Yeni Wong’s own story is an inspiration because she overcame almost every obstacle that a person might face. She is an icon to the people of Chinatown in Washington, DC, because of her commitment to help those who have faced similar obstacles. I, therefore, salute a friend and a role model.
Yeni was born to a politically prominent family in southern China during the Communist Revolution, and her family moved to Taiwan when she was only about a year old. She came to America in 1967 to study chemistry when she was twenty-one and moved to Washington from California in 1980. Her husband had gotten a job with the Environmental Protection Agency, and she went to work at the Agriculture Department’s research facility in Greenbelt, Maryland.
For no reason other than a curiosity about business, she spent $40,000 from the proceeds of the sale of their house in the overinflated San Francisco –area real-estate market to buy a Gulf service station in Riverdale, Maryland, naming her company Riverdale after its location.. “Everyone told me buying a business was just like buying a house,” she said. “So I thought, Why not?”
Noticing that the station’s mechanic bought auto parts made in Taiwan, she decided to import them herself. Two big reasons for that decision, she recalled, were that she could visit her family in Taiwan on business trips, and, because of the time difference, she could do business by telephone in the evening, after working at the Agriculture Department lab.
On one of Yeni’s trips to Taiwan, a cousin in the food business asked her to be his company’s representative in Washington. So Riverdale diversified into the food-importing business, selling canned bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, lychee, and the and the like to distributors here, eventually filling a forty-thousand-square-foot warehouse in Greenbelt with its merchandise.
In 1989, eager to build ties with Chinatown, Wong became a shareholder in the Golden Palace in DC Chinatown. At the time, she said, the restaurant was run-down, losing money, and deeply in debt. It had been losing its customer base to the suburbs, and the owners were reluctant to spend money to try to revive—or even maintain—the business, she recalled.
Later that year, she took it over by assuming $330,000 in debt, even though she knew nothing about running a restaurant. With proceeds from the gas station, which she sold in 1985, and the food-import business, she made repairs, hired a Chinese chef from New York, and started making money within a year. She retired the debt within the first three years.
It seems there is no aspect of Yeni’s life that won’t start an argument: from her choice of hairstyles to her decision to lease Gallery Court, from her increasingly active role in politics to her decision to take on an even grander project. And yet, as she campaigned to become chairperson of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association (CCBA) of Washington, DC, the first woman to have a serious shot at winning the position of Chinatown mayor often introduced herself this way: “I may be the most famous woman you don’t really know in Chinatown.”
Whether what we know of Yeni Wong is impression or reality, it gives her both an advantage and a burden unlike that of any other community leader. Her gender is the least of it. As the first female mayor of Chinatown, she has always been a more moderate and pragmatic community leader than either her admirers or her detractors believed.
Yeni and I have something in common in addition to having served at the Taiwan Benevolent Association of America and the Institute for Taiwan-America Studies.
Yeni and I have something in common in addition to having served at the Taiwan Benevolent Association of America and the Institute for Taiwan-America Studies.
We both occasionally allow caution to be overwhelmed by our enthusiasm for an idea, with resultant community- relations consequences. One wonders what Yeni was thinking when she decided she wanted to build a more contemporary restaurant. When the White House’s staff asked her not to do it, she would have gained points by cooperating. Take it from one speaker to another: too much enthusiasm has consequences.
Still, Yeni is and will always be a community figure. She is the first woman ever to become a successful entrepreneur in Chinatown—and she earned it. She spent years back in her community as an enthusiastic activist and fundraiser. When she became the owner of multiple buildings in the heart of Chinatown, she rose through the ranks by being a hardworking, smart, and disciplined professional. No one should underestimate how much time, effort, and courage she put into her career.
It is said over and over, but it is always true that young people are the future. Yeni shared our views that our community’s gains would be nullified if we did not properly educate our children and youth. She obviously recognized this potential. The Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association (CCBA) is therefore a wonderfully appropriate gift to Chinese Americans, one that will endure over many lifetimes.
When I went to the training class of the CCBA, I looked at the shining faces of these young women and thought that every one of them hads the potential to be a Yeni Wong. The CCBA is important because it changes the trajectory of these girls’ lives, and it brightens the future for all women in America.
