Hong Yen Chang: The First Chinese Lawyer in the U.S.

By Fanny Wong, New York

In 1872, thirteen-year-old Hong Yen Chang was sad and excited when he boarded a ship on a twenty-five days journey to the United States. Born in either 1859 or 1860, he had seldom left his village in Heungshan in South China.

He was an exceptional student and was chosen to be one of the first of 30 boys to study in the United States. The plan of the Chinese government was to educate 120 young Chinese boys, all expenses paid, to acquire technical knowledge from the West. They were known as the Chinese Educational Mission students.

When Hong Yen Chang arrived in bustling San Francisco, he marveled at the six-storied buildings. Heat came out of radiators in the hotel that was not made of mud with paper windows. Water came out of the faucet. Riding the elevator up and down was fun.

Yen Chang noted that the men in San Francisco wore tight pants and form-fitting jackets. He wore maroon robes with blue silk coats and round, small hats. His footwear was a plain padded slipper, whereas the western footwear was laced shoes.

He and the other boys were amazed at the hundreds of people in and out of the San Francisco train depot. They called the trains “fire-cars.” They would eventually ride a train from Sacramento, California, all the way across America, to New England.

The Chinese Education Mission found foster families for the boys, and made arrangements with schools. The curiosity of the town citizens was not always comfortable for Yen Cheng. At first, he laughed it off, but then he was chased by American kids/youth. And the ogling by adults made him conscious of his queue.

The Mission moved to Hartford, Connecticut, where the Chinese had a supportive community. Foster families made great efforts in teaching the youngsters language and customs. The Mission allowed the boys to wear Western clothes, and to tuck their queues beneath their jackets. (During the Qing Dynasty from 1644 to 1911, by decree Chinese men grew their hair long and braided it into a queue.) In their new outfits, the boys looked less like foreigners.

Yen Chang picked up English at a fast pace. He soon learned that speed, strength and dexterity were desirable in America, whereas these qualities were deemed inappropriate for scholars in China.   

Exercise, and a rich diet of protein and carbohydrates did wonders for the boys’ health. (In China, most of them ate mainly rice, with an occasional piece of chicken, if they were lucky). Soon, they were strong enough to play team sports with American youth. They had uniforms and tucked their queues underneath their caps when they played baseball. They took to football as well.

Studying hard was the boys’ primary duty. Yen Chang, like the others, ranked at the top of his classes. Although he was encouraged to fit in, the Mission was against Americanization of the boys. He was required to study Chinese for at least an hour each day. Every three months, the boys spent two weeks at the Mission’s headquarters to receive instruction in their native language and literature.

The boys adjusted socially as well. They attended dances and receptions and were sought out by girls to be their dancing partner. But they were constantly reminded they were to be standard bearers of a new China. Their purpose in life was to bring technical skills to their country.

Meanwhile, there was concern in the Chinese Royal Court that these boys were susceptible to foreign influences, and were immersed in the Western culture. So the mission was closed even when there were over 60 Chinese students still enrolled at Yale, M.I.T, Columbia, Harvard and other technical schools. Of these, only two received their degrees before the Mission was recalled. The others were just beginning their technical training.

In August 1881, Yen Chang was among the first group of 22 boys to leave Hartford. A train took them to San Francisco, and he boarded a ship back to China. He was now 22 years old, and he was determined that he’d return to America as soon as possible to resume his studies.  

Upon his return to China, after a brief reunion with his mother, the government enrolled him in the naval school in Tientsin. He was not happy with the monotony of the school. He was used to Western training and attitude and he found the old style of the officers stifling. He obtained a release and was free to plan his future.

His brother was a merchant in Honolulu, Hawaii. With his small savings and the help of friends, he departed from the port city of Shanghai for Hawaii in 1882. There, he worked in a law office for a year. But his ambition was to become better educated in law.

In 1883, he managed to enroll at the Columbia Law School and received a law degree three years later at the age of 27. A newspaper reported that his “abilities in legal investigation” were among the finest in his class. By then had cut off his queue, having decided that he’d not be going back to China. 

The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act dashed his ambition and hope of being admitted to the New York Bar along with his classmates. Citizenship was required, and he was not a citizen. So, in 1887, he reapplied to the bar after a New York judge issued him a naturalization certificate that granted him citizenship. He became the only Chinese lawyer in the United States.  

Still, he faced more barriers when he applied for admission to the bar in California. He presented his New York law license along with his certificate of naturalization to the California State Bar. But it rejected his application based on the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, a law passed by Congress that prohibited the naturalization of Chinese persons. The California Constitutional Convention in 1879, in the midst of anti-Chinese sentiment, had further restricted the rights of Chinese residents.

With diligence and persistence, Yen Chang decided against appealing the decision and went on to become an advisor at the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco and later became a banker. He married Charlotte Ah Tye in 1897. 

He eventually served as the Chinese consul in Vancouver and first secretary at the Chinese Delegation in Washington. His last position, before his death from a heart attack in 1926, was the director of Chinese naval students in Berkeley, California.

The denial of admission to Yen Chang remained as a published opinion of the California Supreme Court. But notable changes have been made since then. In 1972, it held that exclusion of non-citizens violated the equal protection clauses of the state and federal constitutions. In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court followed suit.

In 2015, the California Supreme Court, posthumously and unanimously, granted Yen Chang as an attorney and counselor at law in all courts in the state of California. It also acknowledged that the discriminatory exclusion Yen Chang suffered was wrongful. 

       When Yen Chang left China at age thirteen, he could not have foreseen that he’d become a pioneer for a more inclusive legal profession in the United States.

Author’s Note:
I learned about the boys who went to Yale from the book, “My Life in China and America” by Yung Wing, one of the Yale boys. Further research found the book, “Bury My Bones in America” by Lani Ah Tye Parkas. I read an excerpt about Yen Chang and saw the historical photos of his. I have always been fascinated by faces and I found his face as a young and middle-aged man impressive. A calm face exuding intelligence and competence. I would like to know him as a friend.

Art by Makayla Liu, age 12, Vancouver, Canada. She adds: “I’ve loved drawing since I was a child, and in the future I hope to work in a field related to drawing or character design.”