Award-winning journalist Lisa Ling drew a full house at the Lesher Center for the Arts’ Hofmann Theatre in Walnut Creek on July 10, sharing powerful reflections on her identity, career and personal experiences reporting around the world.

Ling opened with a reflection on society’s growing sense of disconnection despite constant digital connectivity.

“Despite traveling to so many of the most remote parts of the world and having reported on the displaced and disenfranchised, I really have never felt the distance between people to be this wide as it is today, particularly right here in our own homes,” Ling said. “We are by every measure more digitally connected than ever before, yet we are lonelier, we are angrier, and more divided than I’ve ever seen in my lifetime.”

Each speaker in the Lesher Foundation’s Newsmakers: Speaker Series highlights a local nonprofit. For Ling’s appearance, the focus was Civicorps, which supports young adults through education, job training, and college readiness to build successful careers.

Ling first appeared at the speaker series in 2009, which was also the time when her sister, Laura Ling, was captured and held in North Korea. Her return is part of the 20th anniversary of the speaker series, and Ling had much more to say about one of the most personal stories of the night, the capture of her sister, Laura, who was held by North Korean authorities for five months.

“My best friend and my sister, Laura, was charged with espionage in the most remote, most complicated country, most isolated country on the planet, North Korea,” Ling said.

Laura had gone to China to report on North Korean refugees, many of whom are trafficked or forced into marriage. Ling emphasized her sister never intended to cross into North Korea but was misled by a fixer hired to guide her team to the Tumen River, a frozen escape route for North Korean refugees.

“So we now know that the fixer that Laura’s team had hired was receiving money from the North Korean government to bring high-value targets into North Korea,” Ling said. “And because Laura’s team was working for former Vice President Al Gore’s company, you couldn’t get a bigger target, right?”

While filming near the river, the fixer led them into North Korea and gave a whistle. When they heard boots quickly approaching, they ran.

“They ran all the way back into China, and were safely ensconced on Chinese soil,” Ling said. “[But] North Korean soldiers violently grabbed them and dragged them back into North Korea.”

Former President Bill Clinton eventually negotiated their release — for a surprising reason.

“Now, many people often ask, ‘Why did it have to be President Clinton of all people’? The answer came down to one simple reason,” Ling said. “The reclusive leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Il at the time, had always just wanted to meet him.”

In hindsight, maybe not a good idea

Ling also described her earlier trip to North Korea, traveling undercover as a journalist embedded with a medical delegation.

“They [the doctors] did not disclose, however, that I was a journalist,” Ling said. “And when I think back on it retrospectively, it was pretty naive of me to have gone along without thinking about the consequences.”

Ling also recounted a memory from her time in Iran, where she saw firsthand the influence of American pop culture. In a park, she saw young women wearing jeans, shorter coats, and even blond-dyed hair under their headscarves.

As Ling and her team approached, a crowd quickly formed.

“They were asking questions about American pop culture,” she said, surprised by their awareness. Then, a few young women leaned in and told her, “We wish that we could experience the kind of freedom that you experience in your country.”

Ling continued with reflections on American history and racism, noting that Chinese immigrants were barred from entering the U.S. for 60 years, and that Japanese Americans were forcibly interned during World War II, yet still volunteered to fight for the U.S.

She warned that erasing history weakens society.

“Erasing history doesn’t protect us, it weakens us,” Ling said. “When we ban books about slavery, the Holocaust, Japanese internment, Indigenous histories, we deny ourselves and our children the opportunity to wrestle with the complexity, to build empathy, and to grow into citizens that think critically and compassionately.”

With today’s polarized media landscape, Ling said algorithms reinforce people’s beliefs and drive division.

“When you erase someone’s history, you make it easier to erase their humanity,” Ling said. “Books that tell uncomfortable truths that are necessary for progress are the books we have to support.”

The issue of being a woman

Ling, who has built a career spotlighting underreported stories, spoke candidly about her challenges as an Asian American woman in journalism over four decades. She delivered a one-hour talk before a 30-minute Q&A with KTVU Fox 2 anchor Claudine Wong.

“I think that there have been moments throughout my career when people may have treated me a bit more dismissively or condescendingly because I was a woman,” Ling said during an interview before the event. “In the workplace, however, I do think that because Asian Americans really suffered for so long from being unseen in the workplace, I do believe that there have been instances in my career when I was certainly overlooked.”

She recalled a pivotal moment when she advocated for herself, a step she said many Asian women are hesitant to take.

“I’m heartened to see so many young Asian Americans who are just unapologetic about their wit and their capabilities,” Ling said. “I have so much admiration for this younger generation of Asian Americans who are just so much more fearless than I ever was.”

Ling closed her remarks by returning to the theme of connections, urging the audience to stay meaningfully connected to family, friends, neighbors, stories and the media.

“We hold our leaders, our media, and even ourselves accountable,” Ling said. “We’re seeing complexity, not stereotypes, because in the end, stories are how we survive and stories are how we will change.”

Yonglin Zhu is a recent graduate of California High School in San Ramon. She will be attending UC Davis in the fall. This story was made possible by support from the Lesher Foundation, its Newsmakers speaker series, and the Bay City News Foundation. Stories are produced independently by the CCYJ news team.