The Chinese in America

by Iris Chang

  269 asked for a community clubhouse: Chiou-Ling Yeh, ”Contesting Identities: Youth Rebellion in San Francisco’s Chinese New Year Festival, 1953-1967,” in Susie Lan Cassel, ed., The Chinese in America: A History from Gold Mountain to the New Millennium, p. 336.

  270 ”They have not shown that they are sorry”: EastlWest, March 13, 1968, as cited in Chiou-Ling Yeh, ”Contesting Identities,” p. 336.

  270 ”Some of these kids are talking about getting guns and rioting”: Ibid., p. 337.

  270 Inter-Collegiate Chinese for Social Action: Ibid.

  270 Concerned Chinese for Action and Change: Ibid., p. 338; L. Ling-chi Wang, p. 576; Nick Harvey, ed., Ting: The Caldron, p. 101.

  270 ”I knew to expect stories about China”: Ben Fong-Torres, p. 59.

  271 ”I was nine years old when the letters made my parents, who are rocks, cry”: Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior. Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1976; Vintage international edition, 1989), p. 50.

  271 ”The aunts in Hong Kong”: Ibid., p. 50.

  272 ”PIG INFORMERS DIE YOUNG”: Ben Fong-Torres, p. 209.

  273 ”It seems obvious”: Supreme Court opinion, delivered by Justice Douglas. Lau v. Nichols, No. 72-6530, Supreme Court of the United States, 414 U.S. 56, Argued December 10, 1973, Decided January 21, 1974.

  273 Third World Liberation Front: Nick Harvey, ed., Ting: The Caldron, p. 103; William Wei, The Asian American Movement (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993).

  274 Red Guard Party: Nick Harvey, ed., Ting: The Caldron, p. 103; Stanford Lyman, Chinese Americans, p. 165.

  274 I Wor Kuen: Lori Leong, East Wind magazine 1:1 (1982); author interview with Corky Lee, November 2002; Rocky Chin, ”New York Chinatown Today: Community in Crisis,” in Amy Tachiki, Eddie Wong, Franklin Odo, and Buck Wong, eds., Roots: An Asian American Reader. A Project of the UCLA Asian American Studies Center (Regents of the University of California, 1971). ).

  275 ”the blushing dawn of ethnic awareness”: Gish Jen, Mona in the Promised Land (New York: Vintage, 1996), p. 3.

  275 “‘You know, the Chinese revolution was a long time ago’”: Ibid., p. 118.

  276 Fred Ho: Wei-hua Zhang, ”Fred Ho and Jon Jang: Profiles of Two Chinese American Jazz Musicians,” Chinese America: History and Perspectives 1994 (Brisbane, Calif.: Chinese Historical Society of America, 1994), pp. 175-99.

  276 Grace Lee Boggs: Grace Lee Boggs, Living for Change: An Autobiography (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998).

  277 ”Afro-Chinese Marxist”: Frank H. Wu, Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White (New York: Basic Books, 2002), p. 331.

  277 ”Through sheer will”: Letter, Louis Tsen to Grace Lee Boggs, May 22, 1996, in Grace Lee Boggs, Living for Change, p. xv.

  277 Information on the social rise of the Chinese in the South comes from James W. Loewen, The Mississippi Chinese: Between Black and White (Prospect Heights, III.: Waveland Press, 1988, 1971).

  278 Black civil rights leaders asked Chinese grocers for financial donations: Ibid., p. 171.

  278 Sam Chu Lin: Author interview with Sam Chu Lin.

  279 ”I didn’t go to the Chinese dances”: James W. Loewen, p. 160.

  279 Sam Sue: Joann Faung Jean Lee, Asian American Experiences in the United States: Oral Histories of First to Fourth Generation Americans from China, the Philippines, Japan, India, the Pacific Islands, Vietnam and Cambodia (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, 1991), pp. 3-9.

  281 ”I had the impression that anything I wanted, I could get”: Carter Wiseman, I. M. Pei: A Profile in American Architecture (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1990), p. 32.

