Who Is... Steve Chow-White?
Steven Chow was born in Guangzhou, China, in 1980. His family emigrated to Los Angeles, California, when he was 10 years old. Steve is an only child, a product of China’s One Child policy.
When Steve’s family emigrated, his father stayed behind so Steve grew up only with his mother and had no real relationship with his father. Steve and his mother stayed with her sister in the Malibu area of LA when they first came to the US as his aunt had made a successful business importing trinkets from China. When his mother was finally able to find work as a realtor, they moved into their own apartment, but in the much less affluent part of Chinatown.
Steve had gotten quite the liking for Malibu and the upper-class lifestyle of his aunt and her family, and “downgrading” the way he and his mom did made him want the good life even more.
Steve would often ask his mother about his father; why didn’t he come with them? What did he do? Could he go back and see him? The last question came from Steve more and more often as he had a great deal of difficulty assimilating to his new surroundings. He spoke very little English at first, and when he did it came with a strong Chinese accent (something he was embarrassed by and would work extremely hard on to eliminate), making it difficult for him to make friends.
As for the first two questions (why didn’t he come, what did he do?), all his mother told him was that he was part of a large family business that he didn’t want to leave, and she didn’t really approve of what he was doing, and that was a major part of why she left. She would never tell Steve any more than that.
Steve tried to be the man of the family and help his mother as much as he could; he took odd jobs to help pay the bills, made his way to and from school on his own as his mother worked a lot of hours, and made sure to always meet her at the bus stop when she came home late to keep her safe (even though he was himself only a pre-teen).
Steve got a reputation in Chinatown as being a really hard working, trustworthy young man, and he had no problem finding any number of odd jobs to help him make money. He also put as much effort as he could into his studies, and by the time he was 18 he had completely masked his Chinese accent and spoke in perfect English. However, the time he took to make money for his family had taken time away from his studies, and his grades were not as good as he would have hoped.
He did manage to get into a local community college, and because of his working and saving through the years he was able to get a marketing and communications diploma. It was at a house party celebrating his graduating college that he met Stephanie White. Stephanie was attending UCLA and shared a similar major as Steve, albeit on vastly different levels. It was this similar course load that got the two of them talking and they got along really well. After a few hours of talking and a good deal of drinking, the two made their way upstairs and had sex.
They parted ways after the party and Steve did not hear from Stephanie for a few weeks. She only contacted him after she found out she was pregnant. Stephanie came from a strong Mormon background, and abortion as absolutely not an option. Stephanie had a very, very strong personality and basically demanded that Steve make an “honest woman” of her. Steve, being a momma’s boy already, completely caved at the demand and the two were engaged.
Now came the problem of introducing Steve to Stephanie’s family. They could not let her family know she was pregnant (as a Mormon, pre-marital sex is shunned), so Stephanie told her parents she had been keeping Steve a secret for months because she knew they wanted her to focus on her studies, not boys. She also said they were very much in love, and that despite being Chinese, Steve was also a Mormon. They were planning to marry immediately, Stephanie continued, because Steve’s mom was very ill, on death’s door in fact, and they wanted her to know Steve would be ok. This of course was a lie, but her parents bought it, hook, line, and sinker.
They were married at a local Mormon church (Steve had to learn a TON about Mormonism to pull off the lie of being a Mormon himself which created many odd situations), where Stephanie’s parents met Steve’s mom for the first time. Steve’s mom was a bit confused when Stephanie’s parents told her they hoped she would pull through everything, but she just smiled and went along with it.
As soon as it was chronologically possible after the wedding, Stephanie and Steve Chow-White (yes, Steve hyphenated his last name at Stephanie’s insistence) announced that they were expecting – and just in time as Stephanie was now starting to show. And of course about seven months later, after going full-term, Stephanie gave birth to two completely healthy (despite being “2 months premature”) twin girls.
After graduating and pre-marriage, Steve got a sales and marketing job with a mobile phone company. It didn’t pay much but as far as entry level positions go, Steve enjoyed it. As he did with all his jobs as a young man, he fully put himself into it and did well. He particularly enjoyed learning about the technical side of the business.
