There is a famous quote at the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” And there is a less famous inscription on a stone at the immigration station on Angel Island in San Francisco Bay. It describes the legacy of the facility there. It says, “Angel Island came to symbolize discrimination and exclusion instead of welcome.”
Thousands of immigrants and refugees were detained on Angel Island in the years when laws severely restricted immigration to the United States on the basis of race and class. Thousands of people passed through the Angel Island immigration station to become Americans. “Some of them became wildly successful in this country,” said Michael McKechnie, executive director of the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation, “but nearly all contributed to American life.”
One morning in 1998, as Yeni Wong watched Hillary Clinton talk on the Today Show about preserving America’s historic treasures, an idea popped into Yeni’s head: Gget the First Lady interested in the decrepit Angel Island immigration station. That’s was easier said than done, but through Yeni's persistence and skillful political networking, the former First Lady’s chief of staff, Bobbie Greene, consented to include Angel Island in the Save America’s Treasures committee.
Clinton spotlighted the dilapidated immigration station on Angel Island as one of America’s treasures. “So many individual stories make up America’s story,” she said. “We want to do everything we can to make sure every American story is part of American history. So many layers of history can be found at Angel Island.” They include the processing of immigrants who crossed the Pacific, “looking for a better life on our shores.”
Clinton noted that the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was “a sad chapter in our nation’s history,.” andShe said that the incredible ordeal of those detained at the station was a great burden, and that burden should be remembered.
Yeni and her colleagues at the nonprofit Save America’s Treasures have worked for years to bring attention to the place. For them, the fFirst lLady’s backing was a high point.
“It means a great deal to us to have Mrs. Clinton’s support,” said Yeni.
Save America’s Treasures, an organization intent on maintaining the country’s cultural sites, has made a priority of the Angel Island station entry point. The center launched a campaign to create a public museum on the site. Promised funding includes a five-year financial commitment from the Washington, DC, chapter of Save America’s Treasures led by committee member Yeni Wong. (Wong has pledged $100,000 in support of the Angel Island regatta, a fundraiser event.)
Yeni Wong has always displayed extraordinary resilience and intelligence in addressing the toughest of issues. Her governance style is an unusual combination of humanity and solid leadership. She is gentle and accessible, yet also strong and determined. As she has said, she is “just another Chinese woman who works, cares for her house, and goes to the supermarket.” But she is also “a woman with a calling for investing in the preservation of America’s threatened cultural and historic treasures, including fundraising efforts to ensure careful restoration of Angel Island immigration station.”
Occasionally in American society, a place that captivates us and provides a vivid snapshot of who we are and the changing times in which we live emerges. In her role as a Save America’s Treasures committee member and unflappable society fixer, Yeni Wong has used her grace and vibrant magnetism to transcend race and to provide a new mainstream media lens through which to view modern immigration and ethical excellence.
Through her efforts to preserve Angel Island, Yeni has offered up a fresh new archetype for what it means to lead while combining courage and compassion, strength and vulnerability, passion, sympathy, and unfailing reconciliation. It is a role that makes full use of her distinctive talent for drawing from the great American society with such authenticity that we often forget she is leading.
Yeni’s work with the President’s Committee on on Save America’s Treasures is also a source of deep inspiration, using her inherent wisdom to close achievement gaps and ignite passion among races. In a world that too often tells women to choose between womanhood and success, between femininity and a seat at the head of the table, both in the spotlight and out, Yeni Wong embodies the promise that lives in all races to shape their own destinies and succeed as “gladiators” for the causes in which they believe.
Yeni is, without a doubt, one of the most influential community leaders of modern Chinatown. But hers is the kind of influence measured not only in money and customers earned, but also in people inspired and characters formed. After her decades at the pinnacle of Chinatown real estate, her progeny fills the community’s greatness firmament. She is a role model for all everyone else who wants to make a difference.
Although I have known Yeni since 1997, I became better acquainted with her in 2010, thanks to her support for the Taiwan Benevolent Association of America. This connection led to an opportunity to attend the board meeting in various cities throughout the United States.
Over the next several years, I learned quite a bit about Yeni, the organization she joined, and the common threads that expand all services for our folks from Taiwan and fight for the rights of ethnic Chinese in the United States. They also promote economic trade and cultural exchange between Taiwan and the United States to help further diplomatic and overseas compatriot affairs in support of Taiwan.
The word “visionary” is lofty, overused, and somewhat abused. There are few people who can really see something that doesn’t exist. Create it. Explain it. And get others to follow. Yeni is, in fact, that visionary. I am highly moved by her vision and her strong passion for community.
I remember Yeni Wong telling me early on how badly she wanted to earn her place in our community. It was 1997, and she had just become the first chairperson of CCBA.
Fast-forward to 2016.1997. Not only has she earned her place, but she’s also raised the bar: she’s a prolific community worker, a trendsetter, and a philanthropist. But it’s her decency as a person that is so impressive. She’s an advocate for causes such as animal rights and the Red Cross. She has publicly challenged lawmakers when she’s disagreed with them and covered controversial issues in her public speech.
Yeni Wong is an inspirational example of what community leaders need to be. Her work on community revitalization and the protection of human rights and equality speaks for itself. As a Washington Chinatown community leader, with her ability to speak truth to power and to address revitalization in high places, Yeni has been outstanding.
She is fiercely intelligent; everyone wants to work with her. I couldn’t be prouder to work for her. So many young girls want to be just like her. In that sense, I see hope for the world. If I had a daughter, nothing would make me happier than to hear her say she wanted to grow up to be like Yeni Wong.
When she first ran for the mayor of Chinatown in Washington, DC, I thought that race was impossible to win, but she never gave up, and she did it. She has taken that same bright, tenacious spirit I saw in her as a café worker, then as a restaurant worker, and then as a real-estate agent, serving her folks in Chinatown and fighting hard on issues such as the rights of ethnic Chinese in the United States. On the other hand, she also works to promote economic trade and cultural exchange between Taiwan and the United States and to help further diplomatic and overseas compatriot affairs in support of Taiwan. Don’t ever underestimate her. She can go as far as she likes. If Yeni wants to be a rock star, she’ll be a rock star. But she’dshe makes a great community leader. When she draws a line in the sand, everyone knows not to cross it.
Today, Angel Island State Park is owned and managed by the California State Parks Department. The Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation works to educate the public about Pacific Coast immigration. The Save America’s Treasures grant assisted with the earliest restoration efforts and stabilization of a building that is historically significant for its role in Asian immigration to the United States from the Pacific Rim countries.
“This part of American history is worth preserving,” Wong said.