  281 ”I had heard that there was discrimination against Chinese”: Dr. An Wang with Eugene Linden, Lessons: An Autobiography (Boston: Addison-Wesley, 1986), p. 32.

  281 ”Frankly the United States seemed a lot like China to me”: Ibid., p. 33.

  281 ”Science is the same the world over”: Ibid., p. 31.

  281 started Wang Laboratories in 1951 with only $600: Ibid., p. 75.

  281 took his company public in 1967: Charles Kenney, Riding the Runaway Horse: The Rise and Decline of Wang Laboratories (Boston: Little, Brown, 1992), p. 48.

  281 Chin Yang Lee: Author interview with Chin Yang Lee; Heidi Benson, ”C. Y. Lee, Fortunate Son: Author of the Enduring ‘Flower Drum Song’ Is Grateful for ‘Three Lucks in My Life,’” San Francisco Chronicle, September 18, 2002.

  281 Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen-ning Yang: New York Times, January 15, 1957.

  282 Chien-Shiung Wu: New York Times, February 18, 1997; The Guardian, May 13,1997.

  282 Shing-Shen Chern: McGraw-Hill Modern Scientists and Engineers, (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980), p. 201.

  282 Chia-Chiao Lin: Chia-Chiao Lin and Frank H. Shu, ”On the Spiral Structure of Disk Galaxies,” Astrophysical Journal, no. 140, 1964; ”On the Spiral Structure of Galaxies II: Outline of a Theory of Density Waves,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, no. 55, 1966.

  282 Tung-Yen Lin: MaryLou Watts, ”Prestressed Concrete Pioneer T. Y. Lin Named Cal’s Alumnus of Year,” CM (Construction Management) Magazine, March 16, 1995; David Pescovitz, ”Berkeley Engineers Changing Our World,” Lab Notes: Research from the College of Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, vol. 2, issue 6, August 2002; ”Builder of Bridges: Alumnus of the Year T. Y. Lin,” California Monthly, December 1994; files and correspondence from T. Y. Lin to author; ”Top People in the Past 125 Years,” Engineering News-Record 243:9, p. 27; ”Famed Structural Engineer T. Y. Lin Named Cal Alumni Association’s Alumnus of the Year,” Business Wire, December 19, 1994.

  282 Min-Chueh Chang: Amy Zuckerman, ”M. C. Chang,” Worcester Magazine, July 27, 1988; Times (London), June 14, 1991; New York Times, June 7, 1991; Roy O. Greep’s comments at the memorial service for Min-Chueh Chang, October 10, 1991; letter from Isabelle C. Chang, widow of Min-Chueh Chang, to author, July 6, 1999. According to Ms. Chang, her husband was nominated for the Nobel Prize six times.

  Chapter Sixteen. The Taiwanese Americans

  283 ”number three” choice: Murray A. Rubinstein, ed., Taiwan: A New History (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1999), p. 299.

  283 between one million and two million refugees: Franklin Ng, p. 10.

  285 ”desolate place both in literary and cultural terms”: Anna Chennault, The Education of Anna (New York: Times Books, 1980), p. 92.

  286 about two thousand students were leaving Taiwan: Ronald Skeldon, ed., Reluctant Exiles? Migration from Hong Kong and the New Overseas Chinese (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1974), p. 45.

  286 T. V. Soong: Leslie Chang, Beyond the Narrow Gate, p. 18; Stella Dong, Shanghai, 1842-1949, p. 288; Him Mark Lai, ”China and the Chinese American Community: The Political Dimension,” Chinese America: History and Perspectives 1999, p. 10.

  287 U.S. News and World Report: U.S. News and World Report, July 24, 1995.

  287 suspended all national-level elections: Murray A. Rubinstein, ed., Taiwan: A New History, p. 326.

  287 ”the period of Communist rebellion”: Ibid., p. 327.

  288 reign of ”White Terror”: Ibid., pp. 145, 330.

  288 ”By grade school”: Author interview of Dick Ling, December 27, 2000.

