My name is Angela Santiago Chung. I find that my name reflects my Asian American high achiever background, as it takes me forever and a day to write my name (even now as I’m typing, I’m winded).
I was born in Los Angeles, and am half Filipino and half Korean. My parents met in a Laundromat in L.A., an event that has given me a love for Tide and clean men. I decided to make things more fractional for my children (because Asians are good at math) by marrying an Irish-American bloke.
Being first generation Asians, my parents were fluent in their respective native languages, but their common language was English. So my knowledge of both languages is comprised of basic baby words (e.g.: hungry, water, full, etc.) and curse words.
Like every Asian kid, I grew up playing the piano (it was either that or the violin), but I “retired” (a.k.a. grew bored) at the age of 12. But then, much to my parents’ dismay, I discovered the electric guitar and songwriting! Contrary to my parents’ wishes of becoming a doctor, lawyer or engineer, I decided that I wanted to major in music and creative writing in college. This, however, was too horrific for them. So then I decided to try teaching, which I thought would be better; ironically, this seemed equally horrific for them.
The single most defining event in my life while at college was becoming a born-again Christian. My mom, who had raised me and my brothers as Roman Catholic, disapproved of the conversion and said 100 Hail Marys to appeal, ironically, to the God whom I now knew personally.
Intent on changing the world, I graduated with a degree in education and sociology. The fanfare from my parents was less than enthusiastic, but more emphatic than when I had dyed my hair blue. Encouraged by this display, I sought my fortune in Fullerton as a grade school teacher. It wasn’t there. Thus ending my career as a teacher.
My experience as an educator, though, would ironically open up an opportunity for me to go back to writing and eventually music. Although we used to gig a lot more, since having our own lives and families, we’ve had to do things a lot smarter. So we make music videos to promote our music while we stay at home ;).
This blog is actually an assignment for a graduate program course I’m taking at one of the local universities. It’s actually a pretty cool assignment :). I hope to continue this blog journey together with you even after the quarter ends, but if that doesn’t happen, then I hope you enjoy your time here in this place and space for now. Thanks for reading!