questions from members of parliament. after that, the former secretary of state james baker ♪ >> this week on q&a, university of california santa barbara and was professor yunte huang. he discusses his book "inseparable: the original siamese twins and their rendezvous with american history." yunte huang, author of "inseparable: the original siamese twins and their rendezvous with american history." eng?ere chang and

yunte: they were the original siamese twins. they were asked the chinese. -- actually chinese. when they were going together, they were banded together by an inch of flesh. the neighbors were freaking out. the parents were scared. , because they were her kids. they grew up together learning to walk and also learning to swim. that was a milestone as you can imagine. anyway, they were known as chinese twins to the neighbors when they were growing up in siam. only after they were brought to the united states where they rented as siamese twins -- branded as siamese twins. brian: the picture on the

screen, what age are they? yunte: probably middle age. you can see the hair is a little gray. that is when they went back on the road after the civil war. brian: where are they joined? -- werehey rejoined joined at the base of their chests. you can see the exhibition of their joint liver in a tub of preserved liquid. brian: how were you interested in these two? yunte: i wrote my last book on jackie chan. -- charlie chan. chubby detective. this was a story about 20th-century america and how the stereotype of chinese or asians was fashioned. writing that book i actually

spent some time researching this i'm his twin story. howas an early example of the chinese were looked at in the 19th century. i got fascinated with that story after a little digging and after the charlie chan book. , trying to to write tell the asian story in the making of american culture. the time is twins give me -- siamese twins gave me the opportunity to write about the chinese experience in 19th american -- 19th-century american culture. >> it took liberty. >> what is that? >> it is part of the control. >> this is missing from the cargo deck outside of the hostile.

hostel. the ship is identical with horseshoe blows. brian: how popular was the charlie chan character? yunte: in the united states or china? brian: both. yunte: i would say tremendously popular when these movies were made. this was followed by sidney and roland winters. these are all white actors playing asian roles. that has become quite a funny issue for a lot of asian-americans. brian: did any chinese play charlie chan at any time in the movies? yunte: you might be interested to know, before roland played the role, they were asians playing charlie chan in a silent

film. this was in the silent film era. they sucked. those movies were not successful at all. the first three charlie chan films. brian: they were not chinese? yunte: two japanese and one korean. we are talking about 1920's hollywood. we will come back to all of this. i want to focus on you. you were born where? yunte: in a small town in southern china. brian: what year? yunte: 1969. in the middle of the cultural revolution. i grew up in the waning days of mao's china. brian: what did your parents do? yunte: i came from a doctor family. my father was a doctor, my

great-grandfather was a doctor. fathertever reason, my trained my brother to be a doctor and trained me to be a writer. that is his own secret dream. brian: what year did you come to the united states and why? yunte: i was an english major in college. as you know, in 1989, the student protests broke out. that led to government crackdown and everything. i was a sophomore in college that year. a moment when i decided i would leave this country after i graduated. i did. i came to the united states in the summer of 1991. brian: when you went to school, you are in beijing? yunte: yes. brian: were you there in tenements where -- tiananmen square? yunte: the protests went all the

way to joan -- june. during those two months most students would go every day. we were on strike and there were no classes. we were very engaged in the demands on the government. government started the martial law in beijing. things were getting pretty tense. 4, i days before june got a telegram from my family. ill,said mother is gravely return immediately. when i saw that i thought -- mother is fine, i will pack up right away. i will jump on the train.

at the time, there was no speed rail in china. today, if you go there, everything is so convenient. i wasn't impressed. at that time, it took me three days and nights. --ad to ride the train force 427 hours. i took a boat at a bus -- 27d to ride the train for hours and then i took a bus and then a boat. some of our -- afar i saw my mother from the house smiling like a bride. i said, mom aren't you sick? she said no, i just wanted you out of there. the next day, there was the crackdown. it turned out to be a chinese holiday.

