announcer: here on c-span, you is next. that is followed by theresa may taking questions from members of the house of commons. later, we will look at the impact of fresh and sanctions on u.s. foreign-policy. ♪ announcer: this week on "q&a," university of california santa barbara english professor yunte huang. he discusses his book "inseparable: the original siamese twins and their rendezvous with american history." ♪ brian: yunte huang, author of "inseparable: the original siamese twins and their rendezvous with american history," who were chang and eng?

yunte: they were the original siamese twins. they were actually chinese. when they were born together, village.le fishing when they were born they were bit-inchgether by of flesh. the neighbors were freaking out. the parents were scared. the mother, 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 were they 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. i believe that would be when they went back on the road after the civil war. brian: where are they joined? yunte: they were joined at the bases 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 charlie chan. the aphorism-spouting, chevy, funny detective from honolulu. chubby, funny detective from honolulu. 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 the siamese twin story. it was an early example of how 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. i continued to write, trying to tell the asian story in the making of american culture. the siamese twins gave me the opportunity to write about the chinese experience in 19th-century american culture. brian: here is one of the charlie chan movies, if you have never seen any version of the movie. [video clip] >> it took the boat. >> what is that question mark >> it is part of the clutch control.

>> this is missing from the cargo deck outside of the hostel. observe. the shape is identical with the horseshoe blows. clip]ideo brian: how popular was the charlie chan character? yunte: in the united states or china? brian: both. [applause] [laughter] 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 surprised to know, before roland played the role, they were asians playing charlie chan in a silent film. this was in the silent film era. probably because they sucked. [laughter] 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. brian: 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's

family. my father was a doctor, my great-grandfather was a doctor. for whatever reason, my father 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. at peking university. then, 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. that was 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 tiananmen square? yunte: the protests went all the way to june.

went alln late april, the way to 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. then the government started the martial law in beijing. things were getting pretty tense. a few days before june 4, i got a telegram from my family. i remember very vividly, the telegram. they are very short. is gravely "mother ill, return immediately."

i thought, 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. i had to ride the train for 27 hours and then i took a bus and then a boat. eventually i got home. i was anxious apparently to get back. when i got back to the small town where i grew up, from afar i saw my mother standing in front of 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 chinese cinco de

mayo. 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? yunte: my father passed away during my writing of this book. brian: i remember now, you paid tribute to him in your 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. it was military control. 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. even then, when i got back, i still remember the smell of the city. it did not -- brian: this is video from 1989 at tiananmen square. [video clip] >> no one 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. the 27th army responsible for the slaughter has been branded "the butchers of beijing." [end video clip] brian: did you lose any friends? yunte: yes. brian: how many classmates? yunte: here is the difficult part of the story. after that summer, after i got back to campus and the entire

university went through a period of self-examination. everybody had to write a report. everything they did and that month. here is an example of how civil 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 our reports, nobody would claim that we ever participated in any of these things. this is the tricky part of that 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?

yunte: at the time i felt all hope was lost. when i left the country i swore i would never go back. of course, i went back because my family and roots are there. as for how i got out, i landed in tuscaloosa, alabama. a lot of americans asked me, why the hell -- why alabama? people don't believe me when i tell them the story. after tiananmen square, i decided to leave the country and went to the university library reference room. i took a book off the shelf which was a guide to u.s. colleges. low and behold, alabama is the first state alphabetically. i was looking at schools and acceptance rates. alabama looks great to me.

ok. so i never got to vermont, apparently. i got to michigan and i got enough names of universities i was interested in. eventually, i applied to about a dozen universities. alabama accepted me with a scholarship. brian: university of alabama. yunte: uiversity of alabama, tuscaloosa. the crimson tide. brian: what year did you graduate from there? yunte: graduate? that is an interesting term. when i got there, i had no idea as for the regional differences of the south and west, any place in the united states was america, the great country. when i was in tuscaloosa, i thought i was looking for times square. but it is not there, apparently. i was a little stunned.

