Can We Please Go Home to China?

[Randy W]

some were detained for trying - from the Sixth Tone

 

Closed Borders, Open Letters

• What three open letters say about the history of Chinese students in America.

The signature (left) and portrait of Yung Wing, the first Chinese student to graduate from an American university (Yale College in 1854). Courtesy of Wu Jingjian and Union Theological Seminary

On Aug. 5, 1954, an open letter from 26 Chinese scholars studying in the United States landed on President Dwight Eisenhower’s desk. It was the height of the Cold War, and the letter’s signatories were lobbying not for the chance to stay, but the right to leave:

In the seeking of knowledge and wisdom, some of the undersigned have had to leave behind their beloved wives and children. In most of the cases the painful separation has already lasted seven years, and their return is still being denied. The plight of others, although not married, is by no means less tragic. Distressed and unsettled, we are forced to let slip through our fingers the best years of our lives.

The founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, China’s subsequent entry into the Korean War, and the rise of anti-communist McCarthyism in the U.S. left Chinese students in America standing at a crossroads. They had come to the United States to study at some of the world’s best universities, but after the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War, many in the American government worried their return could give a boost to an ideological foe. Some opted to stay. For the hundreds that didn’t, a September 1951 U.S. government decision to detain 21 of their hopeful returnees in Honolulu kicked off a years long struggle to get home.

It was not the first time Chinese students in the U.S. were treated as a geopolitical bargaining chip — nor would it be the last. Historically, the presence of Chinese students on American campuses has never been a purely educational issue, for either country. But no matter how politicized the atmosphere has become, there have always been some willing to speak up in their defense.

 

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Nevertheless, many Chinese students built lasting relationships while in the U.S. and even found some willing to take up their cause. On Oct. 20, 1954, Li Hengde — one of the 26 students who signed the letter sent to President Eisenhower and a future top nuclear researcher — finally received clearance to leave. Before departing, he paid a special visit to Ira Gollobin, an American civil rights attorney who had helped him make his case — and suggested the open letter. “Just as I was about to turn and leave, he (Ira) suddenly hugged me tightly and pressed his face against my cheek,” Li later recalled. “This tight embrace from a friend whom I first met in Philadelphia train station just two years earlier, and who had shown us such selfless support, took away the pain of three years spent detained abroad.”

 

Although there would not be another influx of Chinese international students to the U.S. until after the Mao era, Chinese today make up almost 40% of America’s international student body. Until recently, they were welcomed. The Trump administration, however, has placed a raft of restrictions on international students, including many specifically targeting Chinese scholars and graduate students.