The Chinese in America - Iris Chang [152]
Even with help, many had to be ruthlessly focused and frugal. My uncle, Dr. Cheng-Cheng Chang, remembered that when he first arrived for graduate studies in electrical engineering at the University of Oklahoma in the 1960s, his first priority was to earn the top grades that would allow him to transfer to the doctoral program at the University of California at Berkeley. He also resolved to slash his expenses and save a nest egg to support his education in the United States. His budget was so tight that he dared not spend even a few cents for any nonessentials, however trivial. One of his most poignant memories was pacing around a Coke machine one hot, dusty afternoon, trying to decide whether to part with a single coin to quench his thirst.
As a result of disciplined saving, many Chinese students were not only able to maintain themselves on their American stipends, but to help their families back in Taiwan as well. Like the Chinese immigrants who had preceded them, the Taiwanese students placed great emphasis on family, and their loyalty to kin created a pattern of chain migration. Because exchange rates inflated the value of American currency on the island—often by a factor of ten—their small remittances home seemed a small fortune to the recipients in Taiwan. The most frugal students were able to sponsor the migration of spouses, siblings, and parents to the United States. The funds also gave younger students in Taiwan a glimpse of American opportunity, inspiring them to excel at their studies so they themselves could apply to U.S. doctoral programs.
After an initial period of adjustment, many students found life in the United States both exhilarating and liberating. “As I grew up in Taiwan under a fairly controlled society, I was blown away by the freedom and [the fact that] everyone can do what they want,” remembered Albert Yu, head of Intel’s microprocessor division. “I felt that I was set free.”
This freedom, however, was overshadowed by one sobering fact. Even though they were thousands of miles from home, the Nationalist government kept careful tabs on its students in the United States. During the 1960s, when thousands of young Chinese began to leave the island to pursue advanced degrees, the Nationalists, ever sensitive to their image in the United States, cultivated an extensive network of spies to watch over them at American universities.
As some would learn the hard way, potential troublemakers were arrested and imprisoned during their visits back to the home island. In 1966 authorities apprehended Huang Qiming, a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin, during a visit to Taipei, slapping him with a five-year prison term for allegedly attending Taiwanese independence meetings in the United States. In 1967, the Nationalists accused Chen Yuxi of reading Communist literature in the library of the East-West Center in Hawaii and participating in Vietnam War protests. Within weeks of Chen’s acceptance by Hosei University in Tokyo, Japanese immigration officials handed him over to KMT agents, who transported him back to Taiwan. The KMT sentenced him to death on charges of sedition, then reduced the sentence to seven years after activists in the United States and Japan lobbied furiously to save his life. Eventually, in 1971, the uproar from the human rights activists resulted in Chen’s release from Taiwan.
Because of the risks associated with activism, many Taiwanese Americans decided to