Chinatown in the 21st Century – The Future of Chinese Americans: Host or Guest?

Thomas Tam: At the beginning, there was the Chinese Exclusion Act that was passed in 1882, which limited the migration of Chinese to this country. That act was repealed in 1943. For a long time, Chinese in America were looked upon as sojourners who worked in this country and then later on would return to China. This guest existence has quite abruptly changed in 1965, with the passage of the Hart-Celler Act, which opened up the immigration pattern. There has been a significant increase in Chinese immigrants since that time. Recently, I read from the newspapers that Chinese immigrant families are talking about bringing the remains of their ancestors for reburial in this country. So the whole process of turning from guest to host has prompted us to talk about this phenomenon. And I would like to ask the panelists this question. “As we become host in this country, what is the most important question that is facing Chinese Americans?”

Henry Tang: This is the Qing-Ming time of year, so one only has to go to the cemeteries out in Brooklyn and Queens and take a look at all of those people. Many of them whom I knew as a child, have literally stayed here permanently. I remember hearing them say: “fan tong shan”, or “return to China”, but it never happened. Before 1965, there were barely one million Chinese. Now we have probably over five million people. So, we’ve had a four or five fold increase, and that is a huge change. Of course, we’ve all read the numbers, that by the time 2020 comes, it should be in excess of 20 million. These are very significant numbers. The Asian population in this country is four and a half to five percent of the total. According to the 2000 census, which puts it somewhere around 12 million. My African American friends told me that that was just about the number of African Americans in this country at the time of the Civil Rights Act in 1964. We are definitely an integral part of America and should conduct ourselves that way.

Angelica Tang: When Dr. Tam mentioned as an example, the burial of our ancestors, that question has come up in my own family. I can say that the decision to re-bury has more to do with convenience. It will be more convenient for descendents to pay tribute to their ancestors at Qing-Ming. I don’t know if a lot of families remove the remains of their ancestors to a foreign land. I know that amongst my family, it has been discussed, since most of our family members are in North America, that it would be a more strategic location to re-bury our ancestors. I think the Hart-Celler Act of 1965 really was a landmark legislation in that it effectively eliminated the national origins quota system, which was in favor of many European immigrant groups. That was how the number of Asian Americans has increased seven-fold since 1970. Besides the Hart-Celler Act in 1965, there’s also a resettlement of Southeast Asian refugees from the Vietnam War. That also has increased the number of Asian Americans in this country.

Thomas Tam: Maybe I should go back to the survey that the Committee of 100 has done in 2001, where you interviewed more than 1,200 people across the country.

Henry Tang: To talk about the survey that was conducted in the year 2001, we must first go to the background. The name of the survey was,” American attitudes towards Chinese Americans and Asian Americans”, Actually, we underwrote the survey. The survey was conducted by Yankelovich Partners, the very same people who conducted the CNN/Time Magazine surveys that you see on television all the time.

The survey was conducted in February of 2001. It was released around April 25th of 2001. On April 1st of 2001, there was a huge military/diplomatic incident called the Hai’nan Fly Interference Incident. An American reconnaissance plane, with a lot of radar equipments that was flying over the outskirts of China was forced down by Chinese military airplanes onto Hai’nan island. 24 U.S. Navy personnel were detained for about 10 or 12 days. The country was in an uproar. So there was confusion that perhaps this survey was conducted after the Hai’nan incident. In fact, it was conducted during the first 10 days of February 2001, almost two months prior to the Hai’nan incident.

We, at the Committee of 100, were observing many different situations that we didn’t quite understand. Most of it was Washington-generated; maybe historically going back to the Asian American political fundraising scandal of 1996. A Chinese-American, John Huang, encountered a great deal of accusations that his activities were masterminded from Beijing, and it led to a great deal of suspicion. Subsequently, in March of 1999, a scientist working for the National Laboratories in Los Alamos was arrested. His name was Wen-Ho Lee. He was accused of conducting espionage activities, and it became national news.

On March 22, 1999, this article hit the newsstands, and we took great issue with the editors of Newsweek. It says, “Chinese government still has plenty of real spies working in the United States, stealing American secrets.” The most offensive image is the chopsticks picking up semi-conductor chips.