it was the dragon boat race day. i remember my mother cooked a big meal. she was smiling throughout the day. she was happy her son was safe. i was pretty mad at my mother for taking me out of the action. brian: are your parents alive today? away: my father passed during my writing of this book. when did you go back to beijing? yunte: after i left? brian: when you are home with your mom. when did you go back? yunte: i was getting anxious to go back. my mother would not allow me. after the crackdown, beijing was under control. military control.was some of the student leaders were being chased, arrested and everything. i did not get back to campus

until early july. that was about a month later. back, in, when i got still remember the smell of the city. brian: this is video from 1989 at tiananmen square. knows exactly how many died. the official chinese version claims only 300 people were killed in tiananmen square, all of them soldiers. unofficial counts say the death toll exceeded 7000. they were branded the butchers of beijing. did you lose any friends? yunte: yes. brian: how many classmates? here is the difficult part of the story. summer, after i got back to campus and the entire

university went through a. of self-examination. everybody had to write a report. how civil example of disobedience will come into play. on the one hand, there was the government censorship and the high-powered pressure and everything. the students, when we write reports, nobody would claim that we ever participated in any of these things. part of thatricky kind of life. living in different kinds of society. brian: when you decided you wanted to come to the united states, why? how did you do it? at the time i thought all hope was lost.

i left the country i swore i would never go back. back becausewent my family and fruits are there -- roots are there. out, i landedot back in tuscaloosa, alabama. a lot of americans estimate -- asked me why alabama? people don't believe me when i told him the story. square, ianmen decided to leave the country and go to the university library and the reference room. i took a book off the shelf to u.s.s a guide colleges. low and behold, alabama is the first state alphabetically. i was looking at schools and acceptance rates. alabama looks great to me.

michigan and i got enough names of universities i was interested in. to about a i applied dozen universities. alabama accepted me with a scholarship. brian: university of alabama. yunte: the crimson tide. brian: what year did you graduate from there? that is anuate? interesting term. ideai got there, i had no as for the original differences -- regional differences of the south and west. -- any placeates the united states was america, the great country. when i was in tuscaloosa, i thought i was looking for times square. i was a little stunned.

bit disoriented. oriental ifriented you want to put it that way. i was kind of lost. life was a little slow in the south. isolated andlly emotionally down and everything. america didn't turn out to be the way i imagined it to be. same thing happens to a lot of chinese immigrants. especially by the gold rush. we can talk about that later on if you have time. felt more the south i down, a little depressed. mine and ids of

decided to open a chinese restaurant. aat was while i was still student. we opened this chinese restaurant. it was a dream for me at the time to settle down in the south and open a chain of restaurants to make a left -- enough money to stay at home and become a writer. it took me a few months to figure out that this would take forever for me to get to that state. that was when i decided to stay in school and do a phd program. that is when i migrated to the north in buffalo. are you an american citizen? yunte: yes i am. brian: what you did you do that? yunte: 2010.

i live in california, santa barbara. brian: what do you do? yunte: i am a university professor, i teach literature. brian: could you speak english as well as you do now? yunte: i don't think so. but i could speak english. i was and it was major. that was a part of my american experience. i couldn't really understand the accent very well. the southern accent for instance. it took me a while to figure out. english, you learn from classrooms. that will be different from english in real life. it took me a while. part of my struggle in the south was also linguistic. a few weeks ago when i did the fresh air interview with terry gross, i told her the story.

it is a true story. driving my beat up toyota car. i was delivering food. -- theunning a mess restaurant and doing taxes but also deliveries. i would turn on npr and that was fresh air. in a way, every time that terry gross said this is terry gross and fresh air, she was breathing a breath of fresh air into my life. i thought my life hit rock bottom in some ways. i was very grateful. i learned a great deal of english from that. i also learned english from the david letterman show.

