Before Atsuko Okatsuka became an internationally renowned comedian, sold-out performer, and one of the most unique voices in stand-up, she was a quiet eight-year-old girl living in a garage in Los Angeles, undocumented and confused, trying to make sense of why her grandmother had taken her from Japan and why her father never came to get her. In this deeply personal and unguarded conversation, the trailblazing comic sits down with David Begnaud to share the story of the woman who believed in her when no one else could, and how that...
Before Atsuko Okatsuka became an internationally renowned comedian, sold-out performer, and one of the most unique voices in stand-up, she was a quiet eight-year-old girl living in a garage in Los Angeles, undocumented and confused, trying to make sense of why her grandmother had taken her from Japan and why her father never came to get her. In this deeply personal and unguarded conversation, the trailblazing comic sits down with David Begnaud to share the story of the woman who believed in her when no one else could, and how that belief came wrapped in complexity, sacrifice, and what Atsuko calls minor tiny criminal activities.
Atsuko opens up about being born in Taiwan, delivered by an untrained OBGYN uncle because her “family loves a discount,” and growing up in Japan with a mother suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. She talks about the speed dating marriage her grandmother arranged in Japan, the moment her mother held a kitchen knife to her own arm at 10 p.m. while Atsuko watched through a sliding paper door, and the night her grandmother put her on a bicycle and rode around Chiba for hours until 2 in the morning to outrun the trauma. She shares what it felt like to be kidnapped the first time when her grandmother rented an apartment five minutes from her dad's house, enrolled her in a school across the street, and her father would stand at the gate watching her play on the playground before quietly going back to work. She reflects on coming to America at eight years old, living undocumented in Uncle Paul's garage, and meeting Uncle JT, a former gang member and Mexican-American outsider at a Taiwanese church who bought her a thrifted guitar she named “Happiness” and taught her to play before Sunday sermons.
There's also a raw reflection on survival, identity, and what it means to love the person who took you. Atsuko talks about inventing a game called Ward Off the Demons to try to snap her mother out of psychosis, why she can make strangers laugh but has never made her mom laugh, and how she's moving her mother into the house next door even though her grandmother has had enough and is going back to Taiwan to separate from her daughter for the rest of her life. She opens up about parasailing in Bali with her dad and crashing into rocks because he was trying to make up for lost time, reconnecting with him as an adult on a seesaw at the park where he used to take her as a kid, and why she painted him as the bad guy for years to protect herself from the truth that he missed her too. She shares why she doesn't want kids, why she answers every one of her mom's 40 daily phone calls even though her mom has never come to a show or her wedding, and why she sees her grandmother as both villain and superhero.
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Chapters ☀️
Chapters
- 00:00:00 Intro: The Grandmother Who Kidnapped Her Twice
- 00:04:47 The Speed Dating Marriage: When Grandma Arranged Everything
- 00:07:22 Born in Taiwan, Delivered by an Untrained Doctor
- 00:17:06 The First Kidnapping
- 00:38:46 The Kitchen Knife Incident
- 00:41:37 Coming to America: Living Undocumented in Uncle Paul's Garage
- 00:45:57 Uncle JT and the Guitar Named "Happiness"
- 01:00:33 Warding Off the Demons: Comedy as Childhood Survival
- 00:59:00 Parasailing in Bali: When Dad Tried to Make Up for Lost Time
- 01:06:36 The Moana Metaphor: Searching for Mom's True Heart
- 01:08:52 My Kidnapper Is My Best Friend: The Complex Truth
- 01:12:02 Grandma Goes Back to Taiwan: The Final Separation
ABOUT THIS PODCAST:
The Person Who Believed In Me is hosted by David Begnaud, founder and CEO of Do Good Crew and often called "America's storyteller." In each episode, David sits down with world-class guests to ask one simple question: Who believed in you before the world did? Big names. Honest stories. Relatable takeaways. Different paths — same question.
David is also a CBS News contributor and host of the weekly segment Beg Knows America, which airs every Monday morning.
Host: David Begnaud
Guest: Atsuko Okatsuka
Executive Producer: David Begnaud, Olivier Delfosse, Justin McGoldrick
Booker: Sully Bloch
Director of Photography: Foster Parks
Live Production Technician: Joseph Gabay & Will Whitley (Statik Creative)
Social: Kylee Anderson, Maxim Trofimenko, Gracie Pekrul
Theme Music: Slipstream
Post-Production: Longwave Digital & David & Luana Co.
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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/believedpodcast
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