Committee of 100

ASIAN-AMERICAN GIVING --- The Chinese Connection: A new force
is emerging in the philanthropic world
December 9, 2002

By Leslie P. Norton
Oscar Tang's memory of coming to the United States on a warm August day at the age of 11 is a powerful one. It was 1949, and the Communists had just "liberated" Shanghai, driving the Nationalists to a beachhead on Taiwan. His parents, textile manufacturers in Shanghai -- and capitalist running dogs, in the patois of the new revolutionary order -- had fled to Hong Kong, and his elder siblings were already being educated in the U.S. Tang, the youngest child, and a slightly older sister,
travelled with their mother to Vermont.

The burden was a heavy one for a bright and homesick lad with only a smattering of English. Gone forever was the China he knew, and his mother soon returned to Hong Kong. Those bewildering first months were spent at a public junior high school in St. Johnsbury, Vt., rife with cliques and small-town distrust. After two years, Tang transferred to the tiny Rectory School in Pomfret, Conn. There, John Bigelow, the headmaster, took a shine to Tang. Bigelow helped him with his English and his lessons, and soon, the boy thrived. After two years, Bigelow pushed his young charge to transfer to the prestigious Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass.

With the headmaster's help, Tang went on to Yale, graduating with an engineering degree in 1960, and then pushed onward to Harvard Business School. He got a job on Wall Street, at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. After a few years, he cofounded the money-management firm Reich & Tang, now a part of the money manager CDC Ixis.

Five years ago, Tang made a stunning gift to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. His gift for an amount that was undisclosed, but estimated to be $14 million, enabled the museum to obtain 11 major paintings from the renowned collector C.C. Wang and overhaul its Asian galleries. The donation pushed the Met to the forefront of Chinese painting collections.

"It's important to me that Americans learn more about Chinese civilization and culture," says Tang, who sees philanthropy as a part of his journey of assimilation into a new culture.

There are no hard figures about the amount of giving by Chinese-American philanthropists. But very public gifts by Tang and new philanthropists such as Lulu Wang, who two years ago gave $25 million to her alma mater, Wellesley College, suggest it's on the rise.

Donors and experts suggest a kind of ethnic awakening. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, for example, New York City's Chinatown, still crowded with sweatshops and old tenements, teetered on ruin as rescue efforts closed Ground Zero to tourists and shoppers. Asian-Americans, occasionally accused by surveys of being less generous donors than other Americans, sat up and took note. Equally disturbing was the case of Wen Ho Lee, the nuclear scientist who was falsely accused in 1999 of being a spy. The case, stark evidence of lingering racism, outraged the Chinese-American community.

Then came the survey commissioned by the Committee of 100, a group of prominent Chinese-Americans that was founded by architect I.M. Pei and cellist Yo-Yo Ma, among other luminaries. The survey discovered that one in four Americans holds "very negative attitudes" towards Americans of Chinese ancestry, and that one in three is suspicious about Chinese-Americans' loyalty to the U.S. Ambivalent feelings toward the Chinese in America may stem from a history of anti-immigrationpolicies. That began to change midway through the last century, as China allied itself with the U.S. in World War II. The U.S. offered refuge to many fleeing the mainland. Then, in 1952, the McCarran-Walter Act allowed Asian immigrants to apply for U.S. citizenship.

It's also true that wealth among the Chinese in America is a relatively recent phenomenon. Early immigrants were laborers and agrarian workers who dreamed of returning to China. And for decades, donations from the vast Chinese diaspora were destined for home; it's partly for this reason that many Chinese survived the famines that wracked the mainland.

Since Wen Ho Lee, convictions about civic participation and ethnic identity have changed. Says Jessica Chao, a prominent consultant to the philanthropic industry: "I have heard from major and smaller donors that it was important not only to be involved, but to be involved visibly."

After Sept. 11, for example, the Cantonese radio station now known as WZRC raised $1 million for relief in Chinatown. The World Journal, the Chinese newspaper that played a major role in Wen Ho Lee's acquittal, raised $800,000. And the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, a Chinatown Association, disbursed nearly $1 million to workers in Chinatown.

There have other prominent Chinese-American philanthropists, of course, including An Wang, who founded the Lowell, Mass., computer company Wang Laboratories and gave millions to New England institutions, such as Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University. And Charles Wang, founder and former chairman of Computer Associates -- he stepped down last month amid an accounting scandal -- has made large gifts to causes in the U.S. and China.

One newly prominent donor is Lulu Wang, a patrician Chinese-American who runs Tupelo Capital Management, a New York money-management firm. Wang came here with her family from Shanghai in 1948; a vacation became permanent immigration as her father, tied to the Nationalists, opted to stay in America. Her $25 million gift to Wellesley College, from which she graduated in 1966, was given to build a new student center. Construction on the Wang Campus Center will start next year, and finish in 2004. Wang has been active for years in philanthropic circles -- she's a board member of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York public radio station WNYC, and Wellesley. She's also funding Bill Moyers' coming PBS series "Becoming American: The Chinese Experience."

In the past, Wang and her husband Anthony, who is Charles Wang's brother and who retired as president of Computer Associates in 1992, have been quiet philanthropists. That has changed, particularly after Wellesley persuaded her that publicizing her gift would attract other donors. Says Lulu Wang, "It's much more comfortable to be fairly private in your philanthropy than to be a spokesman." But, she adds, "We have to take some form of visible leadership. Chinese are understanding that being part of a group you support lends strength to that group."

The bulk of donations predictably flows to educational institutions, given that Confucian culture prizes education. Wang sees her education as central to the process of assimilation.

So does Oscar Tang, who describes the key themes of his giving as education and Chinese art and culture. "School gave me the opportunity to join the mainstream of American life," he says.
Among the recipients of Tang's philanthropic largess are the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College; Princeton University's P.Y. and Kinmay W. Tang Center for Chinese and Japanese Art; and Phillips Academy.

Carolyn Chin, a former executive with IBM, recently started an organization to help women and minorities in America start companies.

In the past, she says, Chinese-Americans "stuck to their own communities." But now their giving is beginning to broaden. "I personally have a strong commitment to get Chinese-Americans more involved in community activities," she says. "Philanthropy is something very unique to America, and this is the natural evolution."