applicants and took the system to court. decision upheld the constitutionality of affirmative action. our guests to discuss this case include the acting solicitor professor at georgetown who is an originalist and legal scholar. watch tonight and join the conversation. on our website. national link to the constitution center's and the landmark cases podcast.

>> this week, the university of ,alifornia's english professor who discusses his book, inseparable, the original theire twins and rendezvous with american history. are chang and eng? >> they are the original siamese twins, but they were born in thailand and they were joined flesh that a band of

was about four inches in length and neighbors freaked out and the parents were scared. the mother, because they were together they grew up walk and swim and that was sort of a milestone and they are known as the chinese afterand, it was only they were brought to the united states that they got branded. >> this picture on the screen is probably at what's age? >> this would be middle-aged. you can see the hair is starting to get a little bit gray. that would be when they went back on the road after the civil war. >> where are they joined?

>> they are joined at their chest. they, you can still see preserveder in a liquid. get interested in them question mark >> i wrote my , who was arlie chan 20th century story about 20th-century america and how of asians wase fashioned. so, writing that book, i spent some time researching the siamese twins story

and the siamese twins gave me the opportunity to write about that. >> here is some video with some of the charlie chan movies. >> this is a part of the clutch control. >> yes. >> it is missing from the cargo deck. observe. shape is identical with the horseshoe below the crushed the skull. >> how popular it was the

charlie chan character >> in both countries, it was tremendously popular. these are all white actors who played asian roles and it has issue for a lot of asian americans. >> did any chinese play charlie chan? ? that thereed to know were actually three asians theing charlie chan in silent film era, but they sucked and the first three charlie chan -- no one >> they were not

chinese? >> they were 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. started in late april, went all 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. it it said, "mother is gravely 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. when 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 lured by 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. with a great name which meant "four 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 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. brian: 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. english you learn from the 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. when i felt like my life hit 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 river, i think he thought he saw something mysterious in the water. like the movie "the shape of water," 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. they called 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-years-old and they turned 18-years-old 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. so she kind of negotiated with the men that they were allowed a 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. pt barnum, when he sent general tom thumb, the 25-inch tall man,

the dwarf, when he sent tom 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 boston, kaufman sent a letter to his wife because he could barely contain his own enthusiasm. i have two 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 not notice the band, they just 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 notre dame was published. right around the time when victor hugo said that the 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 themselves and made a lot of 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. [whistling the "fishing hole"} >> the indy growth show. starting indy griffith. and ronny howard. [end video clip] 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 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. so i spent a lot of time in 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 sarah ann 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 >> he made a lot of money by managing their shows. he married the daughter of a local innkeeper and 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.

addy was interested, but not sarah. it took them a while to convince sarah to join the union. 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 about this thing, a turn-off. then, the twins threw a quilting party. they invited all the women in the neighborhood and the neighboring 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 asked you a question

that most people were interested in and you said something i didn't think you would. i thought you would say, 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. brian: i wrote the opposite. [laughter] brian: i guess it doesn't matter. yunte: 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.

earlier, while chang and eng bunker were still alive, mark twain wrote this sketch. he actually switched them. just like what we did or i did is that, 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

citizen, i have the data as 1839, they got married in 1843. how did they become citizens? what were the circumstances? yunte: the 1790 naturalization act limited them from acquiring american citizenship. it is limited to free white persons only. 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 often 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. at the time they settled in the south, there was a very small

number of chinese. origins for that matter. asians for that matter. the near invisibility of asians in the south give them an opportunity. they were regarded as white in u.s. census. but now we're talking about that 2020 senses. the citizenship question and everything. when 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 catch-all 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. in the 20th century, there's these very famous hilton sisters, lila and daisy hilton. when people ask 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. because one of the sisters actually married a man and gave birth to a baby. the other sister never married. brian: how were they joined? yunte: they were joined at the back. as for how they did it, the hilton sisters claimed that they did this skill.

called alternate mastery. meaning 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 reunion and to celebrate their unique heritage. coming from near and far, these relatives are all descended from eng and chang. -- for whom the term siamese twins was invented.

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 in history to ever get married. and they are 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? because of just, society not accepting? you have not made fun of anybody but, talking about disabled folks like this. did you worry about how you said anything? yunte: well, writing this book, i am trying to do two things. one, i am trying to tell the story as fact. the others -- the other is 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: as a matter of fact, it seems there are two books here. from my perspective, one 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 the democratic gubernatorial candidate in 2010. in florida. i watched her debates with the florida governor rick scott. i absolutely deeply admire her 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. meaning chang and eng bunker. she talks about that. she had a great career in banking business in north carolina before she moved to florida. state -- 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? what is the story on that? 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. but there is risk involved. here, in the book i write about this. before their marriage, they consulted with philadelphia doctors. they wanted to go through with the surgery and move on and live their own lives, separate just like normal human beings. it was their future wives who objected to this proposal, to this plan. they said it is too dangerous.

