Iris Shun-Ru Chang (Traditional Chinese: 張純如, Simplified Chinese: 张纯如; Pinyin: Zhāng Chúnrú; March 28, 1968–November 9, 2004) was a freelance Chinese American historian and journalist. She was best known for her popular but controversial account of the Nanjing Massacre, The Rape of Nanking. She committed suicide in 2004 after suffering from depression.
Early life
The daughter of two University professors who immigrated from Taiwan, Chang was born in Princeton, New Jersey and was raised in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, where she attended University High School of Urbana, Illinois. She earned a bachelor's degree in Journalism at the University of Illinois, a master's degree in Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University, and later worked as a New York Times stringer from Urbana-Champaign. After brief stints at the Associated Press and the Chicago Tribune, she began her career as a writer, and also lectured and wrote articles for various magazines.
Works
Though not a trained historian, Chang wrote three notable works that document the experiences of Asians and Chinese Americans in history. Her first book, titled Thread of the Silkworm (1995), tells the true story of the Chinese professor, Dr. Tsien Hsue-shen during the Red Scare in the 1950s. Although Tsien was one of the founders of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and helped the U.S military debrief Nazi scientists for many years, he was suddenly falsely accused of being a spy, Communist Party member, and placed under house arrest from 1950 to 1955. Dr. Tsien Hsue-shen left for the People's Republic of China in September of 1955 aboard the merchant ship President Cleveland. Upon return to China, Tsien developed the Don Fong missile program, and later the Silkworm missile, which would endanger U.S. warships during the Persian Gulf War. The USS Missouri was attacked by two Iraqi Silkworm missiles in February of 1991, but only debris hit the Missouri as two Sea Dart missiles fired from the HMS Gloucester took out the Silkworms.
Her second book, the best selling The Rape of Nanking (1997), documents the massacre of Chinese by Japanese soldiers during World War II, and includes interviews with victims. Finally, The Chinese in America (2003) describes the overall history of Chinese immigrants.
Depression and death
Chang suffered a mental breakdown that required hospitalization while researching her fourth book, about U.S. soldiers who fought the Japanese in the Philippines during World War II and the Bataan Death March. Even after the release from the hospital, she still suffered from depression. She lived in Sunnyvale, California with her husband Brett Douglas, and their 2-year old son Christopher. On Tuesday, November 9, 2004 at about 9 a.m., Chang was found dead in her car by a county water district employee on a rural road south of Los Gatos and west of California State Highway 17, in Santa Clara County. Investigators concluded that Chang had shot herself in the head.
Reports say that news of her suicide hit the massacre survivor community in Nanjing hard. In tribute to Chang, the survivors held a service at the same time as her funeral in Los Altos on Friday, November 12, 2004 at the victims' memorial hall in Nanjing. The victims memorial hall in Nanjing, which collects documents, photos, and human remains from the massacre, will add a wing dedicated to Iris Chang in 2005.
External links
- IrisChang.net
- Essay by Sue De Pasquale
- San Francisco Chronicle, November 11, 2004 - Chinese American writer found dead in South Bay
- Penny Nelson talks to Iris Chang June 22, 2003 on KQED FM Forum.
- Kamen, Paula, "How 'Iris Chang' became a verb: A eulogy," Salon.com, 30 Nov 2004
- San Francisco Chronicle, November 20, 2004 Iris Chang's suicide stunned those she tried so hard to help
- San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday, April 17, 2005 Historian Iris Chang won many battles - The war she lost raged within