as you can imagine. so, i was a little bit disoriented. i was a disoriented oriental if you want to put it that way. so, i was kind of lost. life was a little slow in the south. i was culturally isolated and emotionally down and everything. because america didn't turn out to be the way i imagined it to be. the same thing happens to a lot of chinese immigrants. early years, especially the chinese who were lowered by the lured by -- who were the gold rush. we can talk about that later on if you have time. anyway, in the south i felt more down, a little depressed. a few friends of mine and i

decided to open a chinese restaurant. that was while i was still a student. we opened this chinese restaurant. "fh a great name which meant our directions." it was a dream for me at the time to settle down in the south and open a chain of restaurants to make enough money to stay at home and become a writer. like a guy who lived across the state lines by the name of william falconer, for instance. faulkner, for instance. 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. brian: 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. english. american literature. then, could you speak english as well as you do now? yunte: i don't think so. but i could speak english. i was an english major. that was a sad part of my american experience. in the south, i could not really understand the southern accent very well. it took me a while to figure it out. from theou learn classroom is different than the english you learn 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. i was driving my beat-up toyota car. i was delivering food. that was my share in the labor. i was running a restaurant and doing taxes but also deliveries. every time i would jump in the car, 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. hit i felt like my life rock bottom, in some ways. so, i was very grateful. i learned a great deal of english from that. i also learned english from the david letterman show. after this shift was over i

would go home, and the jokes that david letterman would say end the little tricks he would do with his mother and everything. so i learned a great deal from tv programs and radio programs. brian: chang and eng bunker were born 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? yunte: when robert hunter, this traveling scottish businessman saw the twins as swimming in the iver, think he thought he saw something mysterious in the water. shape ofmovie "the

that sort of thing -- then he came closer and then he realized it was two young men 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. the 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. they convinced another king, a new king to let them take the 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

book, oftentimes, we have prized 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. that was on april fools' day, 1829. they were tricked by these two men to sign this contract that stipulated they will go anywhere the owners wish for five years. them "the owners." the fine print -- at least is a tricky term. according to the contract, their mother was paid $500.

they were basically 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 before they got to boston. brian: what did they do when they got here? yunte: they were smuggled in. i tracked down the ship manifest for that ship. there were only two declared passengers. one was robert hunter and the other was a chinese man who was actually a traveling companion, a neighbor. because the twins mother was worried. they were two young boys. 17-years-old. withe kind of negotiated

the men that they were allowed and neighbor, also the age of 17, to go with them. so on the ship manifest, there were only two declared passengers. they were smuggled in. this was not unique. generalm, when he sent tom-tom, the 25 inch tall man, sent tom, when he thumb to england, tom thumb was actually disguised as a baby in his mother's arms. sneaking through the customs. so, similar things happened. brian: they were here in 1829. what basically did they do for a living? how did they make their money for the foreseeable future?

yunte: they were worked as slaves. they were exploited. before they arrived in aufman sent a letter to his wife because he could barely contain his own enthusiasm. 17-year-old men who will be regarded as a curiosity, he wrote that to his wife. i hope they will turn out to be a profitable curiosity. they were regarded as curiosities. they did their first show in boston after an examination by a 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.

sort of like to certify, these are genuine freaks. after this, they were put on display. that is how they make money for the owners. brian: 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? yunte: how did they manage to live like this? apparently, because if you do , they justthe band look like normal human teams. they walk around like to people who are drunk to some extent. they always wrapped their arms around each other and walked kind of sideways a little. so, for the freak show, once again and spoke to the savviness of their managers or their

owners, right? in the beginning they were going to advertise the show as the monster. but the owner thought that was too much. because a look at them was already frightening enough. so, they toned it down to double-siamese boys. so most people would be there to see how they looked like human beings, but they are so different from us. and 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 also the year that the hunchback of published.was right around the time when theor hugo said that

hunchback was almost human. that was what they called them, almost, the sub-human wonder. 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 worked for their masters or owners for almost three years. eventually they broke free. then they went on the road for ofmselves and made a lot money. they eventually retired to a small town in north carolina in 1839. that is the year when they acquired american citizenship. brian: here's some video from a famous television show.

most people my age will recognize it immediately. "fishing hole"} growth show. starting indy griffith. and ronny howard. clip]ideo brian: what does that have to do 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 carolina was the place that they 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 mayberry. time innt a lot of mount airy. brian: how did they get to mount airy? yunte: when they retire from the prying eyes of the public and everything, they try to get away from the world. they chose this remote spot in north carolina. they first 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. brian: there was just a photo on the screen. i suspect that was madeleine and adelaide. how did they meet their 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 door in the southern world. the twins met the sisters at the wedding. they were very impressed and interested.

