At age thirteen, Chennie Huang came to the United States, seeking a new beginning after her prominent and once-well-to-do family faced severe persecution during the Chinese Cultural Revolution due to their status as intellectuals.*

Chennie's paternal grandfather, Huang Zuoshen 黄作燊 was a pioneer of modern architecture in China. He attended the School of the Architectural Association in London from 1933 to 1937 and later followed Walter Gropius to the United States in 1939 to study at Harvard University, declining an offer from Le Corbusier for an internship in his studio. Upon returning to China in 1942, Huang Zuoshen was invited to found the Department of Architecture at St. John’s University in Shanghai, where his curriculum was the first in the country to follow the principles of the Bauhaus School. Huang Zuoshen emphasized Functionalism and Modernism in his teachings at St. John's University and later served as the Founding Director of the Department of Architecture at Tongji University from 1952 to 1954.

Huang Zuoshen's wife and Chennie's grandmother, Winifred Cheng was the fourth daughter of Cheng Ke 程克, an influential political figure in the early years of the Republic of China. Cheng Ke studied law at the Imperial University of Tokyo, joined the Tongmenghui (Chinese United League), and founded the magazine "Henan." He held various positions within the Beijing Government, including member of the Senate, Governor of Hanzhong Circuit, Chief Executive of Altay, Chief Justice, President of the Law Revision Institute, Chief of Internal Affairs, advisor to the Beiping Political Council, and mayor of Tianjin.

While attending the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston as an undergraduate, Chennie later discovered through her grandmother’s autobiography that her grandmother had also attended the same school in the 1940s.

Her mother’s side of the family has a strong legacy in medicine and science. Chennie's maternal grandfather, Feng Youxian 冯友贤 was a renowned vascular surgeon who pioneered the field at Shanghai First Medical College of Zhongshan Hospital, the most prestigious teaching hospital in China. In the 1950s, Dr. Feng developed the first silk vascular prosthesis in Shanghai and successfully performed a lower limb aneurysm operation using this innovative prosthesis in 1957, thus marking a significant milestone in the history of medicine in the People's Republic of China. Dr. Feng's contributions to the field extended beyond his clinical work; he authored the first textbook on vascular surgery in China, published in 1980, which laid the foundation for future advancements. Throughout the 1980s, his expertise was recognized internationally, leading to professorships at various institutions in the United States, including the University of Massachusetts Medical School and Loma Linda University School of Medicine in California, as well as guest lectures in Kuwait.

Chennie's great-uncle, Huang Zuolin 黄佐临 was an influential Chinese film director and a groundbreaking figure in modern Chinese theater. During the late 1920s, he studied business at the University of Birmingham, where he performed a self-written and self-directed one-act play titled "East and West" at a student party. He sent this play to George Bernard Shaw to express his admiration for both Shaw and Henrik Ibsen, receiving a reply that marked the beginning of a lifelong mentorship. In the 1930s, Huang Zuolin studied Shakespeare at King’s College, Cambridge, and trained in theater direction under Michel Saint-Denis at the London Theatre Studio. Upon returning to China, he introduced Western dramatic concepts to Chinese theater. He advocated for a contemporary, ethnical, and scientific dramatic system and received the Drama Director Award (lifetime award) in 1988.

During the Cultural Revolution, Huang Zuoshen and his brother Huang Zuolin, suffered because of their father's affiliation with Shell International Oil Products B.V., where he had served as a Comprador. Both brothers were subjected to severe interrogation, and Huang Zuoshen was imprisoned under the witness of his students at Tongji University.

Her aunt, Huang Shuqin 黄蜀芹 was a visionary Chinese film director known for her seminal film Woman, Demon, Human (1987), widely regarded as the first feminist film in Chinese cinema. Despite the challenges she faced during the Cultural Revolution, Huang Shuqin went on to become one of China's most talented directors, with a career spanning nearly three decades. In 1994, she directed A Soul Haunted by Painting, starring Gong Li 巩俐, which was based on the life of Pan Yuliang 潘玉良, the first woman in China to paint in the Western style. Pan Yuliang studied in Paris, later taught at the École des Beaux-Arts, and became a trailblazer for women artists in China. Throughout her career, Huang Shuqin's films often explored themes of gender, identity, and women's struggles in patriarchal society.

*Life and Death in Shanghai. Grove Press. 1987. pp. 23–5, 28, 22–9, 280–85. ISBN 0394555481.