This is a story of mothers, love, regret, and redemption, and of secrets from many years past that cast long shadows into our lives. It’s about how Deborah Jiang-Stein came to be pulled over by two highway patrolmen at 19 years-old, with a trunkload of dope, a .38 revolver, and a 10” switch blade. That was only the beginning of her long journey towards what she was looking for.
This story is a Strangers rerun from 2015, followed by a little catch-up with Deborah. It's the first installment of our Summer of Strangers where we revisit some of our favorite stories from that show. All the stories we’ve picked for the series relate in some way to the American experience, as we take a close look at the country that just turned 250, through the personal stories of some of its people.
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Thanks to our storyteller, Deborah Jiang-Stein, author of the memoir Prison Baby, and the story collection Lucky Tomorrow, and founder & CEO of the unPrison Project.
Thanks to Paul Dreux Smith for making the music for the new parts of this episode and for helping me mix. Big thanks, as always, to my associate producer Vix Jensen, and to our interns, Crab Saylor Hochsprung-Cotrell and Aviva Barry, as well as to Heather Kitching.
We’d love to hear what you think of this story, and of this series, and of life in America.
If you have anything to say, send a voice memo to stories@leathau.com and we might use it on the show, or just send us a regular email.
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Thanks for listening…and don’t be strangers:)