All Our Ordinary Stories: A Multigenerational Family Odyssey

by Teresa Wong

From the author of Dear Scarlet comes a graphic memoir about the obstacles one daughter faces as she attempts to connect with her immigrant parents


Beginning with her mother's stroke in 2014, Teresa Wong takes us on a moving journey through time and place to locate the beginnings of the disconnection she feels from her parents. Through a series of stories—some epic, like her mother and father's daring escapes from communes during China's Cultural Revolution, and some banal, like her quitting Chinese school to watch Saturday morning cartoons—Wong carefully examines the cultural, historical, language, and personality barriers to intimacy in her family, seeking answers to the questions "Where did I come from?" and "Where are we going?" At the same time, she discovers how storytelling can bridge distances and help make sense of a life.


A book for children of immigrants trying to honor their parents' pasts while also making a different kind of future for themselves, All Our Ordinary Stories is poignant in its understated yet nuanced depictions of complicated family dynamics. Wong's memoir is a heartfelt exploration of identity and inheritance, as well as a testament to the transformative power of stories both told and untold.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Memoir, Nonfiction, Canada, Comics, Graphic Novels Comics, Biography Memoir

240 pages, Paperback

Published September 24, 2024

About the author

Teresa Wong is the author of the graphic memoirs All Our Ordinary Stories (2024) and Dear Scarlet (2019). Her comics have appeared in The Believer, The New Yorker, McSweeney’s and The Walrus. A teacher of memoir and comics at Gotham Writers Workshop, she was also the 2021–22 Canadian Writer-in-Residence at the University of Calgary. byteresawong.com

Reviews

[Dave Schaafsma]

I first reading Teresa Wong's Dear Scarlet, her memoir about navigating post-partum depression, which I really liked and learned from. Wong continues her life story through a story about the always divide between an immigrant family and her children. Wong never spoke much to her parents, but wanted to have a better relationship with them. Generational divide. They are so different! Of course, all children do not fully know their parents. Sure, you can create a ten-hour oral history about your parents as I did, finding I still did not know much about them, as they had lived decades before me, of course.

One of the things Wong wanted to know about, especially as she got older, was the dramatic story of how her parents escaped China, but they really never wanted to talk about it. Wong's mother seems to fend out approaches left and right; they were never close, and she resisted Wong's efforts. Wong, ever the dutiful daughter, nevertheless forgives her parents for their emotional neglect at every turn. This made me sad, though as a dutiful son denied access to his Dutch roots by my parents--who feared refugee backlash and discrimination, as others had experienced--I understand these complicated feelings.

In many ways thi is a kind of typical story of generational divide, but meticulous in trying to fill in gaps everywhere, taking years to complete with all her research. Surely this is an even better story than Dear Scarlet, with better drawing and more sophisticated cartooning skills. Thanks to Goodreads pal and comics artist David Bruggink and the author for sending me a copy t0 review.

[Teresa Wong]

Rounded up from 4.5 stars, lol.

[Rod Brown]

The Canadian author tries to bridge the gap between herself and her somewhat aloof Chinese immigrant parents as part of a search for her own identity as a person who has lost touch with her parent's culture to the point that she has a language gap with her mother.

I really enjoyed Teresa Wong's Dear Scarlet: The Story of My Postpartum Depression, and this book gets off to a strong start as she deals with the ramifications of her mother's recent stroke. But the narrative lags as Wong jumps around in time and place exploring her parents' lives in Mao's China and their subsequent escapes to Hong Kong and relocation to Calgary.

Honestly, this is the seventh book I've read about the children of Chinese immigrants to North America in roughly the last year, and they're starting to run together a little bit. It's great to see these stories getting exposure, but I really need to pace myself better before putting the next one into my library hold queue.


FOR REFERENCE:

Contents: Mother Tongue -- Motherland -- Forefathers -- Mother Nature

Portions of this book were previously published in The Believer:
• "This Is Not a Feel-Good Movie" [The Joy Luck Club], The Believer, Issue 130: April/May
• "Piano Lessons," The Believer, 137: October/November 2021

(Best of 2024 Project: I'm reading all the graphic novels that made it onto one or more of these lists:
• Washington Post 10 Best Graphic Novels of 2024
• Publishers Weekly 2024 Graphic Novel Critics Poll
• NPR's Books We Love 2024: Favorite Comics and Graphic Novels

This book made the NPR list.)

