[music]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Subways have been on every New Yorkers' and many New Jerseyans' minds, other folks too lately. The mass shooting this month at the 36th Street Station in Brooklyn found even more anxiety about riding. Ridership is only back to 60% of pre-pandemic levels, but a personal essay in the New York Times this week turns the subway story of 2022 on its head. It's about a life of feeling safer on the subways than the rider felt above ground and abetted even being one of the most cathartic places to cry.

Joining me now is Qian Julie Wang, in a day job, she's a civil rights litigator and managing partner at Gottlieb & Wang LLP. She wrote the book Beautiful Country: A Memoir of an Undocumented Childhood. Her Times op-ed is called “I Treasure the Life I Live in the Subway. And I Am Afraid of Losing It." Qian Julie, thanks so much for sharing this with us. Welcome to WNYC.

Qian Julie Wang: Thank you so much, Brian. I'm delighted to be here.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, this is for you too. Call in with your stories of subway tears, good deeds, feeling connected to yourself in a special way while you're on the train, or to other people, whether you know them or not, how the subway has enabled your American dream, as our guests will describe for herself. Maybe if you think that subway life is slipping away in the way you knew it for now, if it actually is, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer.

Qian Julie, I see that in your New York Times op-ed, you write that growing up as an undocumented immigrant in the '90s and early 2000s, you always felt safer in the subways, "whereas above ground I was isolated as weak and 'illegal,' below ground, I was ensconced in community." Can you just start by describing how you felt like part of a community on the subway when you were a kid?

Qian Julie wang: Sure. There was a sense of equality once I was on a platform on a train, it felt like I was just one of many passengers taking the train to a place of better opportunity, to a place that might afford us to find our dreams. I always had a book with me and I often sat in a car next to so many others reading books. I just felt like once in a seat I was not that different from the passenger next to me.

Certainly, there were close calls and scary events, but more so than that, I found so many kindnesses, strangers picking up a wallet that I dropped, adults looking upon me kindly asking me what book I was reading. I felt this strong sense of connection and community in New York, in the subway that was not really available elsewhere.

Brian Lehrer: You write, "I feel more connected to myself and my community on the subway than I do anywhere else." Can you describe in what ways you feel more connected to yourself in the subway?

Qian Julie wang: The subway was where I grew up. It was where I taught myself English on library books. It was where I learned to people watch and imagine the lives of the passengers all around me. Over time, I started sketching stories about what happened to each of the people around me as they disembark the train. I think the subway for me and as I found upon talking to many people across the city, becomes this place of almost interiority, where you're more in touch with your emotions, whether that's good on a certain day or bad on a certain day. Apparently, I'm not the only one who finds it much easier to cry on the subway than anywhere else.

Brian Lehrer: Talk more about that because I think that's jumping out at people from the USA that, "The subway is the best most cathartic public place to cry," you wrote. Why to cry?

Qian Julie Wang: When I called for stories on Twitter, I was shocked at how many people responded saying that when they are in motion on the train the events of that month or that day just come bubbling up and they can't help but cry. There's so much privacy in such a public place. New Yorkers will not disrupt someone who is crying except to perhaps hand over a tissue paper without eye contact.

For me, when I struggled to work on my childhood memoir, which was full of these intimate, tearful, triumphant moments. I had trouble accessing them above ground and it wasn't until I started writing the book on my commute on my phone that those feelings bubbled up and there's something about almost descending underground that allows everything that we keep bottled up and locked in to surface.

Brian Lehrer: Can you tell one of your own good subway cry stories? Or is that too personal?