April 28th, 1999. Another article: “Sources: spy suspect jeopardized all nuclear data. A scientist suspected of spying for China may have downloaded huge amounts of secret data, compromising the nation’s nuclear arsenal.” Here, the image of Wen Ho Lee was darkened to make him look more sinister. I can only think that, “I don’t have any friends who look like this, who has this kind of tint?” As you know, Time Magazine has since admitted the coloration of the image on their covers.

In the Wen-Ho Lee case was such a national shame that a federal judge apologized to Dr. Wen-Ho Lee on behalf of the whole nation for his mistreatment. After the situation, Dr. Lee couldn’t find any employment, even though he was only 62 years old when the case was ended.

Then, we opened up a Wall Street Journal on September 14th, 1999, displaying a chart that indicated the response of Americans to the question, “Do you think of China as more of an ally or an adversary?” 60% of liberals saw China as an adversary, versus 80% of White Southern Conservatives. When this was released, we couldn’t believe it. This was the genesis of the Committee of 100’s thinking that maybe something should be done to test this. We began to speak to survey experts; even they were surprised. They said, “It would be interesting if a survey were to come out contradicting this.” That was what we were hoping for.

By the way, it wanted to also test peoples’ attitudes towards Asian Americans. So, a select group of about 225 were segregated out, and all questions using the term Chinese Americans were substituted with the term Asian Americans. Surprisingly, the results were almost identical. Those people with very negative attitudes were 25%. 43% of the people had somewhat negative attitude. When you combine the two that is 68%, in excess of 2/3 of the population of the United States, which is a formidable number.

A question was asked, basically, how would you feel about electing an Asian or Chinese American to be the president of the United States? Of the people who were very negative towards Asian Americans, 52% of them were very uncomfortable with an Asian American becoming president of the United States. This was a proxy question, actually, for all positions of authority. There were questions about supervisors at work, managers, CEOs of companies, all positions of leadership, so this is a good proxy for it. The biggest surprise to our fellow Asian Americans was that the negative feeling towards Asian Americans exceeded those towards African Americans.

And then, this question was asked, “do you think Chinese Americans and also Asian Americans, passing on secret information to the Chinese government or other Asian governments, is a problem in the U.S., or is not a problem?” 46% of the respondents thought that that was a problem. That basically means, almost half of the people believed that we could be potential spies.

The age profile here is clustered around people from 35 to 50. The race component was 78% White, 12% African American, 5% Hispanic, and only 1% Asian, which pretty much reflects the racial composition of America. Almost every region of the country was included. Education level: people were either high school graduates or with some college. Income levels: between 35 and 75 thousand dollars, which is pretty much a reflection of the country. I believe the results are also available on the website committee100.org

Thomas Tam: It’s a really important survey. I was shocked when I first learned about it. I think there are so many things that have happened since the survey has come out, not the least of which is the 9/11 tragedy. Since 9/11, do you think people have changed? Do they look at China not so much as a potential enemy or competitor, but perhaps as an ally in the fight against terrorism?

Henry Tang: First, the experts recommend that no surveys be taken for at least five years afterwards because there will, more than likely, not be any meaningful change. Clearly, 9/11 has changed some of the national focus. We did this survey because we wanted to understand Washington, D.C., with the John Huang incident, and then subsequently the Cox Report and all these other developments. We wanted to understand what made Washington act and react the way it did towards Asians and Chinese Americans. We first wanted to do a survey of Congress. The experts said that’s hopeless. Better that we survey the people who send the congress representatives there, so that’s why the survey was done this way. If you accept the notion and the algorithm that by surveying the country, we now know what Washington thinks, if you accept that, which we do, we have an idea of how and why Washington thinks the way it does.

Angelica Tang: I do have some questions, Henry. I didn’t know the demographic in terms of respondents from the 10 focus groups…

Henry Tang: No, these are not focus groups. This was a nationally conducted survey by Yankelovich in accordance with their surveying procedures. Out of millions of phone numbers, by computer, they randomly select the respondents. There was no pre-selection.

