This put her under enormous stress. Throughout her life, Chang was instrumental in capturing Asian-American history. -- Did she suffer a fatal reaction to powerful drugs that she refused to take as prescribed? Hundreds gathered for the memorial service and burial. Back in Illinois one year later, she committed suicide. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate. "But as I was leaving, she got apathetic again. I would tell her, 'You can care too much about what people say about you.' Robert Spencer / The Chronicle MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT. Then, after 15 years of extraordinary achievement and major contributions to American military defense, he was branded a Communist and deported to China where he revolutionized the Chinese missile program and developed the Silkworm missile that later threatened American armed forces. I told her, 'Take a break.' Iris Chang, who has committed suicide aged 36, was one of the most promising historians in America and a vigorous champion of human rights. "Every single survivor I met was desperately anxious to tell his or her story," she later said. This post was contributed by a community member. She was assigned to the AP office in Chicago. At the Gate of Heaven Catholic Cemetery in Los Altos Hills, the photograph stood on an easel before the chapel. Iris collapsed in bed. She wrote her thesis on "The Poetry of Science." . Thu 11/8, 7:30 PM, Women & Children First, 5233 N. Clark, 773-769-9299. I knew immediately I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.". "Over a year and a half, she visited 65 cities," Brett said. Turning right, she pulled into the strip mall across the street from the school. "Most authors are worn out after five or six cities." In three days, her parents came to take her home. And through the months afterward, I couldnt help but think of Minnie and why she captured Iris imagination as a historian. After leaving China, Vautrin suffered a breakdown; she committed suicide in 1941.v, Tue 11/6, 7:30 PM, Barbaras Bookstore, 1218 S. Halsted, 312-413-2665, Wed 11/7, 7 PM, 57th Street Books, 1301 E. 57th, 773-684-1300. She liked to talk, so it's very fun to watch her talking," she said. Now author of the deceased writer's biography, The Woman Who Could Not Forget, Chang is scheduled to have a book signing at from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. Saturday. "I thought it would be inspirational. ", Rabiner became worried, too. I can never shake my belief that I was being recruited, and later persecuted, by forces more powerful than I could have imagined. The official cause of death was a self-inflicted gunshot. Some 8,000 died on the notorious "death march." Each breath is becoming difficult for me to take -- the anxiety can be compared to drowning in an open sea. While en route to Harrodsburg, Kentucky, where she planned to gain access to a "time capsule" of audio recordings from servicemen, she suffered an extreme bout of depression that left her unable to leave her hotel room in Louisville. Neither did they know she had been bent on suicide. We go through her and her husband's (Brett Douglas) house in San jose. Overwhelming response to the piece convinced Kamen to expand her meditation on Changs phenomenal life and her shocking death. He thought Iris was improving.". The medicine was probably not right for her.". Upon his return to China, Tsien developed the Dongfeng missile program, and later the Silkworm missile, which was used by the Iraqi military during its war on Iran and against the United States-led coalitions during the Persian Gulf War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Iris Shun-Ru Chang was born March 28, 1968, in Princeton Hospital, on the university campus in New Jersey where her parents were doing postdoctoral work. We need people to be covering atrocities and mental illness and genocide. Christopher R . After a breakdown five months ago, Chang had been. "There's a book I must do," she said. Chang was born in Princeton, New Jersey and raised in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. Anthony Meldahl, a supply sergeant with the Ohio National Guard who had admired Iris' work. In loving commemoration of Iris Chang-A Powerful Voice for Victims of the Forgotten Asian Holocaust. In 1991, Chang married Bretton Lee Douglas, a design engineer for Cisco Systems, whom she had met in college, and had one son, Christopher, who was two years old at the time of her suicide. My friends and I would joke about the obituary assignments at a paper being the stiffs page. I could never picture her having any kind of irony like that about her work., Kamen herself says that diving into the