i learned from the jokes that david letterman would say and the tricks that he would do with his mother and everything. i learned a great deal from these tv programs and the radio programs. were borneng bunker in 1811. how long did they live in siam? yunte: they were discovered when they were 13 by this scottish traveling businessman. they were taken out of the country at the age of 17. brian: where did they go? hunter, thisobert traveling scottish businessman saw the twins in the river -- i think he saw -- he thought he saw something mysterious in the water. closer than he realized -- and then he realized it was too young was joined at

the chest. he realized it was a business opportunity. he talks to the twins and his mother to try to convince them to take them out of the country for a freak show. at the time -- the chinese king -- siamese king did not approve because he wanted to own everything in his kingdom. it would take a few more years until an american ship captain came to town and the hunter partnered with him. , ay convinced another king take theto let them twins out of the country as a freak show. brian: did they have to pay money to the mother or anything? yunte: yes.

part of my research for this have prizedimes, we discoveries as researchers. one of the things i am proud of is that i was able to track down the handwritten contract they signed on the day of their departure. day,was on april fools' 1829. they were tricked by these two thato sign this contract stipulated they will go anywhere the owners wish for five years. least is aint -- at tricky term. , theirng to the contract mother was paid $500. they were one from their mother -- bought from their mother for

$500. brian: where did they land in the united states? yunte: the historical harbor of boston. brian: how did they get there? yunte: it was a four-month journey from siam. they were 17 and they turned 18 and -- before they got to boston. brian: what did they do when they got here? yunte: they were smuggled in. i trust down the ship manifest for that ship. they were only two declared passengers on that ship. one was hunter and a chinese man. this was a neighbor. the twin's mother was worried. she was still worried. they were so young.

they had a neighbor go with them. there were only two passengers. they were smuggled in. they fall of customs. this was unique. barnum, when he sent tom thumb to england, he was disguised as a baby in his mother's arms. similar things happened. in 1829.ey were here what did they do for a living? moneyd they make their for the foreseeable future? yunte: they were to as slaves.

-- worked as slaves. they were exploited. kaufman, before they arrived in boston, he sent a letter to his wife because he could barely contain his own enthusiasm. this was the great prospect of making money off of these freaks. he says susan, i have two chinese boys, grown together, 17 years old, healthy. i hope they will turn out to be a profitable curiosity. they were regarded as curiosities. they did their first show in by an after an examination harvard medical school doctor. john warren was the face of medicine in 19th-century america. dr. warren examined the twins a few times.

eventually, he published at least two reports. after all this publicist the end, they were put on display. that is how they make money for the owners. yunte: there are a lot of places we can go with this. you probably know where i'm going. what do people want to know the most about the twins? how did they manage to live like this? bandit,on't notice the ,hey look like -- the band they look like normal human beings. they walked around like drunk people because they stumbled. they walk sideways. show, it spoke to the savviness of their owners.

in the beginning, they were going to advertise the show as the monster. the owners thought that was too much. a look at them was already frightening enough. to double it down siamese boys. most people said they look like human beings but they are so different from us. that is really the hook. these two boys look almost like ourselves but they are so different because they are joined together. they have to do everything together. this was the year that the back back ofe dame -- hunch notre dame was published. victor hugo said that he was

almost human. that was what they called them, wonder.the sub-human brian: how tall with they? yunte: a little bit taller than five feet. brian: when did they become american citizens? yunte: great question. that was another issue. they were for their masters or owners for almost three years. .ventually they broke free they went on the road for themselves and made a lot of money. they eventually retired to the small town in north carolina in 1839. that was the year when they acquired american citizenship. brian: there is a famous television show that most people

might europe would recognize -- my age would recognize immediately. >> the andy griffith show starring andy griffith with ronny howard. .lso starring john brian: what does that have to do with chang and eng? yunte: i write about it in the end. that was another interesting discovery for me writing this book. it was to realize that north that theyas the place eventually settled down. they made a lot of babies, they had a lot of children. this is also the birthplace of andy griffith.

this became the basis, the inspiration for neighboring. i spent a lot of time in mount airy. brian: how did they get to mount airy? retire from the prying eyes of the public and everything, they try to get away the world. they chose this remote spot in north carolina. workfirst settled down in -- wilkesboro. they bought some land and built a big house. after they married these two sisters, the family was growing.

