Becoming American: Personal JourneysSeason 1, Episode 2 of 3 : Author Gish Jen And Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist
GISH JEN - Second generation Chinese American Gish Jen grew up in Scarsdale and graduated from Harvard University with a degree in English. She has become a leading literary voice about the Chinese American experience and is known for her humorous yet incisive short stories and novels about Chinese American life, including the acclaimed novels Typical American (1991) and Mona in the Promised Land (1996). A collection of her short stories, Who's Irish?, was published in 1999. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New Republic, The New York Times and a variety of anthologies. SAMUEL TING - Born in Michigan, but reared in China, Samuel Ting returned to America from Taiwan in 1956 to study engineering, and then physics, at the University of Michigan. Despite limited facility with the English language, within six years he had completed a B.S. in engineering physics and engineering mathematics as well as a Master's and Ph.D. At the young age of 40, he shared the 1976 Nobel Prize in Physics with Burton Richter. Ting currently heads an international collaboration involving over 500 physicists from about 33 universities and institutions.
