 Pang was born in Manhattan . She is the daughter of Chinese immigrants and grew up in New York 's Spanish Harlem with an elder sister and an adopted brother ( both of whom were born in China ) . Pang 's mother had a laundry business in the area , but the Pang family left when the tenements where they lived were scheduled to be torn down and moved to an apartment near 97th Street and 3rd Avenue , in Manhattan . 