they moved to the next county and settled down in mount airy. on theas just a photo screen. brian: i suspect that was madeleine and adelaide. how did they meet their lives -- wives? yunte: it was at the wedding party of their manager, charles harris. he settled down in north carolina with them. charles harris also made a lot of money from their freak show by managing their shows. he married the daughter of a local innkeeper. that gave him a foot into the in the southern world. the twins met the sisters at the wedding. they were very impressed and interested. love first with

adelaide. she was interested but not sarah. to convince a while sarah to join the union. , the three new there would be no possibility for the union to take place without sarah joining and agreeing to this. they took a page from jane austen's pride and prejudice. in that novel, when elizabeth bennett first turned down the marriage proposal from mr. darcy. day, she visited his estate and she talked to the service and everything. she realized she made a mistake and maybe he is a very good master.

looking at the house, how well-managed it was, the good taste and furniture. the twins did the same thing. sarah was not interested -- she was freaking out a little. twins threw a quilting party. they invited all the women in the county and they had a feast. i should emphasize that these men are very smart, they are great entertainers. after traveling on the road for a decade, they had entertaining skills. they would entertain the guests and that impressed sarah. that is when she said this is not a bad idea. just like when elizabeth said it

is not a bad idea to live here. brian: i ask you a question earlier and you said something i didn't think you would. how many children did they have and how did they do it? yunte: how did they do it? brian: how many did they have? yunte: they had 21 at least. that is the question. they owned slaves. there is the question of whether the fathered children with slaves. legitimately, they had 21. brian: who had 11 and who had 10? yunte: i believe that chang had more. mark twain got it wrong as well. he was fascinated by these twins. that waswrote a novel

based on other twins. while chang and eng bunker were still alive, mark twain wrote this sketch. them.ually switched he wrote jokingly about the drinking habits. in real life, chang was a heavy drinker. eng would take his uncle in moderation. in that sketch, mark twain switched the roles. he said something quite funny. wasaid that when eng had no drunk, chang choice but to also get drunk because their liver was joined.

mark twain said in this case, chang was only physically drunk, not morally drunk. brian: when it became a citizen, they got married in 1843. how did it become -- they become citizens? yunte: the law was against them. act --ional asian nationalization act limited them from acquiring american citizenship. but they were a celebrity and they were rich and well-connected. in that small, remote area, this management of the application and approval of citizenship was done locally. also, i should emphasize that because they came to the united states before the gold rush.

, that would bring alot more chinese. before they settled down in the south, they were a very small number of chinese. the near invisibility of asians in the south give them an opportunity. they were regarded as white in -- yearly census. census, on the 1850 they were regarded as white. the same thing happened in 1860. 1870, when the u.s. census created a category for chinese. that was a catchall term for all asians. even then they were regarded as white. there was an issue because of the near invisibility.

brian: they were the first siamese twins, had any other siamese twins in history married? yunte: in the 20th century, yes. not before them. very famous hilton sisters, violet and daisy hilton. how do they do it? learn a little bit about in thend eng's logistics bedroom by looking at what the hiltons did. to a childgave birth and married. the other sister never married. they were joined at the back. it, theow they did

they didlaimed that this skill. when one sister was doing whatever with a man, the other sister would read a book or take a nap or mentally blank out. the same thing happened with chang and eng. brian: we have some video of a reunion in 2003. let's watch. i think it is descendents of chang and eng. >> each year for the past 24 years, members of their extended families joined for a family being in a to celebrate their unique heritage. coming from near and far, these relatives are all decided from eng and chang. wasterm siamese twins

indicted for them. twins still siamese hold three world records for the longest conjoined twins in 53 years. the only conjoined twins and history to ever get married. these were the only ones to have ever fathered children. >> if the families stick together, you can see that on the teacher. is any of this delicate for you to report? just, society not accepting? did you worry about how you said anything? , writing this book, i am trying to do two things. one, i am trying to tell the story as fact. i had to report the story as i

would has been told in american history and american culture. basically, the lives of the siamese twins in american culture. i had to quote a lot of racially insensitive terms, sometimes insulting. of course, those are my point of view. -- are not my point of view. one of these perspectives is about literature. you cite so many writers. the other one would be about chang and eng coming to the united states. what did their children do? how successful where the? y? -- they? yunte: i can give you one example. one of their daughters was a governor vittorio -- inernatorial candidate florida. i watched her debates with rick scott.