  289 ”That student got into deep, deep trouble”: Author interview of Carl Hsu, February 28, 2001.

  289 ”You couldn’t even buy vacuum tubes then”: Author interview of Ching Peng, December 27, 2000.

  291 Sayling Wen: Sayling Wen and Chin-chung Tsia, Taiwan Experience: How Taiwan Transformed Herself from Economic Difficulty to Economic Boom (Taipei, Taiwan: Locus Publishing Company, 1998), pp. 24-25.

  291 40 percent of Taiwan’s income: Murray A. Rubinstein, ed., Taiwan: A New History, p. 328.

  291 $100 million: Ibid., p. 325.

  291 ”Turn your living room into a factory”: Sayling Wen and Chin-chung Tsia, p. 58.

  292 The story of Taiwan’s economic miracle: Murray A. Rubinstein, ed., Taiwan: A New History,
p. 374; Chun-Chieh Huang and Feng-fu Tsao, eds., Postwar Taiwan in Historical Perspective (Bethesda: University Press of Maryland, 1998).

  293 ”In schools, teachers taught us about the task”: Sayling Wen and Chin-chung Tsia, p. 45.

  295 ”White people all looked alike”: Author interview with Ying-Ying Chang.

  296 ”the sight of a hot dog”: Cai Nengying, ”Lu Meizhufu huajiachang (A Housewife Staying in America Talks About Household Matters),” in Huang Minghui, ed., Lu Mei Sanji (Notes on Staying in America) (Taipei: Zhengwen, 1971), pp. 34-35. As cited in R. David Arkush and Leo O. Lee, Land without Ghosts, p. 219.

  297 dared not spend even a few cents: Interview with Cheng-Cheng Chang in Palo Alto, California.

  297 ”As I grew up in Taiwan”: E-mail from Albert Yu to author, March 13, 2000.

  298 Huang Qiming: Him Mark Lai, ”China and the Chinese American Community: The Political Dimension,” Chinese America: History and Perspectives 1999, p. 15.

  298 Chen Yuxi: Ibid., p. 15.

  298 only one in four students returned: Ronald Skeldon, ed., Reluctant Exiles?, p. 45.

  299 Chia-ling Kuo: Chia-ling Kuo, ”The Chinese on Long Island: A Pilot Study,” Phylon 31:28 (1970), pp. 80-89, as cited in Ting Ni, ”Cultural Journey,” p. 185.

  299 ”I would not let those ignorant people bother me”: Chia-ling Kuo, p. 286; Ting Ni, pp. 186-87.

  299 ”great majority of Chinese- and Japanese-Americans”: ”Orientals Find Bias Is Down Sharply in U.S,” New York Times, December 13, 1970, as cited in Cheng-Tsu Wu, ed., ”Chink!,” p. 220.

  300 Biographical information on Chang-Lin Tien: Kate Coleman, ”Reluctant Hero,” San Francisco Focus, December 1996.

  303 Biographical information on David Lee: Author interview of David Lee.

  305-6 ”Orientals are inordinately industrious”: James W. Chinn, EastlWest, December 2, 1970, as cited in Cheng-Tsu Wu, ed., ”Chink!,” pp. 231-37.

  306 one in four Chinese American men sixteen years or older: L. Ling-chi Wang, ”Politics of Assimilation and Repression,” p. 472. By 1970, one-fourth of Chinese American men had college degrees, which was twice the national average. (Him Mark Lai, in Encyclopedia of the Chinese Overseas, p. 266.)

  306 only 55 percent of that of white men: Ibid., p. 472.

  306 five Asian American health inspectors: Cheng-Tsu Wu, ed., ”Chink!,” pp. 215, 232, 233.

  307 ”he presumably lacked the ability to deal with the public”: Thomas Yang Chin and Shirley Takemorei, Third World News, December 7, 1970. As cited in Cheng-Tsu Wu, ed., ”Chink!,” p. 232.

  307 ”I suppose you like to play the lotteries like all good Chinese”: Cheng-Tsu Wu, ed., ”Chink!,” p. 237. Original citation: Kai M. Lui, letter, East/West: The Chinese American Journal, September 1, 1970.