chang fell in love first with adelaide. she was interested but not sarah. it took them a while to convince sarah to join the union. sarah, the three knew 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. until, one day, she visited his estate and she talked to the

servants 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. when sarah was not interested -- she was freaking out a little. by this thing, a turnoff. then, the twins threw a quilting party. they invited all the women in the neighborhood and the neighborhood county. 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

in "pride and prejudice," maybe 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? that would be the most interesting question for people. 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 they fathered children with the slaves. at least 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.

mark twain was fascinated by these twins. he later wrote a novel that was based on the italian twins. "puddin'head wilson." while chang and eng bunker were still alive, mark twain wrote this sketch. he actually switched them. he wrote jokingly about the drinking habits. in real life, chang was a heavy drinker. eng would take his alcohol in moderation. in that sketch, mark twain switched the roles. he said something quite funny. he said that when eng was getting drunk, chang had no 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 they became a itizen, i have the data as 1839, they got married and 1843. how did they become citizens? yunte: the law was against them. the 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. so through connections they were able to do this. also, i should emphasize that because they came to the united states before the gold rush.

that would bring a lot 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. but now we're talking about that 2020 senses. in 1850, on the 1850 census, they were regarded as white. the same thing happened in 1860. until 1870, when the u.s. census finally created a category for chinese. that was a catchall term for all east asians. even then they were regarded as white. there was an issue because of the near invisibility.

it is a gap, on the other hand it is also an opportunity. 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, lila and daisy hilton. how do they do it? we can learn a little bit about chang and eng's logistics in the bedroom by looking at what the hiltons did. one sister gave birth to a child and married. the other sister never married. they were joined at the back. as for how they did it, the

hilton sisters claimed that they did this skill. ate mastery.mte " 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 1500 descendents of chang and eng. [video clip] >> 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 -- descended from

eng and chang. the term siamese twins was indicted for them. the original siamese twins still hold three world records for the longest-living conjoined twins at 63-years-old. they are the only conjoined twins and history to ever get married. these were the only ones to have ever fathered children. [[end video clip] brian: families stick together, you can see that on the t-shirt. is any of this delicate for you to report? just, society not accepting? did you worry about how you said anything? talking about disabled folks like this? yunte: well, 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 not my point of view. brian: 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 they? yunte: i can give you one example. one of their daughters ran for a governorship. in 2010. i watched her debates with the florida governor rick scott.

hersolutely deeply admire aplomb and acumen. she grew up on the twins' 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. eng bunker.g and she talks about that. she had a great career in 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 is still a very prominent politician in the great state of florida. brian: how often did they

consider splitting? could they have? yunte: dr. warren, the first american 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. in other words, separating them, it is possible, it is doable. there is risk involved. here, in the book i write about this. they consulted with philadelphia doctors. they wanted to go through with the surgery and move on and live like human beings. like normal human beings.

it was their future wives who objected to this proposal, to this plan. they said it is too dangerous. we will accept to as you are. and, we can speculate as to why they would do this when the brothers wanted to separate themselves. but the wives did not want them to. brian: 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 two married couples, they can't share a bed. when they set up these two separate households a mile from each other, and 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. eng would give up his free will. then they would go to eng's house and he was the master. and chang would give up his own free will. 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

wedding gift from the father-in-law. it was a black woman. she was born in alabama and was sold to north carolina a were -- and were given to the twins as a wedding gift. very soon, they started buying slaves themselves. interestingly, they tended to by young sleeves. the first ones were aged 7, 5, and three. the plan was to raise them and then sell them later on at a profit. brian: did they? yunte: yes. they lost a lot of money in the civil war. when the civil war broke out, they fought on the confederate side. 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.

christopher bunker and stephen juncker, half siamese, half white. it turns out 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, you said that 28% of one of our western states were made up of chinese. yunte: 28%? brian: 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? of the railroads?

yunte: that speaeks to the notion of the racism. whenever there was a labor movement, the same thing happens today i suppose, blame the immigrants. people were losing jobs to cheap chinese labor. when the outcry was the loudest, the chinese population was like .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. chang was the heavy drinker. he suffered a stroke in 1870. he recovered a little.

then his health continued to decline. chang died in sleep on a cold morning, a january morning in 1874. when eng woke up, he realized his twin 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 see our shadows, something funny is going on. that was what he experienced for the first time. just imagine. the sense of being alone. literally, really alone. those were horrifying hours for eng. the original plan was, as soon

as chang dies, a doctor was to come and separate them. the doctor didn't arrive in time. eng was lingering for hours and living his life by himself. on that cold morning. it is hard to fathom that existential crisis and the depth of that horror and feeling of loneliness. brian: how long did their wives live the on and their deaths? >> one of the sisters died, the last one died in the 20th century. they lived pretty long lives. brian: the twins died in 1874? there were 61?

