria Rivera here. And we are back for another season of no One Is Coming to Save Us, a podcast about America's childcare crisis. This season, we're delving deep into five critical issues facing our country through the lens of childcare, poverty, mental health, housing, climate change, and the public school system. By exploring these connections, we aim to highlight that childcare is not an isolated issue, but one that influences all facets of American life. Season 4 of No1 Is Coming to Save Us is out now, wherever you get your podcasts.