  307 ”Oriental women had been trained to be subservient”: Frank Quinn, Fair Employment Practices Commission hearing transcript, December 10, 1970, p. 38.

  307 only 2.5 percent: Pauline L. Fong, ”The Current Social and Economic Status of Chinese American Women,” paper presented at the National Conference on Chinese American Studies, October 9-11, 1980, San Francisco.

  307 ”In fact, the better educated we became”: Judy Yung, Unbound Feet, p. 288.

  308 in-house study at Bell Labs: Author interview of Carl Hsu, co-founder of 4A, Asian Americans for Affirmative Action; ”The Founding of 4A,” 4A Newsletter 1:1 (January 1979); correspondence of Ron Osajima, co-founder of 4A, to author, February 18, 2001; ”Request for a Comparison Study of White Males and Asian Americans,” Bell Labs memorandum, July 22, 1977.

  308 ”Most of us had very deep fears about retribution”: Author interview with Carl Hsu.

  309 ”worse than the betrayal of a loyal ally”: New York Times, January 5, 1981; Anna Chennault, The Education of Anna, p. 242.

  309 ”Mr. President”: Anna Chennault, p. 236.

  310 ”During Watergate, we didn’t understand why Nixon had to resign”: Jennie Yabroff, ”Stranger in a Strange Land,” Salon, October 17, 1997.

  Chapter Seventeen. The Bamboo Curtain Rises: Mainlanders and Model Minorities

  312 ”the news filled me with such euphoria”: Jung Chang, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), p. 495.

  313 partly or completely illiterate: Jasper Becker, The Chinese (New York: Free Press, 2000), p. 210.

  314 ”study abroad fever”: Leo A. Orleans, Chinese Students in America: Policies, Issues and Numbers (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1988), p. 28.

  314 doubled the immigration slots: Lynn Pan, Sons of the Yellow Emperor, p. 276.

  315 more than 80,000 PRC intellectuals: Los Angeles Times Magazine, March 25, 1990; Jing Qiu Fu, ”Broken Portraits: The Dilemma of Chinese Student Leaders in the U.S. After the Tiananmen Square Incident,” master’s thesis, Asian American Studies, University of California at Los Angeles, 1999, p. 1.

  315 freed Deng Jiaxian: Ting Ni, pp. 190-91.

  315 Yuan Jialiu: Ibid., p. 190.

  316 Yuan’s family: Ibid., p. 190.

  316 roughly half the Chinese foreign students: Dr. An Wang with Eugene Linden, Lessons: An Autobiography (Boston: Addison-Wesley, 1986), p. 42.

  316 ”regret in their eyes”: Author interview of Linda Tsao Yang.

  316 Let Keung Mui: Interview with Let Keung Mui by Se Wai Mui, his son. Manuscript entitled ”Our Lives, Our Stories, Our Neighborhood. Vol. V Oral Histories compiled by the students of the class. Our Neighborhood: The Lower East Side Experience. Seward Park High School, June 1988,” New York Chinatown History Project, Museum of Chinese in the Americas.

  317 ”Why would one person need so many lights?”: Liu Zongren, Two Years in the Melting Pot (San Francisco: China Books and Periodicals, 1988), p. 16.

  317 ”A hundred dollars”: Ibid., p. 20.

  318 ”I liked E.T. ”: Ibid., p. 20.

  318 wealthiest one percent of Americans: James D. Torr, ed., The 1980s (San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2000), p. 54.

  318 four hundred richest Americans: Ibid.

  319 ”Many of Detroit’s corporate heads”: Ronald Takaki, ”Who Killed Vincent Chin?,” in Grace Yun, ed., A Look Beyond the Model Minority Image (New York: Minority Rights Group, 1989), pp. 26-27.

  320 ”In Detroit, the bumper stickers say it all”: Ibid., p. 27.

  320 ”What kind of law is this?”: Ronald Takaki, Strangers from a Different Shore, p. 482.