[Elizabeth A]

Book blurb: A book for children of immigrants trying to honor their parents' pasts while also making a different kind of future for themselves, All Our Ordinary Stories is poignant in its understated yet nuanced depictions of complicated family dynamics.

Loved everything about this graphic memoir.

[jess tran]

im so grateful that this book exists - it really captures all the experiences, feelings, thoughts, dreams, and recollections of diasporic grief as the eldest daughter of an immigrant family
interestingly this book didn’t hit as hurt as much as i thought it would - perhaps, in a way, ive tired myself out with my own same feelings of this all-too-familiar grief. have i numbed myself to it ? or maybe in some ways, im starting to make peace with it.

the deep intense yearning to know our parents and their traumatic backstories, as a deep desperate attempt to know ourselves, perhaps is a desperate shortcut to having our selves (and our fates?) be determined for us. which is what wong comes to suggest in the end of this book. we’re not meant to [destined to] continue these cycles of taut relationships, right? our parents painted paths through forests and oceans, and so that i too can sculpt the life that i [we - my parents, ours - of all the ancestors, interwoven] hope and dream of.

[Kétura]

To be an immigrant daughter is to always wonder where you came from, who you are and what's your purpose

Wong nails down the constant need to belong to something while belonging to nothing, while grasping at the straws your parents are willing to give.

In the end, like monarchs even if it takes us 4 generations to complete our journey, we will give our children more of what we always longed for while forgiving our parents for what they should have done but were unable to because of the hardship that comes with crossing an ocean to create a better life.

[Karen Styles]

Loved this book so much it made my heart ache. Was really looking forward to Teresa Wong’s second graphic memoir and it did not disappoint. We see through her eyes as she tries (throughout her life) to understand and relate to her parents, learn about their history and dangerous escape from China. Poignant, shocking, sad, and sweet with some fun 80s 90s pop culture references sprinkled in. A perfect “coming-of-middle-age” story that I enjoyed all the way through.

[Carla (Carla's Book Bits)]

My father-in-law swam to Hong Kong to escape communism in China. He carved his own name on his arm as a DIY tattoo, made a new life in Hong Kong, and eventually settled down and had a family years later in Canada. Today, he and my mother-in-law are retired with a house and are grandparents.

The past doesn't always tell the full truth of who we are, but the past can certainly shape the present. And the present can change the way we look at the past.

This book made me grateful that even though my in-laws don't speak English, they still take time to share their stories with me, even if they are patchwork and hampered by having a translator to help us with the back-and-forth.

This book is about longing for a true connection, and I agree with the author that true connection is bridged by understanding. The struggle is that, what an "ordinary story" is to someone, might be something I could never even conceive of or understand. But we slowly make our way through building a bridge anyway. We build the bridge out of the puzzle pieces of history. And then we mend the gaps with acceptance. It's patchwork, but it's possible.

This book spoke to me about this journey so well. Ultimately so relatable and poignant.

[Greg Bem]

A snapshot in a world of reflection on multigenerational family history and immigration. Captivating.

Also, starting in 2026 I'll be putting all my reviews on StoryGraph and only doing star ratings on Goodreads! Consider connecting with me there. Let's move away from Amazon together.

[Kerri D]

Fantastic graphic memoir with hints to Calgary and the Chinese immigrant experience. It even brought a tear to my eye.

[Janet Hutchinson]

The complications,intricacies, and misunderstandings of intergenerational relationships, particularly those of immigrant parents and Canadian born children. Poignant and a little sad. We can’t know (or expect to know) all that our parents went through, while growing into adults, but the stories of immigrant parents stay somewhat hidden and not talked about.

[Danielle Weiss]

What a phenomenal read, brought me to tears at many times throughout the story.

[Raine McLeod]

Beautiful and moving and hopeful and sad.

