Here’a fascinating factoid. The first Chinese American to graduate from an American University received his degree in 1854 from Yale College.
According to a blog in the Yale Daily News, his name was Yung Wing.
Wing had become a naturalized citizen in 1852 and organized the Chinese Educational Mission. The group sent hundreds of Chinese students to the US during the 19th century.
He donated his collection of Chinese classical text to the Yale Library on one condition. That the University establish a professorship in Chinese studies. It was an offer Yale initially turned down, but only agreed to after he threatened to give his collection to Harvard.
Yale History professor Peter Perdue is pushing the university to name a college after Wing. You can read why in the Yale Daily News.
