Quotes About Chinese-American

To fully understand the roots of anti-Asian prejudice in America, you need to know about the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 that banned all immigration from China, even though it was Chinese immigrants that had essentially built America's railroad system.

My dad was Chinese-American and very conservative when it came to his family's futures. He said if I wanted to have a secure job, I should go into science. So I did what Dad said and went to medical school, but the writing bug never left me.

My parents came to America in the late 1960s because my father studied for a Ph.D. in Indiana. My mother joined him later. We had ancestors who came over at the turn of the century. One worked in a laundry, as is typical of Chinese-American immigrants.

I'm Chinese-American, of course, and so it's very interesting to see China actually launch their own astronauts, becoming the third nation, following the United States and Russia, to do so.