and acumen. aplomb she grew up on the twin's farm in mount airy. she talked about her own experience growing up there and going to town. the farm is outside of the town of mount airy. every time she goes inside, people see her. they say by your look, you must be one of the bunkers. she talks about that. in had a great career banking business before she moved to florida. she became a chief financial officer for the state before she ran for governor. she lost by a small margin. she has a prominent politician in the great state of florida. brian: how often did they consider splitting?

could they have? warren, the first doctor who examined the twins made a claim that separating the twins surgically may not be fatal but it could be dangerous. that was the doctor's diagnosis. that was confirmed by some of the later doctors. them,er words, separating it is possible, it is doable. there is risk involved. here, in the book i read about this. -- write about this. they consulted with philadelphia doctors. withwanted to go through the surgery and move on and live like human beings. who rejectedwives

this proposal and plan. dangerous. is too we accept you as you are. why theyeculate as to would do this when the brothers wanted to separate themselves. you write about the fact that at some point, they decided to live separately. not the men separately but with two houses. why was this? yunte: these were to married couples -- two married couples, they can't share a bed. when they set up these two separate households a mile from they stick to this rigid schedule.

they would stay in chang's house for three days with chang's wife. during these three days, chang is the master of the house, he can do what he wants to. feewould give up his free will.i -- then they would go to eng's house and he was the master. brian: did it work? yunte: apparently. they had 21 children. chang was the more temperamental, eng was more mild. brian: how did they buy slaves and why? yunte: the first ones were a gift from the father.

it was a black woman. she was born in alabama and was olina a wereh car given to the twinsnd -- and were given to the twins as a wedding gift. started i slaves -- buying slaves themselves. bought young slaves. the first ones were five and three. they wanted to raise them and sell them for profit. brian: did they? yunte: yes. they lost a lot of money in the civil war. out,the civil war broke that is the other part of the mini story i want to tell in the book. asians in the civil war.

people want to know if there were asians in the civil war. there were at least two. that they were at least a few hundred asian soldiers fighting on both sides. brian: you're talking about the gold rush. at some point, it may be the building of the railroads, he said that 28% of one of our western states were made up of chinese. yunte: 28%? during the time of the building of the railroad. yunte: i don't think so. brian: i may have read that some place else. yunte: the chinese population is really miniscule. brian: during the building? yunte: that speak to the the racism. whenever there was a labor

movement, the same thing happens today i suppose, blamed immigrants -- blamed immigrants -- blame the immigrants. to cheapre losing jobs chinese labor. loudest,outcry was the the chinese population was .0002%. it is not possible that the chinese population would be 28%. brian: what is the story of their death? yunte: that is an emotionally draining story for me to write as well. i wrote that chapter when my father passed away. drinker. the heavy he suffered a stroke in 1870. he recovered a little.

then his health continued to decline. chang died in sleep on a cold inning, a january morning 1874. when eng woke up, he realized his brother was gone. imagine, throughout their lives, they learned to do everything together. they learned to walk together, eat together, go to the bathroom together, make love together, everything. they were shadows of each other. as human beings, when we don't ,ee our showers, -- shadows something funny is going on. that was what he experienced for the first time. the sense of being alone. literally, really alone. those were horrifying hours for eng.