darker reaches of Changs life was frightening at first. She had worn herself out on a book tour for the paperback release of The Chinese in America and spent some time in a mental health ward in Kentucky in August 2004. I can never shake my belief that I was being recruited, and later persecuted, by forces more powerful than I could have imagined. On top of that, she wasn't sleeping. Chang tells the story of a rocket scientist, Tsien Hsue-Shen, who was born in China in 1911 and educated in the United States. ", Martel was slightly hard of hearing, but his memory was crisp. She was mad. "And then we stretched it to six, and then 'The Rape of Nanking' hit the best-seller list and she was out promoting it for almost two years. He recalled telling Iris about the worst of his Bataan experiences. Nearby, Bear Creek Road curled up the lonesome hills, thick with black oak. Both parts merge in "The Woman Who Could Not Forget," a memoir by . The whole process, how she planned everything, is very, very methodical., Kamen says Chang never understood how her drive pissed people off. Iris Shun-Ru Chang (March 28, 1968 - November 9, 2004) was a Chinese American journalist, author of historical books and political activist.She is best known for her best-selling 1997 account of the Nanking Massacre, The Rape of Nanking, and in 2003, The Chinese in America: A Narrative History. "He made breakfast for me," she said. "She had so many bookings, she could easily be on the road for 2 1/2 weeks before coming back home. "She sat down and cross-examined me like a district attorney for five solid hours," said Martel, 86, one of the last remaining survivors of the Bataan Death March of World War II. She is best known for her best-selling 1997 account of the Nanking Massacre, The Rape of Nanking, and in 2003, The Chinese in America: A Narrative History. At 12:40 p.m., she stopped for lunch at FujiSan Sushi in Milpitas Square. She was committed to her cause, and she radiated life. Chinese-American journalist and author of historical books, EPILOGUE FOR THE 2011 EDITION - The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University Laboratory High School of Urbana, Illinois, The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II, Finding Iris Chang: Friendship, Ambition, and the Loss of an Extraordinary Mind, Global Alliance for Preserving the History of WWII in Asia, "How 'Iris Chang' became a verb: A eulogy", "Iris Chang, Who Chronicled Rape of Nanking, Dies at 36", "Ken Liu's The Paper Menagerie, a dazzling collection", "San Jose community briefs for the week of Nov. 8: Chang Park Opens", "San Jose: Iris Chang Park finally set to open next month", "Historian Iris Chang won many battles / The war she lost raged within", "Iris Chang's suicide stunned those she tried so hard to help", "Historian Iris Chang won many battles/The war she lost raged within", Mercury News - Iris Chang Park Ready for its Unveiling, California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives, University of California at Santa Barbara, Inventory of the Iris Chang Papers -Alumni Records, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Iris_Chang&oldid=1141970213, American women journalists of Asian descent, American women writers of Chinese descent, University Laboratory High School (Urbana, Illinois) alumni, Articles containing Chinese-language text, Articles with dead external links from February 2023, Articles with permanently dead external links, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 27 February 2023, at 20:46. ", Between August and November, Iris saw two different therapists before finding one who seemed a good fit. Iris would be working solo. The air was still, heavy with grief. "I knew Iris was not right," her mother said. "The Man Who Ended History", a story in The Paper Managerie by Ken Liu about uncovering the history of Unit 731, is dedicated to the memory of Chang. A book packager wanted to publish a children's version of 'The Chinese in America. "For anybody who experiences mental illness for the first time, it's very hard to accept that it is your biology that is making it happen. Iris Chang lived and worked in California. There, Iris had lengthy conversations with then-President Bill Clinton and gave him a signed copy of "The Rape of Nanking.". "Iris was so excited when she got the contract for the book," Brett said, recalling how obsessively she ferreted out material. It was obvious she wasn't the same person that she was before," he said. When her body was discovered, Iris Chang had been dead for two hours. Every suicide is the tragic terminus of a tangle of roads, a route unique as a thumbprint. "I had considered running away, but