Angie Tang: Was it true that there was slightly more negative response from the participants from the south?

Henry Tang: No, this is a national result. If you want to parse it down in terms of different regions, you have to go back to the original data. They might have taken this chart here and showed that there were 35% Southern respondents; that doesn’t mean that we picked them. It means that they responded during this period of time. I think they made phone calls to these 1,200 people during the three to five day period. It was just how many they could complete. It’s about as random as it can get.

Angie Tang: What struck me more was that there was also a sizeable percentage of Asian Americans that were surveyed. Amongst the selected groups that were highly educated, they could not identify the name of Matt Fong, who was not just a candidate in elections, but was the treasurer of California.

Henry Tang: There was a subsequent group in California, who took our survey and applied it to California. CAVEC is the name of the group, Chinese American Voters Education Council or something like that. CAVEC, with our permission, duplicated this survey in California. They threw in a few of those questions, but that was not our survey.

Betty Lee Sung: Now, I’ve been in this country for a long, long time, so I have seen the historical ups and downs of attitudes towards Chinese Americans. It’s positive at the times when the United States is on friendly with China and it’s negative when we are adversaries or the enemy. For instance, during the Communist period, we were the enemy. After 9/11, because the target of U.S. anger was directed towards the Middle East, somehow, the negative attitudes were deflected from the Chinese, and we’re in a better position now. But then, things can go the other way. I brought this up at the Committee of 100 conference as well. There has been so much talk of outsourcing. When all the jobs are going to the cheap labor of China, if it comes up as a big issue in the presidential elections, we again may feel the backlash of that negative attitude. This is something that we should be watching more, and maybe in some way, try to deflect.

Thomas Tam: Is there any understanding why there are such feelings of Americans towards Asian Americans, in particular, Chinese Americans? As China becomes more and more of a major player in the international scene, whether it is going along with U.S. policy or against U.S. policy, whenever they sneeze, we will catch cold. What can we do as Chinese Americans?

Henry Tang: How did we get to this negativity? There are opinions about that, but inside this report, I don’t think there’s any revelation about how the negativity came about. I think Betty alluded to the fact that, unfortunately, those of us that are Americans of Chinese heritage, during these last 50 years, have experienced a roller coaster type of up and down relationship with the country of our ancestry, China. First and foremost, we are Americans of Chinese ancestry. It is very important for our fellow American friends to understand that our dedication is to this country, a place where we have all come of our own volition. As I often say, we may not all have been born here together in this country, but there is a very high probability that we are going to die here together. It is in our interest, as Americans of Chinese ancestry, to create the best relationships and the best America that we can while we are here.

There are many books and magazine articles written about the history of how this came to be. People should go through their Google search and put in the term “Blue Team China”. You will find a very long and exhaustive history about how various leaderships in Washington, both Republican and Democratic, over the past 40 to 50 years, have their thinkings contaminated. Why does Washington believe these things? Some of it is myth and some of it is reinforced by events; and from time to time, we have unfortunate incidences regarding our two countries. In the case of China and America, it is usually a little bit out of proportion. I bring to everyone’s attention that the United States has differences with France, but no one ever accuses our fellow French Americans of being spies. Sometimes, we even catch spies from Israel, but our Jewish American friends are never accused of being spies. In fact, I believe there are a few people in American prisons from countries like Canada and Israel serving terms for espionage, and I don’t believe that there is anyone serving terms now from China. And so, the reactions are out of scale.

What Dr. Thomas Tam is doing here is very important: Bring us together to understand these issues so that we are not afraid to voice our opinions and call for the right thing to be done. We’ve had two incidences right in front of us, with Captain Yee and Dr. Wen-Ho Lee. When these things come up, all the participants here and those listening outside should be ready, willing and able to exercise our American right. Perhaps, the reason we’re discussing this dilemma here in the year 2004 is because our older brothers, sisters, and parents didn’t do enough of it in the past 50 years.