[Bonnie]

What a beautiful collection of story. The weaving of history and present day is thoughtful, emotional and informative. I would have short-listed this one for Canada Reads. Wong is so gifted at graphic memoirs that just fill and break your heart at the same time.

[ツツ]

I’d like it to be more reflected, and I think there’s some distance in the narration.

Visual book 5 (comic) of 2025

[Mabel]

Oh to be the eldest daughter in an immigrant family

[Dakota Morgan]

A fascinating point of comparison to Feeding Ghosts, which I read directly after this. All Our Ordinary Stories (similarly) addresses the author's complicated relationship with her Chinese immigrant parents. They both had (similarly) harrowing stories of escape to Hong Kong from communist China, though they downplayed them later in life.

Wong does a better job of condensing her narrative in All Our Ordinary Stories than Hulls does in Feeding Ghosts. Though, admittedly, the tale is less complex without a mentally ill grandmother or multigenerational trauma bond. I appreciated the simple, clean art and storytelling, even as Wong jumped around between topics. Both books deserve to be read, though All Our Ordinary Stories is perhaps a better entry point in the "child of Chinese immigrants searches for identity" genre.

[Jessie Cheung]

wow. amazing. a story of Cantonese generations from the perspective of the eldest daughter of immigrants trying to find the stories of the past while not re-raising trauma for the older generations. fascinating, deeply personal and relatable, and truly profound. feel the need to dissect but know that it’ll take a lifetime.

one of the consumable contents that feel deeply part of my cultural identity, of which there are few.

[Jeanelle d'Eon]

The was an incredible graphic memoir.

While I didn’t grow up in Calgary, I loved seeing the city captured in the 1980s and 90s. Chinatown, the centre street lions, the original Deerfoot mall.

The book was a perfect sprawling story. Capturing so many generations that were interwoven and tied in beautifully.

It covered so many topics I loved. Finding your place in the world, learning about your past, the complexities of family.

[Aileen]

I have really been hitting it out of the park with these absolutely fantastic, diverse graphic memoirs. This one really touched down much of the disconnect sometimes felt by children of immigrants, though I am fortunate to be fluent in my family’s mother tongue.

[Tim Rooney]

A really beautiful and wonderful story of immigration, family, and finding your place in the fabric of your family’s histories.

[Lucy Johnston]

Excellent memoir

[Sierra Dean]

gut wrenching and such a beautiful way to tell a family history. I learned a lot about aspects of Canadian and Chinese history I'd never heard of before.

[akacya ❦]

2025 reads: 218/300

this graphic memoir details the author, teresa wong’s, life, as well as that of her parents. teresa feels stuck in her relationship with her parents—physically close, but culturally worlds apart. i really enjoyed the story-telling in this book. we start and end in the “middle” of the story, going back to the beginning, when her parents and great-grandfather escaped china. this was such an emotional read, especially for those who have ever felt out of place, whether that feeling is due to being the child of immigrants or something else entirely. i highly recommend this, and i will be reading more from teresa wong in the future.

[Meghan]

This was Teresa Wong’s memoir told in graphic format. It was a good way to tell a very visual story. The illustrations were really well done and painted a picture so clearly for the reader. As much as this was Wong’s story of growing up in Calgary with immigrant parents, this was also very much her parents story, too. Each chapter had some sort of starting point which she would lead her reader through. From dealing with her mother who just had a stroke, to her own upbringing trying to find her identity as a Chinese Canadian. As we dove deeper into the book we got deeper into her history, learning about her parents and the type of people they are, how they fled China to Hong Kong to finally arrive in Canada – both her mother’s story and her father’s; she even took it back to her grandparents and great-grandparents to really show the multigenerational strength and trauma. Some of it was so heartbreaking to read because you really felt for her parents and what they had to go through, escaping a country. So many emotions went unsaid; we could see that Wong really tried to bring her parent’s story to life, to show the importance of it, and how her parents were very reluctant to want to share what had happened to them. This also touched on the mother-daughter relationship and how evocative and relatable it could be. She touched on her father-daughter relationship, but it was nothing compared to the relationship a daughter has with her mother; when she wrote about her mother, you could feel the emotion behind it. In the end, this was a moving story, in which Wong really captured her parents story with her own in a beautiful visual.