yunte: right, the wives were younger though. the twins were 28 and a married the sisters at 17. when you retire to north carolina, they had $10,000. 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 airy. if you go there today, you can see the andy griffith show. i camped there, i saw the farm.

i wanted to know the feng shui. it is still in the family. interestingly enough, their farm has been turned into a campground. it is now a campground for rv's. i made a silly mistake of driving there in a rental car. camped in my jeep. it was very cold. brian: what did you rely on to tell the story? how did you know what was true? yunte: i was trying to tell two stories. one was the fact about their lives. that was through documents. deeds, marriage certificates, contracts and everything. of theer is the story siamese twins and american cultural life. newspapers, reports, and a lot of them are exaggeration.

u.s. me how much money they had. one new orleans newspaper that year speculated that they must have made like $100,000. so there was a lot of what we call fake news. but that is also an important part of the story. for instance, there unusual marriage to two white sisters. it was really condemned in the press at the time. something not just shocking but something demonic. bestiality. so i reported on that aspect of the story. brian: when they made their money in the so-called freak shows, how did they make their money specifically? who paid them? how successful was it? how often did they make a presentation?

did they talk? to people talk to them? yunte: they were a hit in towns all over the country. they kept two ledgers. one of them was money received, the other one was money spent. i spent a lot of time tracking withwith the google map dates. i tracked them from town to town from ohio to alabama. in tennessee, all of these little towns. i could see how much money they made. based on that, i could guess how many people would come to visit them. they would usually charge $.25 or $.50 at the most. do back flips,

somersaults together. but usually they would just talk to the audience and take like q&a, right. they were great entertainers. they knew how to tell jokes and all these things. oftentimes times, the viewers would get there money's worth. brian: if you go to this museum in philadelphia, you can see the statue of the two of them and the cast. that four inches between them. had the liver there. how did that work? how did they get to do the autopsy? yunte: after the twins passed away, the medical profession was on alert. they were very curious to see

what exactly is inside that band. they sent three doctors down to north carolina. it sounds like three wise men paying tribute. they talked to the widows and they really literally believed the widows to allow them access to the bodies. sort of like when they were taken out of siam, the beginning of the story is like the ending of the story. so, the three doctors said it to the widows that the twins had been getting free medicare because of the doctors examining them, giving them opinions and consultation and everything will stop because the doctors, the reasons they wanted to do this for free was they were treating them as a very rare medical

specimen. they wanted to write reports and get published. they said, this band is really the holy grail of medicine today. you got to let us examine them. yielded oneventually the condition they would not separate the two. they said, you can only cut behind the band. unfortunately, when the bodies were shipped to philadelphia the doctors did too uptight cease didthere was -- the doctors 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. bodies of back the

our fathers. little timeve very left. i went you to ask you the same question i would ask them. maybe can ask for them, answer for them. would like to rescue you the same question i would ask them. how do you feel about leaving your home country coming here and becoming an american citizen? how did 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 that the border will always live in your mind and soul, even if you can't see it anymore. that is really the danger of building a wall.

the trauma will live on. brian: are you glad you became an american citizen? yunte: yes. brian: were they? yunte: i'm sure they were. brian: your story is a typical american story in the end. as is theirs. yunte: i should emphasize that their story and the andy griffith story are similar. brian: are you writing a new book? yunte: i don't have a specific title. since i wrote charlie chan and the siamese twins -- my goal is to tell the asian american story in american culture. i want to make this set called "the rendezvous with america." brian: yunte huang is our guest. he is the author of "inseparable: the original siamese twins and their

rendezvous with american history." he teaches at the university of santa barbara. we thank you very much. yunte: thank you, brian. ♪ announcer: for free transcripts or to give us comments about this program, visit q&a.org. q&a is also available as podcasts at c-span.org. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] announcer: on the next q&a, the university of virginia history

professor william hitchcock on his book the age of eisenhower that is next sunday on c-span. here is a look at our live coverage monday. on c-span, a conference on antitrust law and its impact on antitrust companies. followed by a discussion on religion and its role within the republican party at 6:00 p.m. eastern. at 9:00, our original series landmark cases concludes with regents of the university of bakke.nia v. then, the senate goebbels and at u.s. judicial nominations in the second quarter of appeals. and prime minister theresa may was asked about the economy