Angelica Tang: I was hoping to find out more about the methodology, because I was under the impression that it was conducted in a focus group. I guess it was a separate part of the study. I’ve been involved with focus groups conducted on attitudes on immigrants. Under such focus groups, whenever we get responses that are negative, we would ask each respondent to give specific examples. Dr. Tam alluded to the efforts to find out from the respondents who have responded negatively to some of the questions. For example, if you felt uncomfortable about an Asian American as U.S. president, why? Is it a matter of qualification, or is race the only and sole consideration? That would be something that I would be interested to know, I think the role of research is to highlight some of those needs and perceptions.

Bernadette Li: First of all, I think there has been a lack of communication between Chinese and American people. During the past 50 years, as we all know, China has been under Communist government. Before the opening of China in the 80’s, there was an outpouring of anti-American propaganda among Chinese people. When China opened up, some people were very optimistic and immediately said, “Oh, Chinese people have changed their attitude towards America and the American people!” I have asked a lot of Chinese people, what they like most about America. For the working people and even the educated, the most important factor about America is a place where they can earn more money. For a very few educated, they like the freedom in America.

For the vast majority of Chinese people, since the 19th century, they would like to come because of money. There’s nothing wrong about making money, but if we make money in another country, it’s important that we repay the country where we have earned our money. I do not want to be critical of Chinese people because I am Chinese in the first place, but I think Chinese people, for a long time, did not have this concept of repaying. For the old generation, they come to America to make money but go home and die there. And now, the new generation, I know a lot of them have come and earned money, they don’t even pay their taxes. Some victims of September 11th could not get American families compensation because they never have any record of paying their taxes. I have talked to a number of tax accountants here about how the blue-collar Chinese here pay their taxes. They said some of them will do anything to minimize their taxpaying, or not to pay at all.

In recent years, I think American government has created erroneous policies towards China, giving Chinese people the feeling that America is still an imperial country, very anti-Chinese, and very much afraid of China becoming a superpower. An outburst of this Anti-American feeling was clear when September 11th happened. If you watched Chinese internet, and American intelligence organizations were fully aware because, after all, many intelligence agents could read Chinese. I was very struck by some of these Anti-American essays which were translated into English.

Thomas Tam: May I interrupt you? I just wanted some clarification. Are you saying that these communications were by Chinese who live in this country?

Bernadette Li: In China, I was talking about in China…

Thomas Tam: Okay, so the anti-American sentiment is from Chinese who live in China.

Bernadette Li: At the same time, I have talked to some Chinese who have been here since 1980, from mainland China. And I asked them, have you read the internet Anti-American essays? I felt so shocked, and I was so angry, how could they make fun of the greatest tragedy in America?

Thomas Tam: I don’t mean to interrupt you. One of the things that shocked me is that when 9/11 happened, there were a lot of heroic acts by Chinese Americans. The person that we honored, Zack Zeng, sacrificed his life going into the World Trade Center to help the survivors. I understand that there was an outpouring of support from Chinatown in terms of payment to charity. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about that? I think you were quite involved in some of that post 9/11 activity.

Angelica Tang: There was certainly a lot of philanthropic support. Not just financial. Local radio stations raised money, but people were on the street helping seniors; they were helping those without electric power, and those who did not have access to transportation. There was a lot of community support, not just in the Chinese community, but all around town. You saw that there was a uniting theme, post 9/11. My role was more with the U.S. Department of Labor working to help dislocated workers, but we observed that a lot of community people really stepped forward as volunteers, translating for those who were not proficient in English.

Henry Tang: Through the radio stations, with west coast contributions mingled with east coast contributions, one and a quarter million dollars was donated to the World Trade 9/11 fund. This was largely a Chinese American effort, but it was donated to all of the victims of 9/11, which clearly had no ethnic nor specific designation. What’s more important is that it came from the daily listeners to the radio programs, mostly people working in the factories. They were the ones who donated five and 10 and 20 dollars. I must say that was a wonderful act of generosity for Chinese Americans to show sympathy for all the victims.

Bernadette Li: I think you have misunderstood me. What I said was that this outpouring of anti-American essays was in China, but on the American internet. I did not say that Chinese Americans were anti-American.

Thomas Tam: I think you clarified that.

