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, Family

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 · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rounded up from 4.5 stars, lol.

[Elizabeth A · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Rod Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.)

[jess tran · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 · Rating 5 out of 5]

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) · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 · Rating 5 out of 5]

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

[Janet Hutchinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Bonnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Mabel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh to be the eldest daughter in an immigrant family

[Dakota Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 · Rating 4 out of 5]

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

[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 · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[David Bruggink · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 · Rating 5 out of 5]

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

[elstaffe · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Elisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

"If the journey of those who came before me were al about survival, then mine is about dealing with the aftermath.
I was born into a deep brokenness. My journey is to hold all those broken parts inside myself. To live knowing that most of it will never be fixed. And to find out what i am capable of despite-or because of- it all.
I will keep making adaptations. All while seeking transformation. "

The book started slowly and gradually became more and more gripping, and reached its climax by the end. I especially love the part that the author compares her family's odyssey as the the monarch butterfly's generational journey between Mexico and Canada, brilliant!

While sometimes the book looks mundane, it has many beautifully written parts that I really like. I always think that a graphic novel can only be an excellent book when it excels in both the drawings and writing. This book achieved the latter. Below are a few of my favorite quotes:

"A nation's history is a family's history.
What you leave blank also maters. What's absent is just as important as what's present. ...
Legacy is not the same as destiny. History does not determine the future.
What is absent and what is present can change over time. And if it truly began centuries ago, then the end is still a long way off.

Where did I come from? Where are we going? I still don't know. But I will write my own way forward. The story will continue. This is not the end. "

[Maileen Hamto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nothing is ordinary about the narratives we encounter in "All Our Ordinary Stories," the second graphic memoir by writer and illustrator Teresa Wong. When her mother appears to grow despondent and melancholy after suffering a stroke, Wong contemplates her family’s story of uprooting from Guangzhou, China, to settle in Canada. Using the comic form, Wong illustrates ruptures and pauses in outsider lives. We learn about the long arc of suffering and triumphs endured by her parents during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Wars, societal conflicts, and oppressive regimes led her forebears to leave their homes and find better lives in distant lands, a journey that inspires hope and resilience.

I engaged with the book from my perspective as a first-generation immigrant. The themes of self-sacrifice, ambition, and loss surface throughout Wong’s narrative, and they are intimate and familiar. Wong shares the legacy of family separation from ancestral lands and fractures across the diaspora. Fellow immigrants may find solace in Wong’s confession that she harbored guilt for losing fluency and faculty in her mother’s language, thus limiting her ability to connect emotionally. Wong tells this story with plenty of heart and a deep sense of gratitude for where her ancestors have been and the heritage of generational grief and survival.

[Pamela · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5/5

At first this was really triggering to read - as a first-generation Canadian daughter of Asian* immigrants, a daughter helping to care for my older parents now, it was too close to my own life. (*South Asian for me, East Asian for the author.)

I actually said to my sister that I didn’t want to read it after the first few chapters (it was chosen for the book we’re reading part of a city-wide book club at my work) and I was glad I wasn’t working the program this year… but then a coworker left and they asked me to work it again, so I joined in and kept reading the book…and you know what? It’s great.

It’s painful and messy, but it’s so true to life that I could feel her stories and feelings in my core. I have a better relationship with my parents than Teresa Wong seems to have/have had with hers, but the feelings of being a first-generation Canadian daughter are the same.

I especially appreciated the parts where she talked about her visit to China and searching for information on her grandfather, those were really interesting. Personally, I don’t know how she was able to share so much so openly about her & her family’s life and I sometimes felt a bit bad for reading about such personal things, but it was really well done - the fact that she did it as a graphic novel and incorporated her art was another plus for me.

[Alexandra A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

An unusual format, a graphic memoir, illustrated by the author herself, which I found very compelling. It treats the relationships between generations of a refugee family from Mao’s China, and a Canadian/born daughter’s struggle to come to terms with the fact that, while she can learn more and more about what her parents have been through—the historical currents which generations of her family have been at the mercy of—their real inner selves, their hearts, and a true sense of connection and love from and with them, will remain forever out of reach. I found myself finding peace with that the way the author did. It’s uncomfortable, but it is what it is. And I thought her attempt to frame the narrative in terms of a butterfly migration (where multiple generations of monarch butterflies make the trip to and from Mexico, no one generation necessarily understanding where they are coming from or where they are heading) was quite effective. The author explores her own past as a daughter of survivors, who were children of survivors, and begins to chart a path forward where she is no longer just a survivor, but one who thrives.

I think the graphic format distills the incredibly messy and chaotic idea of intergenerational trauma and healing down to a potent and accessible essence. This was a fast and easy read that, nevertheless, felt impactful. And important for our times.

[Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

On a kick reading second gen immigrant authors’ graphic memoirs and they don’t miss

This book combines history and family stories to try and create an understanding of who the author is and what it means to live anywhere and belong. She makes a beautiful comparison to monarch butterflies, who take four generations to fly from Mexico to Canada. Who we are and where we’re going is never fixed; it is only part of a larger story and we are where we are meant to be.

Another big theme of the book was how difficult the author found it was to connect with her parents, who found their pasts to be “ordinary” and “typical”. A common occurrence with many Asian immigrant parents; I’ve found it so difficult to piece together the stories of my parents and grandparents—only through reading this book and asking my mom did I find out my grandpa escaped to Hong Kong from communist China in 1949. How can we ask people to relive their trauma for our own gratification of knowledge? But how can we let these histories leave with them? I once attended a lecture by an art historian of Asian American art who said that Asian American history (particularly from the 20th century) is in danger of being forgotten, and while I don’t know how we can learn these stories with being extractive, I completely agree.

[Sandra Lockhart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Teresa Wong created a graphic novel entitled All Our Ordinary Stories: A Multigenerational Family Odyssey. The stories were broken up into small glimpses of Teresa's search for her family's roots. Teresa feels bad that she did not go to Chinese school to learn at least one of two languages in China. When she went to China on a visit with her parents--most often on the trip, she did not know what the family members were talking about. I would say that the mood of this book was melancholy because she felt she missed out by not knowing her family all that well. She has spent her life looking for answers and hoping her mother will open up. Even bringing the Joy Luck Club movie was a fail as her mother left before the 'bonding' part.

The graphics were well done. I really enjoyed the section where she showed how her parents escaped China. The use of black to end the stories was very effective. This graphic novel was so interesting to me that I am going to look for other such novels now.