Satchel Tsai
Fall 2022
“Life is always better if you can communicate, interact, and love one another.”
Wrapping holiday presents at a busy department store; housekeeping for a wealthy couple; picking chrysanthemum buds in a low chair at the crack of dawn. These are some of the odd jobs May picked up when she first arrived in the United States.
“I came with my father and 2 brothers. We came as a refugee through the Refugee Act because the Communist China came over to China, and we had to escape to Hong Kong because of that,” she remembers.
“And then, after we stay in Hong Kong for a while, and then that’s this Refugee Act, and my father applied for it. So when he got accepted to come in, the whole family, except my sister who is already in US, came with him.”
She and her siblings were all college-aged when they entered the US, and they planned to apply for college the following year. In the meantime, May worked a variety of odd jobs, saving money to pay for college.
One of these jobs particularly impacted her. “What we did is, you know, eat there, sleep there, get up early in the morning. I think 5-something, already up,” she recalls.
“What they do usually [with] chrysanthemum, you pick up all the outside buds, but leaves the central one intact. When it grows up, the flower will be very big, very pretty. So our job is to pick up all the side buds.”
“The government always saying that immigration benefits the immigrant. To me, it’s—they benefit US as much as benefits immigrant.”
“And for 2 months in a summer we got, you know, $450, at that time that’s very, very high. $450 in 1960 probably is enough for one semester, both room and board. $400 is more than enough.”
She worked on the farm alongside her childhood friend Jane, a student at UC Berkeley who came to the US as an immigrant through the Refugee Act.
“It’s a long day, you know, sitting in a chair really low. And you know normally, you don’t have breaks except maybe go to the restroom, and so on,” she remembers.
“Yeah, it’s pretty labor-intensive-type job. But the pay is not, not bad, because we don’t need to spend a cent. So in a way that money is really good. For Jane, she told me that she worked there a year before, and earned enough to go to Berkeley. So yeah, for room and board.”
“We can talk when we work, but then, you know, it’s very intensive,” she recalls.
She remembers this period of time as a learning experience. “In a way, I think it’s really good, because in Hong Kong I never do anything at home. Then now, coming out, you really learn how to deal with life.”
“But at the same time, you know, make you really enjoy whatever you have. Because life is not easy,” she reflects.
“I would say it’s tough, but it’s a really good experience. Then, by the fall I attend Wisconsin, and so then I get to college. And after getting into college, all we need to do is just work hard, get good grades, and then life is much easier.”
After obtaining a PhD degree, she went on to pursue a Postdoctoral fellowship in biochemistry, moving to Houston to stay with her husband who had accepted a Postdoc fellowship there. Not everyone was supportive of the move.
“So my advisor told me, ‘you will have no future going to Texas,’” May recounts.
She decided to make the move anyway. Looking back, she says, “in a way, I think you know sometimes it may not work in the most famous person’s lab, but if you work hard, you are interested in what that person’s doing—in the end, you don’t have to work with someone very well established, because you are the one drive yourself, create a path for your own.”
“As long as you have a purpose, have a goal, work toward your goal, and you will make it. So despite you know, many people think that we made the wrong choice to come to Texas, at the end of the day I think it’s not too bad.”
In discussing her career achievements, she emphasizes her identity as an immigrant.
“So I would say for our life–yeah, as an immigrant we do contribute to society overall,” she says.
“Being in academic, we teach other students, we educate them. And then we publish papers. I think we published more than 300-some papers, many of them are, you know, important papers. Drug companies can use the concept and technology that we develop to create and develop drugs for, you know, curing disease and so on.”
She emphasizes the way she has contributed, not just in her own findings, but in training and mentoring others.
“I would say, long-term-wise, we do create opportunity for other people as well, because, you know, being in the academic world, you educate other people and they go back, some go back home and educate more. Some of them stay in the US, and they do well, they become, you know, Chairmen and all other different positions, and assume different responsibilities in their career.”
Although she has been incredibly successful, she believes that as an immigrant, her language skills have hindered her career.
“Although as immigrants, maybe our language skill is not as good, so we do not get recognized as much. But you know, it’s okay. I think whether you get glory or not doesn’t matter as long as you like what you do. That will make your life happy.”
Overall, she says, the academic field has been welcoming to her. “Let me put it that way,” she says.
“I think the discrimination is subtle. Like your promotion may be a little bit slower as compared to others, but is not very obvious.”
“Yeah, but I know that in some places, we have friends in some other school, in different departments. They are discriminated against more. So those are not the same everywhere.”
Sometimes, she worries about the direction in which the US is headed.
“We need to try to understand the other people trying to put ourselves in other people’s shoes, then you’ll be able to judge, and you know, and do things accordingly.
To me, US nowadays is getting more and more isolated, and getting more racist.”
“I’m actually very disappointed in the more recent incidents,” she confirms.
“And should not be, you know, looking down at people as all immigrants coming here as thieves, gangsters. That’s really misconception about human nature. Yeah, I think we need to be more inclusive,” she says.
She takes issue with the claim that immigrants are the only ones who benefit from being in the US.
“Overall, immigrants help US in many different ways,” she says.
“For example, the recent technology for the development of COVID vaccines, and the Zoom technology for communication are both developed by immigrants. This benefits the US tremendously during the pandemic.”
The relationship between the US and immigrants, she says, is a reciprocal one.
“The government always saying that immigration benefits the immigrant. To me, it’s—they benefit US as much as benefits immigrant.”
When asked if, after over fifty years in the US, she considers herself American, she says, “I would say I’ve become more and more American.”
Her allegiance now, she says, is more to America than to Hong Kong.
“I’ve been here long enough, everything I consider here as my own country” she says. “So that’s why I’m active in election and all those things.”
Having changed so much since she’s moved to America, she no longer feels like she really fits into the culture back home.
“When I go back to China, I feel like a strange. In many ways, I’m different. I’m more outspoken than in China, and I would voice, I would say, I would voice my opinion more than in China,” she says.
In China and Hong Kong, she says, “you had to be much more formal and polite.”
“And I think I’m not as formal. And also, sometimes in Hong Kong and in Asia, eastern country in general, even the thing you see is wrong, you’re not supposed to say out loud,” she says.
“So I will say, I’m much more honest to myself.”
There are some aspects of Chinese culture, however, that she hopes to maintain and pass down to her children.
“We are much more family oriented,” she says of Chinese people.
“So we have, as a big family, you know, we are much more interactive, much more inclusive. I think in US, a lot of family lacks that family foundation that we have in China, because our cousin, relatives there, we are much more close together.”
“I think in US is much more individualized. So to me, having a family, the unit as a family is important. In Asia, a lot of people, you know, when they get old, they have the younger people to lean on. Which in the US I don’t think they do.”
She worries about the lack of strong family connections among Americans.
“I think in US is much more individualized. So to me, having a family, the unit as a family is important. In Asia, a lot of people, you know, when they get old, they have the younger people to lean on. Which in the US I don’t think they do,” she says.
“So you find out, it’s very common for the aging seniors to live with their kids. And if not with the kids, with their relatives. So they always had someone close by to bond with them, so they don’t feel so lonesome. You have more fun, and you have more close people you can talk to.”
She hopes that in the future, Americans will be able to experience this closeness not just within their families, but as a nation united across boundaries of race and country of origin.
“Life is always better if you can communicate, interact, and love one another.”