a doctors chang dies, was to come and separate them. the doctor didn't arrive in time. andwas lingering for hours living his life by himself. it is hard to fathom that existential crisis and the depth of that horror and feeling of loneliness. one of the sisters died, the last one died in the 20th century. they looked pretty long. brian: the twins died in 1874? there were 61? yunte: right, they were younger though. the twins were 28 and a married

the sisters -- they married the sisters at 17. when you retire to north had $10,000.y that was a lot of money in those days. how far you can go with $10,000 in those years -- they bought their first land for only $300. they bought a few thousand acres of land in mount area. you cano there today, see in the entegris show -- andy griffith show. -- camped there there, i saw the farm.

it is still in the family. enough, their farm has been turned into cap grant -- campground. it is now a campground for rv's. silly mistake of driving there in a rental car. in myt in my -- camped jeep. it was very cold. brian: what did you rely on to tell the story? yunte: i was trying to tell two stories. one was the fact about their lives. that was through documents. the marriage contract and everything. the other is the story of the americanwins in the cultural life. there were newspapers, reports

and a lot of them are exaggerations. asked how much money they had. they speculated that they must've made $100,000. there is a lot of fake news. that is an important part of the story. it was an unusual marriage to two wife sisters. that was condemned in the past. -- press. it was called daemonic. on that aspect of the story. brian: when they made their money as freak shows, how did they make it specifically? who paid them? how successful was it? did they talk? did people talk to them? hit in townsere a

all over the country. ledgers. to -- two ledgers. i spent a lot of time tracking map with made a google dates. i contract them from town to town all the way from ohio to alabama. in tennessee, all of these little towns, i could see how much money they made. based on that, you can guess how many people would come to visit them. $.50would charge $.45 or $.50 at the most. they would do back flips,

somersaults together. usually they would talk to the q&a.ce and take they are great is your tenors. -- entertainers. they know how to tell jokes. the viewers would get their money's worth. this museumu go to in philadelphia, you can see the statue of the two of them and the cast. they had the liver there. how did that work? how did they get to do the autopsy? yunte: after the twins passed profession wasal on alert. see were very curious to

what exactly is inside that fans. -- band. they sent three doctors down to north carolina. it sounds like three wise men paying tribute. they talked to the widows and makingllied them by was sort of like how they were taken out of siam. the three doctors sent to the dowsws -- said to the wi that they had been getting free medicare from us. they were giving them consultations and opinions. the reason they wanted to do this for free is they were treating them as a rare medical specimen. they want to write reports and get published.

b -- this band is the holy grail of medicine. you have to let us examine this. the widows said you can only cut behind the band. unfortunately, when the bodies were shipped to philadelphia, the doctors did two autopsies. it was a lengthy report written. when they shipped the bodies back to north carolina, the two sons went to the train station. they were shocked to realize that they were missing some organs such as the liver and lungs. they sent a very angry letter to the damn yankee doctors.

brian: we had very little time left. i want to ask you the same question i would ask them. about leavingl your home country coming here and becoming an american citizen? -- how did feel? they feel? yunte: they are talking about building a wall. now that i am an american citizen, i have the privilege to travel all over the world. even then, i should emphasize the border will always live in your mind and soul, even if you can't see it anymore. it is the danger of building a wall. the trauma will lay long.

brian: are you glad you became an american citizen? yunte: yes. brian: for they? -- were they? yunte: i'm sure they were. brian: your story is a typical american story in the end. yunte: i should emphasize that their story and the andy are similar.y brian: are you writing a new book? yunte: i don't have a specific title. chan androte charlie the siamese twins -- my goal is to tell the asian american storn in american culture. this set called rendezvous with america. huang is our guest.

he is the author of "inseparable: the original siamese twins and their rendezvous with american history." thank you very much. yunte: thank you, brian. >> for free transcripts or to give us comments about this program, visit q&a.org. q&a is also available as .odcasts at c-span.org q&a, the next university of virginia history professor wayne hitchcock on his thatthe age of eisenhower

.s next sunday on c-span prime minister theresa may was asked about the economy, present and benefits for first time homeowners in the u.k.. she was asked there is important business and we want to hear from as many people as possible. k