  321 ”Three thousand dollars can’t even buy a good used car”: Ibid.

  321 ”I don’t understand how this could happen in America”: Ibid.

  321 ”My blood boiled”: Ibid., p. 484.

  321 ”The killing of Vincent Chin happened in 1982”: Ibid., p. 483.

  321 Additional sources on Vincent Chin: Sucheng Chan, Asian Americans, pp. 176-78; Christine Choy and Renee Tajima, Who Killed Vincent Chin?, color documentary, 90 minutes, 1988.

  322 Sources on the Jim Loo murder: Sucheng Chan, p. 178; United States Commission on Civil Rights, Civil Rights Issues Facing Asian Americans in the 1990s: A Report of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, February 1992, pp. 26-28.

  322 “I don’t like you because you’re Vietnamese”: Seth Effron, “Racial Slaying Prompts Fear, Anger in Raleigh,” Greensboro News and Record, September 24, 1989.

  323 Chen Wencheng: Him Mark Lai, “China and the Chinese American Community: The Political Dimension,” Chinese America: History and Perspectives 1999, p. 16; Newsweek, August 3, 1981; British Broadcasting Corporation, August 4, 1981.

  323 Henry Liu: For a detailed account and analysis of the events that led to the Liu murder, see David E. Kaplan, Fires of the Dragon: Politics, Murder and the Kuomintang (New York: Atheneum, 1992.)

  324 David Lam: Chris Rauber, “Tech Pioneer Signs On as CEO of Startup,” San Francisco Business Times, May 9, 1997; “David Lam Joins Tru-Si Technologies, Inc. as Chairman of the Board,” Business Wire, April 28, 1999; interview with David Lam by Joyce Gemperlein and Sandra Ledbetter for the
Tech Museum of Innovation’s “The Revolutionaries” series, a joint project with the San Jose Mercury News in 1997.

  324 David Wang: Author interview of David Wang; Applied Matters, April 1993; Kristin Huckshorn, “If It’s Here, It Must Be History; Smithsonian Enshrines 1987 Chip Machine,” San Jose Mercury News, March 4, 1993.

  324 John Tu and David Sun: Michael Lyster, “$1 Billion and Counting,” Orange County Business Journal, January 1-7, 1996; “Doing the Right Thing,” The Economist, May 20, 1995; Greg Miller, “Memory Makers,” Los Angeles Times, October 16, 1995.

  324 Pehong Chen: “8 of 9 Newbies to Forbes 400 Super-Rich List Are Asians,” Business Times, September 20, 2000; “Code Warriors: The Forbes 400,” Forbes, October 9, 2000.

  324 Charles Wang: Dan Barry, “Computer Mogul Refines His Game; Facing Rough Times, Charles Wang Tries a New Style,” New York Times, February 4, 1997; John Teresko, “The Magic of Common Sense: How CEO Charles Wang Took Software Maker Computer Associates from Start-up to $3.5 Billion,” Industry Week, July 15, 1996; Amy Cortese, “Sexy? No. Profitable? You Bet. Software Plumbing Keeps Computer Associates Hot,” Business Week, November 11, 1996.

  324 “ethnoburbs”: Wei Li, “Building Ethnoburbia: The Emergence and Manifestation of the Chinese Ethnoburb in Los Angeles’ San Gabriel Valley,” Journal of Asian American Studies, February 1999.

  325 “Say I am Chinese”: Origins & Destinations, pp. 220-21.

  325 more than one-third of Monterey Park’s population: San Diego Union Tribune, January 10, 1999.

  325 more than one-quarter in the nearby communities: Ibid.

  325 largest suburban concentration of ethnic Chinese: Wei Li, “Anatomy of a New Ethnic Settlement: The Chinese Ethnoburb in Los Angeles,” Urban Studies 35:3 (1998), p. 480.

  325 “I feel like I’m in another country”: Mark Arax, “Selling Out, Moving On,” Los Angeles Times, April 12, 1987.

  325 “I feel like a stranger in my own town”: Ibid.