[Ana]

Brilliant book about what it’s like to be a child of immigrants and to forever saddle two cultures.

So many things resonated with me - though I’m Portuguese American whilst the author is Chinese Canadian - that I felt compelled to take screen shots of various pages.

Recommended to anyone like us or to just anyone who’d like to know more about what it’s like to grow up in North America as a recent descendant of immigrants.

[Erica B]

Books are so special that they give us insight into lives we will never live. This previous Canada Reads selection is a graphic novel exploring the author's quest to know herself through knowing her family's immigration story. It is also a story of a mother-daughter relationship and how that can pass down. It is a story that though very different from my own, I could see myself in and it tugged at my heart.

I don't gravitate towards graphic novels, and feel when I read them I go through too quickly and don't give the drawings their due respect. For this one I tried to pace myself, and found it easy to do so. The story was written with thought and laid out in such a way to take your time and consider her words. It was a beautiful present for her family.

I hope if people read more books like this we can all get to know each other as just humans trying to survive in this big world. We all have our own ordinary stories and books have a superpower, the more you read the more you know.

[David Bruggink]

Teresa Wong asks profound questions that resonate quite a bit with me: my father grew up speaking Dutch but didn’t pass it on to me, and I always wished I had been able to learn Dutch so I could have a deeper connection with my relatives and my family's past. My grandparents had roots in Holland and Indonesia. I had some vague grasp of the narratives of their earlier lives growing up, a sense that they had lived through incredible, historic events and also done unbelievable things, acts of profound bravery and resilience, and wished I could understand them better. 

In All Our Ordinary Stories, Wong explores these kinds of issues as they relate to her own family, and takes us on a fascinating journey to better understand her ancestors' experiences, and how they affected her. Like me, she grew up hearing these incredible stories and struggling to reckon with their implications. Fleeing a tumultuous China in the grip of the Cultural Revolution, Wong's family members endured famine, prison camps, communes, and harrowing journeys in pursuit of better lives. Their subsequent lives in Canada (like my relatives' in the US) were not without their own challenges and complexities. 

Past and present, China and Canada – life events intermingle in a way that’s fascinating and illuminating. Language, food, identity, family, and history are all tied together as Wong both revisits her childhood and examines the effects of the past on the present.

Wong's style is minimal, driven by spare black linework and shading, yet the atmosphere here is tangible. Though I really enjoyed her previous book, Dear Scarlet, the depictions here of nature, urban environments, and family interactions feel like a progression and lend a feeling of being in the moment with Wong. An extremely thought-provoking and resonant graphic memoir.

[Melanie Lapointe]

If I could give this graphic novel 6 stars, I would!

[elstaffe]

Pull quotes/notes
"NOTES ON LANGUAGE
My first language-the language of my family-is Cantonese. And even though I don't speak it well, you can assume all conversations I have with my parents and other Chinese elders in this book occur in Cantonese. I have chosen to keep some Cantonese words untranslated because I feel they are better represented and more meaningful in their original form. My Cantonese transliterations do not follow a standard romanization system, but they are mainly searchable online. I also use Mandarin Pinyin for many Chinese place names to make them easier to locate on a map. If you find this jumble of language and dialects frustrating, please know that it is even worse inside my head."

The chapter where Teresa and her mother are watching "The Joy Luck Club" and it gets to the scene (p183-183) where a mother tells her daughter "I see you", making Teresa ugly cry as the mother tells her daughter that her daughter has the best quality heart...and then her mom is like "This movie isn't very interesting. I'm going to bed" and leaves...that gutted me.

But then...
"'Sunny must be happy to finally have a boy.'
'He would've been fine either way.
But his parents are happy. It's a generational thing, I guess.'
'If your brother had been a girl your dad would've kept trying for a son.'
'Good thing you had a boy then, heh.'
'It's better to have a girl. Girls care about their mothers.'" (228-229)
was healing.