I will never be able to escape from myself and my thoughts. But there has to be dialogue about how to do that in the long term., In All in My Head, Kamen documents how she learned to slow down and come to terms with a life of chronic pain. It's very hard to believe that there is something wrong with your mind," said Dr. David Lo, director of Santa Cruz Mental Health Services and former director of Chinatown Mental Health Center in San Francisco. "You didn't always feel she was talking to you --, it was as if she had to talk. Born Iris Shun-Ru Chang, Mar 28, 1968, in Princeton, New Jersey; grew up in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois; committed suicide, Nov 9, 2004, near Los Gatos, California; dau. I know that my actions will transfer some of this pain to others, indeed those who love me the most. At 11:56 a.m., Iris presented her driver's license and counted out $517 in cash -- she was carrying nearly $4,000 -- and left the store with an ivory-handled Ruger "Old Army" .45 replica revolver. Chang grew up hearing stories about the Nanking massacre, from which her maternal grandparents managed to escape. "We are a very close family. Photos for a profile of Iris Chang, a prominent author and historian, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. After brief stints at the Associated Press and the Chicago Tribune, she pursued a master's degree in Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University. What happened to Iris Chang's son? In 1995, at age 27, Chang flew from California to Nanjing in East China's Jiangsu province. Chang menikah dengan Bretton Douglas, yang dijumpainya di perguruan tinggi, dan memperoleh seorang anak lelaki, Christopher, yang berusia 2 tahun pada saat ia meninggal dunia. Her obituary was published in newspapers worldwide. Another said: "Let us thank her parents. Each time, Iris swept into town and conducted four or five intensive interviews in as many days. Christopher Douglas was born on 26 August 1969 in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. Her last, widely-acclaimed book focused on Chinese immigrants and t heir descendents in the United States their sacrifices, their achievements and their contributions to the fabric of American culture, an epic journey spanning more than 150 years. She easily passed the 20 exams necessary to qualify, only to be told that she must take five more. Chang's son, Christopher (born with the help of a surrogate mother), has been diagnosed as autistic specifically Asperger's disorder, a mild form. Stress does not cause mental illness, but it can worsen the symptoms, doctors say. "I wanted to give support to families that suffered the same kind of loss, and it really worked in that way. The pool, a turquoise rectangle surrounded by pines, sat at the center of the village-like complex. Iris' reluctance to take medication may indicate the difficulty she had accepting her illness as an illness. Once the Allies won the war, the story was forgotten. Everything points to suicide.". There's a stigma within the culture about accessing care, because then people will think there is something wrong with you and your family. She recalls their voices quivering in outrage, as the two university scientists talked of Japanese soldiers slicing Chinese babies into thirds and fourths. And she was determined not to be hospitalized again. She was 36. "Iris was very sensitive. As she wrote in the Salon piece, Kamen spoke to Chang by phone a few days before her death and was shocked to hear her normally upbeat friendwhose penchant for hours-long conversations could be exhaustingsound sad and totally drained. Chang ended the conversation by asking Kamen, should anything happen to her, to let people know what she was like before. I got more response [from the Salon piece] than any other articles Ive written combined, Kamen says. "Iris was very loving," Martel's daughter said. ", Rising from his chair, her father pulled a small red leather volume from the bookshelf. He noticed condensation on the windows, peered inside and saw Iris in the driver's seat with her hands crossed in her lap. We've seen a lot of suicides. Chang said she usually gives three reasons for her unconventional decision to write her daughter's biography: to commemorate Iris, to tell Iris' son Christopher Douglas all about the mother he lost at age 2, and to set the record straight about Iris' suicide amid media speculations. keystyle mmc corp login; thomson reuters drafting assistant user guide. According to the police report, Iris phoned a local gunsmith, an antique firearms specialist who did business from his home. Comedy writer who worked on Maureen Lipman's Agony, The