To spend time with Yeni Wong is to see up close what
happens when someone with uncommon courage and compassion puts herself on the
front lines of the community’s most complex challenges. We will always face
challenges, but we’re all better off because there are people like Yeni who are
visionary, caring, and determined enough to meet them.
No organization is more crucial to the development of
Chinatown than the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association of Washington,
DC. Its decisions affect hundreds of people in the community, so the person who
heads the CCBA must be an outstanding, effective leader. Yeni Wong has helped
change Chinatown. In 1997, she became the first female chairperson of the CCBA.
Yeni Wong meets this high standard. She has ably led the
CCBA through a tumultuous era for community development since she was chosen in
1997 by the more than thirty groups that govern the organization. She is a
trailblazer—the first woman to lead a major local Chinese organization such as the CCBA and the first woman to hold this key role in any large
community organization.
The CCBA of Washington, DC, was founded in the 1940s and
formally registered in 1952; it is composed of thirty prestigious groups. Each
member of the CCBA sends two
representatives to participate and vote in monthly meetings and whenever
needed. In the ’90s the CCBA became a financially sound, nonprofit
organization with the help of the elders of CCBA.
The original mission of this organization was to help Chinese immigrants. The CCBA aided them in various facets of their new lives, such as by providing meals, shelter, and medical assistance in times of unemployment or hardship and by lending a unified voice for local Chinese populations. It also served as an objective intermediary authority, resolving individual and group disputes within the community as well as helping with funeral arrangements for underprivileged families and for those who did not have families.
Times have changed since then; the needs of the
immigrants, new and old alike, have changed also. Now they need help in
learning English, getting health care, reporting taxes, and applying for social
benefits and naturalization for them and their parents. The CCBA continues to
aid immigrants with their current obstacles.
To protect and further the welfare of Chinese Americans, all CCBAs of America joined together to form the National Chinese Welfare Council, which was originally founded in 1957 in Washington, DC. The council worked zealously and tirelessly with the White House, State Department, Senator Edward Kennedy, Congress, the immigration department, and the news media. After many months of hard work and many setbacks, the council finally succeeded in raising the immigration quota from two hundred per year to forty thousand per year; almost all Chinese immigrants who arrived after 1977 are the beneficiaries of this great feat.
Yeni was central to the effort to stabilize CCBA
development. She is enormously impressive—a charismatic leader who is respected
communitywide. She is also a good friend and fun to be around—witty and
refreshingly direct, whether we’re sharing the stage or a private meal. Yeni
Wong is one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the CCBA and Chinatown, not
only in business but in philanthropy too.
The two restaurants she owns (Happy Luck and Chinatown Garden) have helped many employees achieve their aspirations of owning their own homes and retiring with security. As a philanthropist, she seeks out the most promising ideas on a wide variety of issues. Yeni has also helped spur an artistic renaissance in Chinatown. It’s hard to say whether Yeni has done more good for the community through her work in business or philanthropy—and that’s saying an awful lot about both.
Knowing the woman as well as experiencing her exuberance
and dazzle up close are as delightful as the person herself. Her wit would be
intimidating if not for her natural and infectious charm. Somehow she is as
generous, collaborative, and lovable as she is innovative and brilliant. Behind
her soft-spoken demeanor and Chinese manners are a focused fearlessness that
comes from deep personal conviction. Yeni is committed to doing the right
thing, in the right way, at the right time, and for the right reasons.
Yeni Wong’s ideas have shaped some of the key points of Taiwan-America studies. A think tank that she founded in 2015 was established to provide a venue in Washington for the study of the relations between United States and Taiwan and increasing mutual understanding. As Taiwan’s role in Asian and global affairs continues to grow, ITAS is charting a new direction to define a strategic agenda for the US-Taiwanese relationship. ITAS is a unique platform to raise consciousness of US-Taiwanese policy issues in a bilateral, regional, and global context.
As an activist, Yeni is a pioneer. She and the
organization that she heads, the Institute for Taiwan-America Studies (ITAS),
have been campaigning to facilitate better interaction and exchange between
Taiwan and the United States by carrying out academic research projects and
academic activities as well as strengthening dialogue with American
universities, research institutions, the media, and private and governmental
organizations.
Yeni has also consistently opposed the kind of dogmatic
propaganda that blamed Washington or Beijing for troubled bilateral relations.
Instead, she has advocated policies that focused
on the studies on Taiwan’s quest for greater participation in the international
community, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), International Civil Aviation
Organization (ICAO), International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol), and
others. Hers is a voice that urgently needs to be heard in the national capital
to facilitate better interaction and exchange between Taiwan and the United
States.
Passionate and fearless, Yeni has also become a
full-fledged entrepreneur:; she
shares her stories and others onin her
publications. She collaborated with business owners to benefit the development
of Chinatown projects. She supports young women learning to code, all while
continuing her long-standing leadership with the AAA-Fund to benefit new
generations of Asian Americans. As a community leader, a businessperson,
a young philanthropist, and a force on social media, she doesn’t just connect
with her generation—she leads it, inspiring young women around the community to
become the women they want to be, just as she has done so beautifully.
I admire Yeni Wong’s vision of an interconnected world
where all people have a chance to make the most of their talents. Yeni is
curious, ambitious, thoughtful, and open-minded, and she has
a big heart. She is willing to learn and grow, and Yeni cares deeply about
fixing the inequities she sees in Chinatown. She has inspired people around the
Asian community by creating the AAA-Fund and committing most of her wealth to
taking on challenges such as improving education, connecting people, and building strong communities.
Changing Chinatown once was not enough for her. I can’t wait to see what she’ll
do in the decades to come.
How fine that, in my lifetime, I’m witnessing such an inspiration for the older generation; that is the wisdom we baby boomers have. Yeni is a lady from Taiwan who knows her true Chinese roots and orbits in a galaxy all her own. On top of that, she is talented, hardworking, socially conscious, salty, charming, and raucous!
As mentioned before, Yeni Wong is something of a visionary. She sees that while there are many good causes and pressing problems, ultimately our chance of thriving as a species depends on tending and feeding the precious flame of knowledge. At the core of her vision is a sense of scale as well as a deep respect for the community and for human beings.
Her investments take the long-term view, with a focus on
shifting the culture toward being more committed to the community she deeply
loves as well as to the virtues of curiosity and reason. Yeni supports fundamental
but underfunded quests such as helping people in the
community on a path to development. She takes on long-shot projects that may
take decades but, if they succeed, will transform the future of DC’s Chinatown.
I have the greatest respect for her courage and commitment
to truth. The courage that she displays is helping challenge communities to
change. I am so pleased that she has fulfilled her dreams and that she is now
helping the new generation do the same. Yeni is a philanthropist so supremely confident
yet incredibly humble, so systematic in her approach yet so
generous in her giving. Yeni Wong exemplifies everything that’s great about
communities. She is the epitome of the ideal Chinese American woman.
That’s not just the story of Yeni Wong. That’s the story
of Chinese Americans.