Many of us lost track of Chung after she was pushed out of her historic role in 1995. Not long after, she and her husband, talk show host Maury Povich, adopted a baby boy. At the age of 50, she threw herself into motherhood.

She worked again, but it wasn’t the Chung of my childhood — when she was seemingly everywhere at once, from the White House press corps to anchoring morning and prime-time shows on NBC and CBS.

Chung, now 78, is back in the spotlight with a no-holds-barred memoir, “Connie,” that chronicles her trailblazing career as a journalist and the sharp elbows it took to navigate the male-dominated, often sexist world of TV news.

The book is essential reading — not just for Asian Americans, but for anyone who wants to understand how barriers are broken and how representation can profoundly shape generations to come.

Pro tip: Get the audiobook, narrated by Chung herself. I also got the chance to interview Chung for my “Say More” podcast, and you can listen to our conversation at globe.com/saymore or wherever you get your podcasts.

As I told her, I’m so glad she’s sharing her story because I knew little beyond what I saw of her on TV. I didn’t know her parents were immigrants who made a harrowing escape from China and that she was the youngest of 10 children — the only one born in the US.

I didn’t fully appreciate what it took for a woman and person of color to break into TV news in the 1970s. She became, as she writes in her memoir, “aggressive, tough, bawdy, and extremely competitive. Yes, I looked like a lotus blossom, but I talked like a sailor with a raw sense of humor.”

Chung also didn’t catch many lucky breaks. She worked the dreaded overnight shift. She negotiated for six-day work weeks so she could be on multiple shows. She scored big interviews because of her tenacity. Her list of exclusives ranged from Los Angeles Lakers star Magic Johnson after his HIV diagnosis to the captain of the Exxon Valdez when the tanker spilled millions of gallons of crude oil in Alaskan waters.

But it’s her candor that’s most refreshing. In her book, Chung writes about how so many men in TV news, especially the anchormen, suffer from a disease she calls “big shot-itis.” For example, Bryant Gumbel had in his NBC contract that “Today Show” co-anchor Jane Pauley could never say “Good morning” first nor say “Have a good day” at the end of the show.

Chung tried to rewrite the rules when she filled in for Pauley, hoping to achieve equality for both of them, but bosses advised her to “not fight this one.”

So you can understand why Chung didn’t last long at her dream job — co-anchoring the “CBS Evening News” with Rather. She was brought in to boost his sagging ratings, but she quickly learned there could only be one big shot.

While Rather publicly welcomed Chung, he privately put her in her place, telling her: “Now you are going to have to start reading the newspaper.”

Chung was speechless. She hoped they would eventually have a good relationship, but he never came around.

“He really didn’t want to have me there,” Chung said. “It didn’t matter if I was man or woman, an animal or a plant. It just didn’t matter. I think he didn’t want to share the seat.”

Chung said she penned the memoir to fulfill a promise to her father. He had wanted to be prominent and important, but he felt he had fallen short working in the US as an accountant. It would be up to his youngest daughter to do what he could not achieve in carrying on the family name.

She waited this long to write the book because she wasn’t ready to confront what had happened to her. “I’m so Chinese. After I was fired, I really felt as if I lost face,” she said. “But now I think I’ve finally have kind of gotten over it. It was so devastating.”

Still, Chung never wanted anyone to feel sorry for her.

“That was not my attitude when I was working,” she said. “I never ran to the ladies room and cried, because I always believed that there was no crying in baseball.”

Even though a generation of Asian Americans looked up to Chung, she didn’t realize her impact until journalist Connie Wang reached out. Wang, who was named after Chung, discovered that scores of Asian-American parents had also named their daughters “Connie” after watching her on TV.

Wang published an essay in the New York Times last year about the phenomenon and gathered 10 Asian “Connies” for a photo shoot with Chung. That experience became the perfect ending to her memoir.

“They made me realize that I did crack some glass ceilings, and the ultimate for them — the bamboo ceiling,” said Chung.

As the photographer of the shoot, Connie Aramaki, explained why so many were named after Chung: “What it means is your parents want you to work hard and be brave and take chances.”

With that, Chung could finally embrace her legacy.

Shirley Leung is a Business columnist and host of the Globe Opinion podcast “Say More with Shirley Leung.” Find the podcast on Apple, Spotify, and globe.com/saymore. Follow her on Threads @shirley02186

Shirley Leung is a Business columnist. She can be reached at shirley.leung@globe.com.