Lenny Henry Show, Ed Reardon's Week and Dave Podmore. Some 300,000 Chinese people were brutally killed; about 100,000 women were raped in matter of 4 to 5 weeks. She wasnt a jealous personality. She hoped to gain access to a time capsule of audiotapes that was sealed within that tank after the war. After her own years of research on the interplay of hormones and the brain, Kamen believes. "Every time we set a rule, she always tried to find some way to get around it. I have no evidence of foul play. Like others, Kamen had wondered if postpartum depression might have played a role in her mental decline. "Depression is a silent epidemic among Asian Americans because we tend not to seek help soon enough," Hong said. It is far better that you remember me as I wasin my heyday as a best-selling authorthan the wild-eyed wreck who returned from Louisville. His daughter, Maddy, remembered the day well, too. That night, she had dinner with her husband of 13 years, Brett Douglas. As a duo played traditional Chinese music, a group of nearly 100 gathered at the Millbrae headquarters of the Chinese-language daily the World Journal. We called him every day, sometimes two or three times a day. "Iris was much in demand and gave many talks," Brett recalled, adding with a laugh, "she was schmoozing the whole time." Johns Hopkins University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: Children: Christopher: Spouse: Bretton Douglas Related Document. On Nov. 9, 2004, historian Iris Chang was found dead on a rural California road just south of Los Gatos. Theirs was not just a story of war, but of boys becoming men, she said in a transcription of one of her many taped interviews. [19], When you believe you have a future, you think in terms of generations and years. Iris Shun-Ru Chang born March 28, 1968 Princeton, New Jersey died by suicide on a road south of San Francisco, near Los Gatos, November 9, 2004 father Shau-Jin Chang, a physics professor at the University of Illinois mother Ying-Ying Chang, a microbiology professor at the University of Illinois brother Michael Chang The other diarist -- the "Anne Frank of Nanking" -- was an Illinois woman named Minnie Vautrin. "It's baffling to me that the U.S. today has so little knowledge of the four months we held out," Martel told The Chronicle by telephone from his home in Wisconsin. Iris Chang's grave faces west toward wooded hillsides painted with November's glorious reds and yellows, colors of consolation before winter's starkness. Iris learned to read at age 4. from dust we come to dust we return quran. Haunted by the belief that she had failed, Vautrin suffered a breakdown in 1940. I said, 'You need to go to bed.' It was later discovered that she had left behind three suicide notes each dated November 8, 2004. Iris Shun-Ru Chang was born on March 28, 1968, in Princeton, N.J. She grew up in Champaign-Urbana, Ill., where her father, a physicist, and her mother, a microbiologist, taught at the University . Beautiful as always, she was dressed in an indigo blue suit, identical in color and hue to the dress in the photograph. General 1994-2003. . "I had to write it, if it was the last thing I ever did in my life. Iris Shun-Ru Chang (March 28, 1968 - November 9, 2004) was an American journalist, author of historical books and political activist. Iris Chang is best known for two things: writing the explosive bestseller "The Rape of Nanking," and then killing herself. January 26, 2008, Sunday Star-Times magazine The motorist who went to investigate the white Oldsmobile parked just off highway 17, which runs between San Jose and Santa Cruz in Northern California, was a county employee. But Douglas finally told Kamen that Christopher had been born with the help of a surrogate mother. For the Wisconsin trip, she had hooked up with people from the Bataan Commemorative Research Project, a historical archive and Web site created by faculty and students at Proviso East High School in Maywood, Ill. "World War II hit the town of Maywood really hard," said Ian Smith, chair of the school's history department. Her friendship with Iris, Culliton said, "lasted from the day she walked in as a student -- in effect, to the day she died.". She believed her phone was tapped. Iris Chang interview, Barbara Simpson show, KSFO radio, San Francisco, California 1998 November 8. While on the ship home, she tried repeatedly to leap overboard. She just knows how to do things," he said, tenderly smoothing out a page. ", Three days before Iris' death, Brett dreamed up a special weekend, just for her. We've seen staged suicides and we've seen homicides. Want to post on Patch? 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