Bernadette Li: I think it is very hard, sometimes, to distinguish Chinese Americans and Chinese from mainland China, because here we’re all Chinese in America. I don’t know what it would be your definition. Now, many Chinese who originally came from mainland China have become American citizens or American permanent residents. Should they be considered as American? What is the definition of Chinese American and what is the difference between Chinese American and Chinese? I think in our academic study, somehow, we have to get them defined. Of course, I do not disagree with any of you with respect to Chinese Americans’ various contributions to the relief work of September 11th. There were two main relief works after September 11th, one was the Red Cross, and the other most important one was Ci-ji.

Ci-ji gave money more generously than any other group, 500 dollars cash, given right on the spot, no check and no receipt for anyone who came. They were the first to bring money, food, and clothing. One of the most important acts that Chinese Americans have ever done in America is to be completely identified with a major American cause in the September 11th tragedy. Unfortunately, in mainstream media, most of the Chinese contributions to the relief work after September 11th have not been reported. I have collected the story in a two volume work. It’s very important to document our contributions and our sacrifices. Unfortunately, there were anti-American feelings and expressions from mainland China. If we go to mainland China and read any book on recent Sino-American relations, we’ll find anti-American sentiment is still very strong.

Angelica Tang: Professor, I was wondering, you brought up Ci-ji, which is a very prominent Buddhist association, active in charitable work all over the United States. Incidentally, in March, the American Sociological Association published two very prominent articles that had something to do with Asian culture. In fact, it was so prominent that all the press, mainstream and ethnic press received releases that summarized those two articles. The headlines were, “Asian Culture is Changing Mainstream America”, and “Yoga and Rebirth in America: Asian Religions are Here to Stay”. They talked about how 30% of Americans know, and are familiar with some things of Buddhist teachings, whether they have been exposed to it at a Yoga Center or at different institutes of faith in mainstream America. I do have some questions, not particularly to you or the audience: Is the American culture getting more accepting of Asian cultures? Are individual of Asian cultures much more acclimated to the American mainstream in promoting our heritage?

Betty Lee Sung: I think it’s both ways. Now, we know that America is a nation of immigrants, and all the countries have contributed to what is called American culture. So many Asians have come into the United States, and formed a larger proportion of the American population. We have been introducing Asian culture into American society, but we don’t realize how Americanized we have become. We do accept a lot of the American culture. It’s almost subconscious that we blend both aspects of those cultures. Even those who are ABC’s, who think that they are American, there’s a lot of Asian culture in them. I see it in my own children. At the beginning, they were denying everything that was Chinese. Now they realize how much of the Chinese culture they have maintained. So I think it’s both ways.

Thomas Tam: Maybe it’s the interaction between Chinese and other groups that would help mainstream America better understand the Chinese, the Chinese culture, the Chinese Americans, would you agree with that?

Bernadette Li: It’s a very complicated question. If people say, I think you are very Americanized, I would say, yes and no. If another person would come and say, oh, I think you are still very Chinese, and I would also say yes and no. You have to be specific, in which way am I American and in which way I’m not. For instance, in terms of food, if it’s a choice between American food and Chinese food, I definitely would choose Chinese.

Betty Lee Sung: I get accused of that all the time too, I’m either too Chinese or too American.

Bernadette Li: That’s right. For instance, at St. John’s, I have many American colleagues, and they say, “After your retirement, you would definitely go back to China, wouldn’t you?” I said, “No, I’m going to stay here.” They seemed to be very surprised. I told them, “I am American, you know.” We live in a global cultural age; everybody is mixing a lot of cultures.

Edward Ma: What Dr. Li talked about was very complicated. When you talk about Chinese Americans, you have to define it clearly. When you talk about Chinese, it’s one definition; when you talk about Chinese government, it’s a different definition; if you talk about China, it’s another definition. The same is true with Americans. When a Chinese ambassador was in an African nation, he thought Americans were very hostile, because of America-China’s diplomatic relationship. When he came here, he found that individual Americans were really friendly. So, I think we are subjected to politics.

Thomas Tam: Any comments from the panelists?

