5 days ago
What My Six Decades in America Taught Me
I immigrated to America on June 6, 1965, from Taiwan, carrying with me big dreams and expectations, mingled with fears of the unknown. I was 17, and it was at the height of the Vietnam War. A year later, I enlisted in the Air Force and instead of being sent to the frontlines, I was deployed to England for three years to do aircraft maintenance.
Coming home from military service, I saw an America that was full of opportunities. I spent a year working on Wall Street but was drawn to public service, which landed me in the New York City Department of City Planning as an economic development researcher.
While in that job, I also moonlighted as a writer for a Chinese-language newspaper, where I noticed that many Asian American small businesses were confined to small ethnic enclaves, competing among themselves. Asian American professionals working for major corporations were trapped in their jobs and regarded as good workers but not managers.
U.S. flags flying in the wind are pictured.
U.S. flags flying in the wind are pictured.
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The small businesses lacked political clout and unity, making it difficult to get the attention of the government for resources and support. Many of the professionals were short on social skills and further hampered by cultural barriers that prevented them from rising to leadership positions.
And yet, it was a time of profound societal change. During the 1970s and 1980s, I witnessed America's convulsions: civil rights marches, Vietnam War protests, and the rise of technology. These influenced me to be involved in community, social and civic affairs, and to take actions to affect changes in my community. I wanted to expand Asian enterprises into broader markets and create opportunities with other communities. I wanted to raise the representation of Asian American professionals in corporate leadership.
This became the catalyst for the work of the Asian American Business Development Center (AABDC), which I founded in 1994 to be a bridge between Asian American corporate professionals and entrepreneurs to the larger society and to foster better integration of Asian Americans into mainstream society by deepening mutual understanding and collaboration.
For decades, I believed in the alchemy of participation—I showed up at city council meetings, lobbied for fair lending policies, drafted proposals for minority business grants, and sat on boards where I was the only Asian American.
Together with like-minded allies across the color spectrum, we worked for better representation in corporate boardrooms, pushed for equitable access to capital, and created programs to help Asian-owned businesses expand beyond ethnic niches. For decades, we worked with the belief that America was slowly, painfully, but inevitably moving toward inclusion.
And then—the backlash. Just as we began to see the fruits of our labor—more Asian American executives, more cross-cultural business partnerships, more recognition of our community's contributions—the political winds shifted. Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), once framed as moral imperatives, were suddenly branded as divisive. Policies we championed were dismantled under the guise of "colorblindness," as if decades of exclusion could be erased by pretending race didn't matter. Politicians who once paid lip service to multiculturalism now stoked fears of Asian Americans as "perpetual foreigners" or threats to "American values" and even to national security.
This is more than disappointment. But disappointment does not mean defeat. The AABDC's work continues, not because the path is easy, but because it is necessary. I have spent 60 years in this country—40 of them fighting for a seat at the table. I will not now, at this stage of my life, let that table be overturned. I know there are others from all corners of society who feel the same, but perhaps are being silenced by the winds of change.
I'm far from my 17-year-old self. But I still have big dreams and expectations, and a belief that this is still a land of opportunity for everyone. We belonged then. We belong now.
John Wang is the founder and president of the Asian American Business Development Center (AABDC), which promotes recognition of Asian American professionals, entrepreneurs, and business leaders. AABDC bridges cultures, drives economic opportunity, and connects U.S. and Asian businesses.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