it is not worth it. 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. i don't mean to men live separately but they had two houses. how did that work and why was this? yunte: these were two married couples, they cannot be in the same bed, right? 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. that is called alternate mastery. three days later, 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. brian: what is the major difference in their personalities? yunte: chang was the more temperamental, eng was more mild. brian: how did they buy slaves and why? yunte: the first one was a wedding gift from the father-in-law. it was a black woman. she was born in alabama and was

sold to north carolina and was given to the twins as a wedding gift. very soon, they started buying slaves themselves. interestingly, they tended to buy young slaves. the first ones were aged 7, 5, and 3. the plan was to raise them and then sell them later on at a profit. brian: did they? yunte: yes. they made a lot of money on that although they lost it all during the civil war. how many of their children fought in the civil war? and they least two, 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 bunker, half siamese, half

white. it turns out that there 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: even during the building of a railroads? yunte: that speaks to the notion of the racism. call it "no chinaman's chance." whenever there was a labor movement, the same thing happens today i suppose, blame the immigrants.

when the outcry of chinese must go because we are losing jobs to cheap chinese labor, we are ruined by cheap chinese labor. when the outcry was the loudest, the chinese population was like .0002%. or something. 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. so suddenly eng realized his shadow was gone. 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 on that cold morning, living his life by himself. 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 on after their deaths? yunte: one of the sisters died, the last one died in the 20th century. they lived pretty long lives. brian: the twins died in 1874? they were 61 years old? yunte: right, the wives were younger though. when they married, the twins and theyears old

sisters were 17 years old and 18 years old. brian: you said they were rich. northhey retired to carolina, how much money did they have? yunte: when they retired 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, it is great that you should me that andy griffith show. i can't out at the farm when i was finishing up the book. because i'm chinese, i wanted to know the feng shui of the place even though it was 150 years ago. it is still in the family. interestingly enough, their farm has been turned into a campground.

once again, it is a very smart branding. it is now a campground for rv's. i made a silly mistake of driving there in a rental car. camped in my rented jeep overnight. it was very cold in the mountains. brian: what did you rely on to tell the story? how did you know it was true? yunte: i was trying to tell two stories. one was the facts about their lives. that has to be done through documents. deeds, marriage certificates, contracts and everything. the other is the story of the siamese twins in american cultural life. in that case, it is newspapers, reports, and a lot of them are exaggeration. you asked 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, their unusual marriage to two white sisters. it was really condemned in the press at the time. something not just shocking but something demonic. bestial, even. 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? or did people talk to them? town alley hit town to

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 them. i created a google map and i could track 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, i could guess how many people would come to visit them. they would usually charge $.25 or $.50 at the most. they also got into -- the way they entertained the audience, the paying audience, they would do back flips, somersaults together. but usually they would just talk to the audience and take like

the way we are doing, q&a, right. they were great entertainers. they knew how to tell jokes and all these things. oftentimes, the viewers would get there money's worth. if you go to the muter museum in philadelphia, you can see the statue of the two of them and the cast. that four inches between them. they 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 going to visit, paying tribute. they talked to the widows and they really literally bullied the widows to allow them access to the bodies. sort of like when they were taken out of siam, and a re-resemblance between the beginning of the story and the ending of the story. so, the three doctors said it to the widows that the twins had been getting free medicare from us because of the doctors examining them, giving them opinions and consultation and everything, because the doctors, the reasons they wanted to do this for free was they were treating them as a very rare medical specimen. it will enable them 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. the widows eventually yielded on 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 two autopsies. it was a lengthy report written. when they shipped the bodies doctors did two autopsies. back to north carolina, the two twins 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. like, give back the bodies of our fathers. brian: we have very little time left.

i want to ask you the same question i would ask them and maybe can answer for them. how do you feel about leaving your home country and coming here and becoming an american citizen, and 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. almost without a sense of border. that is part of the reason i acquired american citizenship. even then, i should emphasize that if you have crossed borders before, 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. i am very glad. yes. brian: were they? yunte: i'm sure they were. otherwise they would not of been

able to get a foothold in the southern world. my conclusion after is that yourbook story and their story is a typical american story in the end. yunte: thank you. i should emphasize that their story and the andy griffith story in mayberry. brian: are you writing a new book? yunte: i don't have a specific topic. but, since i wrote charlie chan and the siamese twins -- my goal is to tell the asian story in the making of american culture. it will be another of this kind, to create a three-volume 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. ♪ [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: 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. announcer: on the next q&a, the university of virginia history professor william hitchcock on his book, "the age of eisenhower." that is sunday at 8:00 p.m.

eastern. tonight on the communicators, former advisor to fcc chair and former commissioner talk about the proposed t-mobile and sprint merger and its possible impact on the communications world. this is a great idea because it will accelerate 5g to appointment. the regulators have to make a those are three of the largest prepaid low-cost carriers. are carriers that low-income folks pay for ahead of time. three, that those is really going to do damage to the low income consumers. >> watch tonight