Iris Chang | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Chang,c. 1985 | |
| Born | Iris Shun-Ru Chang (1968-03-28)March 28, 1968 Princeton, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Died | November 9, 2004(2004-11-09) (aged 36) |
| Occupation |
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| Alma mater | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (BA) Johns Hopkins University (MA) |
| Period | 1995–2004 |
| Subject | Chinese Americans,Nanjing Massacre,Qian Xuesen |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 1 |
| Website | |
| www | |
| Iris Chang | |||||||||
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| Traditional Chinese | 張純如 | ||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 张纯如 | ||||||||
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Iris Shun-Ru Chang (traditional Chinese: 張純如; March 28, 1968 – November 9, 2004) was an American journalist, historian, and political activist. She is best known for her best-selling 1997 account of theNanjing Massacre,The Rape of Nanking, and in 2003,The Chinese in America: A Narrative History. Chang is the subject of the 2007 biographyFinding Iris Chang,[1] and the 2007 documentary filmIris Chang: The Rape of Nanking starringOlivia Cheng as Iris Chang.[2] The independent 2007 documentary filmNanking was based on her work and dedicated to her memory.
Chang was born inPrinceton, New Jersey, to aTaiwanese American family and raised inChampaign-Urbana, Illinois. She was the daughter of university professors Ying-Ying and Shau-Jin Chang, who moved from China to Taiwan and later to the United States, and grew up hearing stories about theNanjing massacre, from which her maternal grandparents escaped. When she tried finding books about the subject in theChampaign Public Library, she found there were none.[3]
Chang attended theUniversity Laboratory High School of Urbana, Illinois, and graduated in 1985. She was initially acomputer science major, but switched tojournalism, earning abachelor's degree at theUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1989.[1] During her time in college she also worked as aNew York Timesstringer from Urbana-Champaign, and wrote six front-page articles over the course of one year.
After brief stints at theAssociated Press and theChicago Tribune, she pursued amaster's degree in Writing Seminars atJohns Hopkins University.[4] She began her career as an author and lectured and wrote magazine articles.
In 1991, Chang married Bretton Lee Douglas, adesign engineer forCisco Systems, whom she had met in college, and had one son, Christopher, who was two years old at the time of her suicide. She lived inSan Jose, California, in the final years of her life.[5][6]
Chang wrote three books documenting the experiences of Chinese andChinese Americans in history. Her first,Thread of the Silkworm (Basic Books, 1995)[7] tells the life story of theChinese professor,Qian Xuesen (or Tsien Hsue-shen) during theRed Scare in the 1950s. Although Qian was one of the founders ofNASA'sJet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and for many years helped themilitary of the United States debrief scientists fromNazi Germany, he was suddenly accused of being a spy and a member of theCommunist Party USA, and was placed under house arrest from 1950 to 1955. Qian left for thePeople's Republic of China in September 1955. Upon his return to China, Qian developed theDongfeng missile program, and later theSilkworm missile, which was used by the Iraqi military during itswar on Iran and against the United States-ledcoalitions during thePersian Gulf War and the2003 invasion of Iraq.
Her second book,The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II (1997),[8] was published on the 60th anniversary of theNanjing Massacre and was motivated in part by her own grandparents' stories about their escape from the massacre. It documents atrocities committed against the Chinese by forces of theImperial Japanese Army during theSecond Sino-Japanese War, and includes interviews with victims.The Rape of Nanking remained on theNew York Times Bestseller list for 10 weeks.[9] Based on the book, an American documentary film,Nanking, was released in 2007.
After publication of the book, Chang campaigned to persuade theJapanese government to apologize for its troops' wartime conduct and to pay compensation.
Her third book,The Chinese in America: A Narrative History (2003),[10] is a history ofChinese Americans, that argues their treatment as perpetual outsiders by American society. Consistent with the style of her earlier works, the book relies heavily on personal accounts, drawing its strong emotional content from their stories. She wrote, "The America of today would not be the same America without the achievements of its ethnic Chinese," and that "scratch the surface of every American celebrity of Chinese heritage and you will find that, no matter how stellar their achievements, no matter how great their contribution to US society, virtually all of them have had their identities questioned at one point or another."[11]
Success as an author made Iris Chang a public figure.The Rape of Nanking placed her in great demand as a speaker and as an interview subject, and, more broadly, as a spokesperson for the viewpoint that theJapanese government had not done enough to compensate victims of their invasion of China. In one often-mentioned incident (as reported byThe Times ofLondon):
...she confronted the Japanese Ambassador to the United States on television, demanded an apology and expressed her dissatisfaction with his mere acknowledgement "that really unfortunate things happened, acts of violence were committed by members of the Japanese military". "It is because of these types of wording and the vagueness of such expressions that Chinese people, I think, are infuriated," was her reaction.[12]
Chang's visibility as a public figure increased with her final work,The Chinese in America. After her death, she became the subject of tributes from fellow writers.Mo Hayder dedicated a novel to her. Reporter Richard Rongstad eulogized her as "Iris Chang lit a flame and passed it to others and we should not allow that flame to be extinguished."