Henry Tang: When we publish the survey, it was not published with the intention to be an indictment. It is merely a snapshot of the relationships between Chinese Americans and Americans not of Chinese and Asian heritage at that moment. Hopefully, as we go along, groups like this and other groups throughout the country would see that there was still work to be done. This is not intended to spotlight any points of discontent or hate. That is clearly not the intention of the report.

With regard to the subject that is being discussed right now, one major point that needs to be analyzed and microscopically understood is that there is a very large distinction between cultural loyalty and political loyalty. Often times in the case of Asians and Chinese, it gets meshed in together. If you happen to be reading a Chinese magazine on a subway, it doesn’t mean that you’re about to become a subversive. We saw that being taken to the extreme, in the case of our Arab-American friends, when some of them were arrested or detained because they had Arabic magazines. So, we all must speak up and help make that distinction because it happens a lot. When I was a little boy, some of my playmates were told by their parents not to adopt anything Chinese because that would reflect badly upon them. My father was the most orthodox Chinese person. I went to Chinese school, I had Chinese in my veins. Of course, my playmates have come to regret having taken that path. It was social pressure that did it, because their parents, four or five decades ago, thought it was impolitic to raise their children preserving their heritage and culture. I must say that is a loss to the people and the country. That’s why we must make that distinction, and make it very forcefully. Clearly, my friends who have immigrant parents and grandparents from places like Italy, like to go to the opera. No one would think that’s being un-American. It’s along that same vein that we must make the distinction and ask our fellow Americans to understand that.

Male Audience Member: My name is Charles Tang, previous Chinese restaurant owner. I am very impressed with Henry Tang’s survey. I have a question…

Henry Tang: It’s not my survey, it’s done by the Committee of 100.

Charles Tang: I am very impressed. However, do you know of any plan, or any remedy to this situation?

Henry Tang: What can we do about it? Take this as a snapshot. It’s not an indictment. It’s not to spit in the faces of our fellow Americans. It’s to say there’s some sort of misunderstanding here. We need to get together more and better. For instance, as a result of this survey, I’ve become good friends with a person that most people probably wouldn’t expect that I would become good friends with. His name is Christopher Cox, of the Cox Report. I basically took this survey and went to talk to him about it. We are now on a first-name basis because I got to understand him a lot better, and I was able to point out to him some of the difficulties that his committee activities created for Chinese Americans. Whether it was inadvertent or deliberate, well, we’ll never know. Clearly, by doing things like this, in other words, go and confront those who disagree with you, no one is about to hit you or shoot you behind the back or something like that, we don’t live in this sort of country. If taken appropriately, it leads to much, much greater understanding.

There’s a nagging question which I feel capable of talking about. How did Washington get to be this way? This started back in the critical years of 1946 to 1948, during the Mao civil war years with Chiang Kai-Shek.

Some of the people in this room probably know a man named Theodore White. He wrote best selling chronicles like, Making of the President, 1960, and Making of the President, 1964. He was also a Pulitzer prizes winner. He was the China correspondent for Time and Life Magazine during those years. Time and Life Magazine was the CNN of its day. I remember being a little boy, waiting for the pictures from Time Life Magazine because I couldn’t read English at that time. As Teddy White was writing dispatches back to Time Life headquarters here in New York, his boss, Henry Luce, read that Mao was winning, and Chiang was losing. He could not bear to publish that. So he had his editors re-write Theodore White’s dispatches. For that period, 1946 to 1948, the country, you might say, was misled. And that was what led to this whole business of, who lost China?

Now, the circulation numbers for those two magazines at that time on a weekly basis were six and a half million copies. You take circulation numbers, and multiply them by 10 as impact, so 65 million people were impacted by this stuff. Washington D.C., which was fed for two years this diet that Chiang was winning, was greatly surprised in 1948 when it flipped. Clearly, that could only have happened if somebody in the State Department was a security leak and allowed Mao to win over Chiang. And that attitude persisted until today.

