Yung Wing (1828-1912) was the first Chinese person to graduate from an American college.
Wing was born in southern China in 1828. He was the son of poor farmers who decided to send him to a missionary school to improve his life's prospects.
Wing was sponsored by an American missionary who operated schools in China to come to America to study.
Wing graduated from Yale in 1854 and returned to China. He had difficulty securing employment for some time. In 1872, he helped from the Chinese Education Mission that allowed Chinese students to study in the U.S.
Wing married a white American woman in 1875 with whom he had two children.
In all, the Chinese Education Mission allowed 120 Chinese students to travel to and study in the U.S. The program lasted 9 years.
Wing had to flee China when a coup brought the Empress Dowager CiXi to power. His U.S. citizenship had been revoked but he managed to sneak back into the country. He died penniless and is buried in a Connecticut graveyard.--Heidi Durrow
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mixed Experience History Month is the annual blog post series created by The New York Times best-selling author Heidi Durrow celebrating the history of the Mixed experience. Established in 2007, Mixed Experience History Month is an effort to highlight the long history of folks and events involved in the Mixed experience. Please look for more profiles of people, places and events of the Mixed experience every weekday of May at Lightskinned-ed Girl, the blog! Thanks for reading. And check out some of the previous year's profiles: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013. Copyright 2014.
