Mark Polen

CBS’s @Weijia Jiang at the #WHCD on her upbringing in rural WV: “I’ve been thinking a lot about my own journey to this podium tonight. I grew up in rural West Virginia, in a town at the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains, a town called Buchanan, Population 5,500. Those images of the devastating floods that you’ve been seeing are from my hometown. My heart, thoughts, and prayers are with everybody there. After my dad finished grad school at WVU, where he properly learned how to say let’s go Mountaineers, my parents decided to stay in the state to open a restaurant. It was such a treat when hunters came in and left deer meat as a tip. On Sundays after church, families packed into the dining room, all dressed up. My mom learned every customer’s name, their favorite dishes. I worked the cash register, topped off glasses of sweet tea and did my homework in the corner booth. A day like that seemed ordinary at the time. Looking back to think that days like that could be considered ordinary. It’s the most powerful reminder of how extraordinary America is. My dad came to the U.S. as a student with just 67 bucks, or as Frankie might say, 6-7. My mom holding a small suitcase on one hand and a toddler me with the other, yet they built a new life, a successful business, and a real future.” “Our Chinese restaurant was the first in my town. Of those 5,500 residents, the Chinese American population of Buchanan was 3. My mom, my dad, and me. Growing up there was not always easy. Most folks had never laid eyes on people who looked like my family, but far more often than not, the community was welcoming and generous. Turns out deer meat is great in a stir fry. In Mandarin, the word for America is Měiguó. It literally means beautiful country, and I love that. America the Beautiful was never only about her landscapes or landmarks. It has always been about the promise that, no matter where you come from, you get a shot at chasing your dreams. My dreams began right there in that family restaurant, a small TV in the back was often turned to the news, my dad’s go-to for learning more English. In the middle of dinner service, it was the CBS Evening News anchored by Dan Rather and Connie Chung. I was hooked. In middle school, I won a contest to be a student reporter for a national news show called Channel One. And when a local news crew came to cover it, they learned just how big my dreams really were.” [Middle school Weijia: I hope to be the next Connie Chang and better, that’s kind of hard, but that’s my goal. And so, I’m going to work very hard at trying to be a broadcast journalist.] “30 years later, it’s surreal to say that I’ve sat in Connie Chung’s old chair to fill in on the evening news, and Connie and I have talked about how the White House beat and the White House Correspondents’ Association used to be a little boy, bit of a boys club. For decades, women could be members, but they were not invited to sit at this dinner until 1962 when a woman who would become dean of the press corps insisted. Thank you, Mrs. Helen Thomas. So, tonight, it means everything to stand here is the first woman of color ever elected president of this association in its 112-year history. I’m here because of the tenacious women who came before me, Melissa, Susan, and support from my family who are with us tonight. My husband Luther, not from West Virginia, but Arkansas, similar enough. My amazing daughter Frankie. little brother Jack, who’s should be sleeping by now. I love you more than anything in the world. I love you the most. My parents came to a country with almost nothing to give their daughter everything, and now I have that because they could be with me in this moment. Mama baba shisha. And sitting with them, my middle school video production teacher, Mrs. Diane Williams, who spent countless hours on my submission for that contest. that changed my life. Like public school teachers across the United States, Mrs. Williams looked at a 13-year-old kid and said, you can be whatever you want when you grow up, and she meant it. My story is like that of so many in this room and in this country, only in America. Only in America could a little girl born in China and raised in Appalachian coal country make her way to the Oval Office to ask questions of the President of the United States.”