When Theodore White returned to the country in 1948, he totally went crazy. He and Henry Luce, who had a father-son relationship, broke up. This phenomenon has been going on since that time for 30 or 40 years. It’s passed on from one generation of Washington personnel to the next, in the Pentagon, the State Department, and in the halls of Congress. That’s empirical evidence that I could pull together to understand why there is this attitude. Why don’t they feel this way about Japan, where there was a Pearl Harbor? or Germany? And why, in the case of China, there’s this continuing, suspicious attitude?

Male Speaker: Why more and more Chinese in this country want to stay in this country and not return to China?

Bernadette Li: For me, it’s very easy to answer. First of all, I have been working all my life here and I intend to continue to work even after my retirement. So, naturally, I will stay here. Secondly, I think of China as a communist country, and I know that there is a lack of freedom in lots of areas and I certainly have enjoyed the great freedom I have here. People have been saying, “Why don’t you come to retire in China? You can have as many research assistants as you like. You can have as many servants as you like.” I’ve been invited by many distinguished universities to be visiting professor, but I prefer to stay here to do my research, because once I’m in China or Taiwan, my research here will be suspended and I have been chronicling Chinese Americans here.

Male Audience Member: The main reason China is divided is because the livelihood is not as good over there. I came to this country in 1946. All along, I think of going home to China. Now I look at my children who are grown here. They are saying that they don’t want to go to China. Here’s my question, why is it that American government gave so much foreign aid to other countries, and yet, most foreigners have an anti-American attitude?

Bernadette Li: From a teacher’s point of view, there is much to be done in the educational field. Americans, in general, do not know very much about China or Chinese Americans. It is important to improve American education with regard to Asia, China, and Asian Americans. They have to achieve some kind of understanding about us. At the same time, I think Chinese from the China mainland have received so much propaganda that some of their knowledge is inaccurate. Many of the Chinese Americans here still close their doors and don’t care about what is going on outside of their homes and their jobs. They have no curiosity about American history, society or culture. Chinese Americans and Chinese people have to change their attitudes. They have to open their eyes and minds and to understand not just Americans but the world in general. Many Sinologists have been saying that Chinese people are very xenophobic, or egotistical. I used to refute that, but I have lived here so long and I begin to think that there is a certain element of truth in that.

Angelica Tang: I think Professor Li is certainly right to say that most Americans don’t know much about the history and culture of the Chinese. At the same time, Americans don’t know about America’s history, either. Take a very good look at surveys that have been done by the National Endowment for the Humanities, for example, where 57% of 17 year olds in this country cannot, on a multiple choice exam, identify the half century in which the civil war occurred. There are also surveys of college seniors at elite Ivy League colleges and universities, where two-thirds of the seniors cannot, in a multiple choice exam, explain the significance of places, people, and events of the American past.

I have heard what makes us American and what makes us Chinese. Is universal suffrage a good idea for local elections? Is teaching how to pull a lever the only way to teach someone how to vote, or should we be educating our children and adults on how our past has taught us? I think history is the only way that we could educate others about how people and events in the past, like how the decisions of our founding fathers made some 200 years ago affected our lives today. It’s only by looking back to the past and knowing what has transpired that we understand how civics work, and I hope that would be a reason for us to take part in civic participation.

Thomas Tam: That’s a really good comment that summarizes what we’ve been doing at the institute. Through education and communication between different groups, we hope that a better understanding may be developed between Americans of Chinese and non Chinese heritage. With that, I want to thank the panelists for joining us today. They’re really generous with their time, and we appreciate it.

Betty Lee Sung: I’d like to have a final word. I see in our audience, so many young people. These are our future leaders. Mr. Tang said: “What can we do about it?” I said, “We have our future leaders here in this room. It’s your mission to communicate and to be a bridge between both cultures.” One thing about the Chinese is that they don’t like to talk. They don’t communicate. And yet, Henry has told us how important the media is in shaping the opinions and the attitudes of others toward us. So we should try to use the media as much as possible to change others’ attitude. Angie has said, “If you met someone with a negative attitude towards Chinese, ask him to give you an exact experience of why he got this negative attitude.” Most often, they can’t come up with any. That’s why you should confront people, and see why they come with these attitudes. At the same time, you should serve as a bridge to interpret what you know about your own people, your family and your culture, so that there will be better understanding among all people.

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