In 2007, the documentaryNanking was dedicated to Chang, as well as the Chinese victims of Nanjing.
"The Man Who Ended History", a story inThe Paper Managerie byKen Liu about uncovering the history ofUnit 731, is dedicated to the memory of Chang.[13]
R.F. Kuang's debut novel,The Poppy War, is dedicated to Iris Chang.[14]
Iris Chang Park in San Jose, that opened on November 9, 2019 (the 15th anniversary of Iris Chang's death), is a municipal park dedicated to Chang.[15][16]
Chang suffered anervous breakdown in August 2004, which her family, friends, and doctors attributed in part to constantsleep deprivation, dozens of herbal supplements,[17] and heavy doses of psychologically damaging prescription medication. At the time, she was several months into research for her fourth book, about theBataan Death March. She was also promotingThe Chinese in America. While en route toHarrodsburg, Kentucky, where she planned to gain access to a "time capsule" of audio recordings from servicemen, she suffered an extreme bout ofdepression that left her unable to leave her hotel room inLouisville. A local veteran, Arthur Kelly, who was assisting her research, helped her check into Norton Psychiatric Hospital in Louisville, where she was diagnosed withreactive psychosis, placed on heavy medication for three days and then released to her parents. After the release from the hospital, she continued to suffer from depression and experienced the side effects of several medications she was taking.[18] Chang was also reportedly deeply disturbed by much of the subject matter of her research.[19]
On November 9, 2004, at 9:15 A.M., Chang was found dead in the driver's seat of herOldsmobile Alero car by aSanta Clara Valley Water District employee on a rural road south ofLos Gatos, California and west ofState Route 17, inSanta Clara County. Investigators concluded that Chang had committedsuicide by shooting herself through the mouth with a.45Ruger Old Army revolver. At the time of her death, she had been taking the medicationsDepakote andRisperdal to stabilize hermood.[18]
It was later discovered that she had left behind threesuicide notes each dated November 8, 2004. "Statement of Iris Chang" stated:
I promise to get up and get out of the house every morning. I will stop by to visit my parents then go for a long walk. I will follow the doctor's orders for medications. I promise not to hurt myself. I promise not to visit Web sites that talk about suicide.[18]
The next note was a draft of the third:
When you believe you have a future, you think in terms of generations and years. When you do not, you live not just by the day — but by the minute. It is far better that you remember me as I was—in my heyday as a best-selling author—than the wild-eyed wreck who returned from Louisville. ... Each breath is becoming difficult for me to take—the anxiety can be compared to drowning in an open sea. I know that my actions will transfer some of this pain to others, indeed those who love me the most. Please forgive me.[20]
The third note included:
There are aspects of my experience in Louisville that I will never understand. Deep down I suspect that you may have more answers about this than I do. I can never shake my belief that I was being recruited, and later persecuted, by forces more powerful than I could have imagined. Whether it was theCIA or some other organization I will never know. As long as I am alive, these forces will never stop hounding me.
Days before I left for Louisville I had a deep foreboding about my safety. I sensed suddenly threats to my own life: an eerie feeling that I was being followed in the streets, the white van parked outside my house, damaged mail arriving at my P.O. Box. I believe my detention at Norton Hospital was the government's attempt to discredit me.
A report from theSan Francisco Chronicle stated that news of her suicide had a strong impact on survivors of the Nanjing Massacre and the Chinese community in general.[19]
In tribute to Chang, the survivors held a service at theNanjing Massacre Memorial Hall, around the same time as her funeral, held at the Gate of Heaven Cemetery inLos Altos, California on November 12, 2004. The Memorial Hall, which collects documents, photos, and human remains from the massacre, added both a wing and a bronze statue dedicated to Chang in 2005.
In 2017, the Iris Chang Memorial Hall was built inHuai'an, China.[21][22]
On November 9, 2019, Iris Chang Park was inaugurated in theRincon district ofSan Jose.[23]
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