Qian Julie Wang: No, not at all. I will say one of the first chapters I wrote for my book, I opened my phone and I thought, "I have no time at all in my day and I should just start writing it here." I started writing about the first time I was on the subway, the first time I had seen so many people of different races in one packed 400 square foot car. I came from North China where everybody looked similar. I did not know about the range of skin colors, eye colors, hair colors that were possible, and to see just a collage of humanity in one car and bringing that memory back to me how special that was so early in my childhood to see that, just had me tearing up not necessarily from sadness, but from the joy that I was able to experience that so very early in life.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners again, this is for you too. Maybe you read Qian Julie Wang's essay in the New York Times, “I Treasure the Life I Live in the Subway. And I Am Afraid of Losing it." Will get to the afraid of losing it part. Call in with your stories of subway tears or feeling connected to yourself in a special way while you're on the train, or to other people, whether you know them or not. Or how the subway has enabled your path to success in this city, maybe as a new person to this country, as the guest describes her own story. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer.

Let me get to the afraid of losing it part before we take a few phone calls. Does it begin with your experiencing firsthand the rise of anti-Asian hate during the pandemic?

Qian Julie Wang: Absolutely. There was always some anti-Asian hate around the city, but it really started bubbling up in March 2020. Before the CDC announced that there was a pandemic, I noticed that when I got on a rush hour-packed train, people started giving me a very wide berth. At this point, I had not been back to China in six years, and I thought it was the strangest thing.

As the weeks progressed and things looked more dire, people started saying things to me, "Go back to your country." Shouting slurs in my face, shoving me, shoulder checking me, body-checking me. Over the course of a few weeks, I quickly felt very unsafe in a place that I always believed to be my home. For many months thereafter, I stopped taking the subway.

Brian Lehrer: It has been so in the news the various kinds of crimes, certainly the anti-Asian hate and things that might be called more ordinary crime. No crime is really ordinary but I'm saddened to hear you say you stopped taking the subway. Have you entirely stopped for the moment?

Qian Julie: I went back in the fall of 2020, and I was shocked that in about the six months that I took away from the subway, my associations of positivity and community with the subway had faded and it was so much easier for the more recent negative events to take precedence. My associations with going into the subway the first time I brought myself back in there was ones of fear and terror, but once I was on the platform and on the train those early memories that I built with the subway came rushing back and I remembered that this had once been a place of safety for me.

Those moments come and go some days, especially after the recent attack after Michelle Go was shoved in the tracks on Times Square to her death. That fear certainly comes back, but I keep reminding myself of the early memories that I have of just feeling so ensconced in the community underground.

Brian Lehrer: Olivia in Manhattan has a crying on the subway story I think. Hi Olivia, you're on WNYC.

Olivia: Hi, Brian. What a privilege. I'm a first-time caller and long-time sustainer. One of my crying stories is the day that Trump was elected. I woke up and cried a lot, and I got onto the train and I was still weepy and tearful and the gentleman next to me said, "You don't look okay." I said, "I'm not." He said, "Neither, am I. My name is Buddy." He proceeded to tell me how he and his wife had held each other and cried with the election results. I was going to Mount Sinai Hospital to work and it was a traumatic day and very helpful to have a stranger provide a little bit of community in that moment.

Brian Lehrer: That's some story, Olivia. Thank you very much. Interesting, Qian Julie, crying not only about some personal loss perhaps, but about the state of the world in the subway?

Qian Julie Wang: Yes, feeling connected in a shared tragedy.

Brian Lehrer: Regina in Eastchester, you're on WNYC. Hi, Regina.

Regina: Hi. Thank you for taking my call. I wanted to talk about a sense of community, I guess. Many years ago, I had this massive black eye. I was quite self-conscious about it, so I was wearing dark sunglasses on the subway. In spite of the fact that I've ridden the number four my entire life and know about the gap at Union Square, I stepped into it. I was backing out of the-- I was up against the door, stepped out to let people on and off and I fell into the gap. Before I could even react, panic, think, whatever, two gentlemen, one on either side of me hoisted me up under my arms, picked me up and that was that. It was just a really amazing experience.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. Qian Julie, any thought?

Qian Julie Wang: I'm just thinking of all the stories I've heard of New Yorkers helping without a word. Someone just picking up a suitcase for someone who's struggling, carrying it up the stairs and leaving it there without even exchanging eye contact. I think that's just the beauty of the strength of New Yorkers that we will help, but we won't slow down to make small talk.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Regina. Mercedes in Harlem has a crying in the subway story, I think. Mercedes, you're on WNYC. Hi.

