Alice Wong interviewed Ing Wong-Ward for the Disability Visibility Project® at StoryCorps San Francisco on August 25, 2016. Ing shares with Alice how she became a journalist and a disabled parent. Ing also talks about her family and her daughter Zhenmei.
Text Transcript
ING WONG-WARD: And so, I grew up in Toronto and decided when I was a teenager that I wanted to be a journalist in part because one of my friends in junior high had, her mother had entered a contest with a local magazine. And the magazine profiled this girl as the great savior of me, the disabled girl, and it didn’t go over well.
ALICE WONG: Mm.
ING: I thought at the age of 13 I could do better than this; I can write better than this person.
ALICE: Mmhmm.
ING: And so, that was my goal. I went to journalism school, Ryerson University, and graduated and soon thereafter got a job answering the phones in Human Resources at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. And I spent 22 years there and recently left in December to join the Center for Independent Living in Toronto as the Associate Director. I’m married, married my university boyfriend, Tim, who also changed his last name ‘cause he’s a progressive kinda guy. And we have this—well, you’ve met her now—she’s like quite the character, eight-year-old Zhenmei.