Getting out, Left Behind: The Life of a Stranded Chinese Scholar and Her Daughter (Li Yourong and Yiling Yourong) (Biography‪)‬

When the Communists took control of the Chinese mainland in 1949, there were approximately five thousand Chinese students studying in universities in the United States. Since all of them had left China while it was under the control of the Nationalist Chinese government of Chiang Kai-shek and a number of them were even receiving educational stipends from that government, (1) the change in leadership forced all of them to reevaluate their career goals. Uppermost in their minds was the question of what they should do after finishing their educations. Should they return to China? (2) Go to Taiwan? Or should they try to remain in the United States? (3) The situation was further complicated because many had left immediate family members in China. Although Chinese students had never been completely excluded from entering by the racially exclusionary laws of the United States, there were still few ways short of marrying an American citizen that they could use to change their student status. (4) In fact the expectation had previously been that these students would return to their country of origin soon after completing their studies. (5) While a number of these students did end up returning to China, (6) many more accepted the U.S. government's grants of financial aid as well as its offer to change their status from student to permanent resident. (7) Those that took the latter step and the subsequent one of becoming American citizens have been called the stranded scholars from China. (8) While they are a small immigrant group, they have had an impact out of proportion to their numbers because of their intellectual achievements. For instance, Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yang were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. (9) Another example is An Wang, who set up a well-known computer company. (10) Many others have gone on to make significant contributions in the fields of science, medicine, and the humanities. (11) This article concerns the life of Li Yourong, a Chinese stranded scholar, and her daughter, Yiling, whom she was forced to leave behind in China. It is based largely on oral histories and personal unpublished memoirs. The story is also unusual because traditional Chinese families did not spend too much of their resources on educating girls since daughters left the family home and were not responsible for supporting their parents in their old age. In the classic Chinese American memoir Fifth Chinese Daughter, (12) this was the explanation given Jade Snow Wong by her father for refusing to support her college studies.