Mercedes: Hi. Hi, everybody. I was in the subway one morning a while ago and there was that younger girl. I don't know. I think she was either going to school or to work. She was a more Latino-Hispanic person. She was crying so hard. It broke my heart. I came to her and I said, "Can I hug you?" She was just so happy to have somebody just to cry on the shoulder. she cried. She cried in my arms like she was my own daughter. Then I started crying and I kept on saying, "Oh, please, please. It's going to be okay. Whatever you're going through, it's going to be okay."

We hugged for five minutes and the next stop I had to go. She was getting out also. We parted like this without saying anything. She did not tell me her story. I didn't ask her for anything. I just hugged her because I felt like she needed that. We were in the subway, it could have been anywhere, but I guess that the subway got me so emotional about that poor girl going somewhere, I don't know where and no sense in life because she was so desperate. That's what I wanted to say.

Brian Lehrer: It's a beautiful story of your connection with her. You never saw her again, I presume.

Mercedes: No, I never saw her again and I never looked for her because actually, I saw her, but I did not look at her face. I just saw somebody desperate. I saw somebody who needed help, somebody who needed a hug because we do need a hug anyway. Sorry, I'm getting emotional too.

Brian Lehrer: No, that's okay.

Mercedes: When I remember that story I'm just like, "Oh, my gosh." That was so emotional and maybe I needed the hug too myself at that point. I do not really remember the circumstances. That's what I wanted to share.

Brian Lehrer: Mercedes, thank you so much. It's okay that you got emotional. The subway and The Brian Lehrer Show, two safe places to cry in New York.

Mercedes: Exactly. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Mercedes, thank you very much. Wow. Qian Julie, are you surprised at all that it's so easy to get callers with these crying and connection stories?

Qian Julie Wang: No, and I have to say I teared up during that one. Just those sparks of moments where you notice how universal humanity is, however small the moment, however fleeting, they just give us hope and rejuvenate our community. I was reminded by that story of one time I was a child on a packed subway car, and the car was shaking and I wasn't holding a pole, so I reached and grabbed what I thought was my mom's hand, but it turned out to be a complete stranger's hand. I was shocked and embarrassed and I dropped the hand. My face was just flushed with heat and embarrassment. I look up and the woman just gave me the kindest, warmest smile. Sometimes you just need a shoulder to cry on, sometimes you just need a hand to hold.

Brian Lehrer: As a closing thought in our last minute or so, as a civil rights lawyer, which is your real job, how conflicted do you feel about what kind of policies from the mayor or the MTA they should implement to preserve that sense of security underground? More of a crackdown on small crime disorder, fare beating, end of the line station that says homeless encampments? Anything else? What should they do? How conflicted are you about it, so you and other people can feel safe down there again?

Qian Julie Wang: Absolutely. I have to say I think we need to center our policies and our politics on community building and humanity rather than dehumanization and criminalization. The subway has always been a place for the working class to pursue their dreams, as I said earlier. It is the lower class, the working class that are more likely to be treated as criminals and to be penalized for unfortunately the color of their skin and their social-economic status.

I hope that we can focus more energies on building initiatives that bring foot traffic back into subways, bring artists and musicians back down to the subway where the platforms were once a showcase for the brilliant diversity of our city. Creating community events and fairs and building buddy systems or chaperone systems where we can show New Yorkers that we are the ones looking out for each other. I think that really has to be at the heart of our policies.

Brian Lehrer: Qian Julie Wang, civil rights litigator and managing partner of Gottlieb & Wang LLP, author of the book Beautiful Country: A Memoir of an Undocumented Childhood and now the New York Times essay titled, "I Treasure the Life I Live in the Subway. And I Am Afraid of Losing It." Thank you so much for the beautiful segment with us. Thank you.

Qian Julie Wang: Thank you, Brian.

Copyright © 2022 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.