When I went to the training class of the CCBA, I looked at the shining faces of these young women and thought that every one of them hads the potential to be a Yeni Wong. The CCBA is important because it changes the trajectory of these girls’ lives, and it brightens the future for all women in America.
Yeni has always understood that in America, Asian female immigrants have often been disadvantaged. They have had the curse of low expectations and unequal opportunities. She is a model for all of them—and for all of us—of what one person can do to make a difference in the lives of others. That is why I always consider her to be one of my heroines.
Yeni knows who she is and always remembers where she came from. As an immigrant, Yeni experienced personally what it is like when citizens are denied equal rights because of their skin color. She recalled that from 1910 to 1940, Chinese immigrants were detained and interrogated at Angel Island immigration station in San Francisco Bay.
“US officials hoped to deport as many as possible by asking obscure questions about Chinese villages and family histories that immigrants would have trouble answering correctly,” Yeni told me in a choked voice. “Men and women were housed separately. Detainees spent much of their time in the barracks, languishing between interrogations. The immigrants expressed their fears and frustrations through messages and poems written or carved into barrack walls. Immigrants were detained weeks, months, sometimes even years. In 1999, I was appointed by First Lady Mrs. Clinton to lead a Save America’s Treasures committee to ‘honor the past, create the future’ by restarting the Angel Island immigration station.”
While she and I don’t always agree politically, I admire her courage as well as many of her values and accomplishments. She balances her active community role with devotion to her family, friends, and community. And she makes time to stay in touch with her Taiwanese roots.
Aristotle said there is no action without desire, for it is desire that causes us to act. An individual’s actions, therefore, reveal much about what, quite literally, moves him or her. When looking at the actions of Yeni Wong, it is clear that she is moved by a profound desire to do good for others and that this desire has defined the course of her journey. It led her to become the first successful entrepreneur and, since 2002, a tireless advocate for advancing the social, political, and economic well-being of all Asian Pacific Americans in the United States.
Many people see Yeni as a loner. I think it’s because she’s ahead of everyone else. Proud of her Chinese heritage, she wants to revamp and modernize the image of Chinatown businesses . Yeni’s desire, conviction, and personal charm are transforming the relationship that communities around the region have, focusing on the welfare and civil rights of Asian Pacific Americans in the United States.
“It’s America,” Wong said. “You don’t want to have a static impression of Chinese. I want to blend the cultures so people can understand each other better.” Wong began the Gallery Court project well before the neighborhood had been selected as the site for the MCI Center. Though she is spare with words, when she does speak, she is comfortable voicing bold opinions that cut against the grain. I know!
Like many of America’s most energetic entrepreneurs, Yeni is an immigrant. She left Taiwan in the sixties to seek a future in the United States. After studying chemistry at the University of Illinois at Chicago, she became a restaurateur in Chinatown. She knows good Chinese cuisine when she sees it. Yeni rose above it with a gallantry of spirit that cannot be faked. She is to be celebrated for her work, her kindness, her humor under duress, and her noble heart. Her celebrity gave her the opportunity to speak. But when she speaks, it is simply as another human being—one with unremitting passion. We need more people like Yeni—people who are willing to work hard to expose the suffering of folks in all parts of the community.
I have great respect for enthusiastic entrepreneurs and philanthropists, and Yeni Wong is a great example of both. She works hard, and every day requires courage. Yeni automatically became an influential person by virtue of her extraordinary bravery, which I hope will encourage and inspire other young Chinese American woman.
Whoopi Goldberg’s story is similar to Yeni’s. She has said, “I am the American Dream. I am the epitome of what the American Dream basically said. It said you could come from anywhere and be anything you want in this country. That’s exactly what I’ve done. I am where I am because I believe in all possibilities.”
Most remarkably, Yeni’s story is far from finished. Yeni is a woman of conviction, intelligence, and peace. I deeply respect her. I like being around her, and I know that long after we have both exited the community stage, we’ll still be friends. She sends a message to every Chinese American woman who dreams of going up against the odds: You can do it too.