But it became clear early on that Stephanie had little-to-no interest in being married to Steve. No matter what he did, she was never appreciative. Steve took on more and more of the day-to-day responsibilities; cooking, cleaning, taking care of the kids. Stephanie would come home late and leave early, spending less and less time at home with them.
After the usefulness of the ruse had passed, beginning at about year 4 of the marriage, Stephanie became openly contemptuous of Steve, telling her parents of his extra marital affairs and abusiveness toward her, and his contempt of their daughters – all total lies. Steve ADORED his girls and did his best to love Stephanie. He never once cheated on her, didn’t even flirt with other women, despite the fact that Stephanie was quite the flirt, ignored Steve at gatherings with co-workers, and even had stated her name as “Stephanie White” on all her correspondence, removing the hyphenated part of her last name.
As tales of Steve’s abusiveness and philandering grew, and despite Mormons being strictly opposed to divorce, Stephanie’s parents felt she had no choice but to go that route, exactly as she knew they would. They promised to support her fully during this difficult time, which again was key for Stephanie as her parents were quite well off financially.
After six years of marriage, Stephanie filed for divorce and made sure Steve was served papers at his job to fully humiliate him. That same day she changed the locks on the doors, closed their joint bank account, and even took him off the list of approved contacts at their daughter’s daycare.
Naturally Steve was devastated. He was fortunate that one of his friends would let him stay in his basement while he started to regroup. But instead of being angry or resentful of Stephanie, he did everything he still could to try to make her happy. When she demanded money for anything – the kids, rent, her phone bill – he paid it without hesitation. He was determined to win her back. Stephanie was determined to destroy him.
One day she asked him to meet her for a coffee. Steve was excited, thinking maybe she was sorry for everything, but he was sorely mistaken. Once there, she handed him papers; he asked what they were and she said that it was a legal document that gave her sole custody of the girls. Steve at first refused, said that he loved his girls too much for that. Stephanie said that while she knew that was true, she didn’t care, and if he didn’t sign the papers, she would go to court and tell the world that Steve had basically raped her at that house party two years prior. She said that with the rise of the “Me Too” movement, no one would doubt her, particularly with her being a devout Mormon and him being of “foreign birth”.
Steve signed. He felt he had no choice. But this humiliation was not the last; as the court cases persisted, he quickly ran out of money and thus the ability to keep counsel to defend him. He would often go to court by himself without representation, trying to convince the court of his position, always to no avail.
He heard via the court that Stephanie, her parents, and his girls were moving to Salt Lake to be closer to the heart of the Mormon church (Stephanie was going along with her parents both at their insistence but also because she still relied on their financial power). Stephanie soon got a job at the top PR company in Salt Lake (with more than a little help from her family / church connections) as a vice-president, making a lot of money with all kinds of other associated perks.
When Steve found out, he asked his telecom company if he could relocate to another position in Salt Lake. They said he could, but it would be a move down plus he’d make less money. He immediately agreed anyway, thinking that despite the fact is was away from LA and his mother, he would still be near Stephanie and his girls.
As a busy executive, Stephanie began to rely on her parents for caring for the girls; they would get them ready for their school (J. Robert Oppenheimer Academy), pick them up, take them to their extra-curricular activities, and quite often get them into bed at night. More and more frequently the girls would ask their grandparents about their dad, and tell them how much they missed him, how he was the one who had always taken care of them.
The parents, being devout Mormons, truly felt that their faith would dictate that the girls get to see their father, and they insisted that Stephanie allow him to at a minimum pick the girls up from school each day. If she insisted, Steve could be instructed to bring them straight home to the grandparents, or he could take them to their activities.
This insistence took Stephanie off guard; she still needed their financial support (despite the good job, she was still constantly suing Steve to get more and more support for her and the girls), so she agreed. She even agreed that he could take them to their after school activities since she felt that would be taking away his free time (not realizing that his priorities were completely different than hers – she’d hate losing that time, he loved to spend it with the girls).
To say Steve was ecstatic upon hearing from Stephanie that he could see the girls after school (yes, she told him so herself to make herself look like a hero, never mentioning it was her parents’ idea) would be an understatement. He was so happy and so were the girls.
Steve arranged to have his job reduced to part time, further impacting his income, but allowing himself the freedom to pick up the girls each day without fail.
Season One Begins At This Point In Time