I am a lucky immigrant!

Yu-Chi Larry Ho

I left home at the age of 15 to finish my high school in 1949 at a British run boarding school in Hongkong during the midst of the Chinese Civil War. At that time I began to show some aptitude in science and mathematics. The name of MIT in the US became known to me as a good science technology university. I
decided on my own to inquire about admission and applied. To everyone’s surprise, an admission letter came in the spring of 1950. With a small trust fund given by my Father and my Mother’s sacrifice to send her only child 8000 miles away to the US, I arrive in Boston alone and friendless on 9/1950.

On arriving Boston alone without help and alone in a strange country, I was lucky to find a most helpful taxi driver help me to settle into the MIT campus Cambridge, MA and thus begin my adventure in the US and live the American Dream for the next 74 years.

In the early 50s, persons of Chinese ethnicity are subject to the restricted immigration quota of 105 persons/year from anywhere in the world. When I rushed through MIT undergraduate in three years due to limited funding, I was under the threat of deportation and must return to China. However, The 1953
Refugee Relief Act passed by the Congress for East European country citizens behind the Iron Curtain of USSR Soviet domination came to my rescue. Since China, my home country, was similarly communist controlled. The wording of the congressional act did not specify that only East Europeans are allowed to apply. Thus I receive my green card in 1955 when I received my masters degree from MIT and were able to apply of employment.

I choose to work in Detroit at the research Laboratory of Bendix Aviation Corporation at a lower salary than my other job offers because my potential boss was also a MIT graduate and my senior fraternity brother and mentor , a Chinese American, also worked there. This was a very fortunate choice. My three years of full time work there (1955-1958) resulted in four patents to my name and exposure in the National magazine LIFE about my work which later on helped to promote my career.
In 1958 I wanted to return to MIT for Ph.D graduate study but was discriminated for admission due a quota on Chinese students then existing in the particular MIT department at that time. I came to my second choice, Harvard, to begin my Ph.D. study. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise. See Below.
Because of my green card status, I was drafted in 1958. Had my physical and told to report for duty to the US Army. But luck again intervened. The Soviet Sputnik was launched into space in 1958. Similar US attempt crashed and burned on the launching pad. The country was thrown into a panic for losing the space race. My chosen field of study, decision and control, caught the eye of my draft board who wisely decided I can be more useful to work in aerospace guidance and control than serving as a private in the US Army. I was called back and deferred for military service .

At a chance encounter in passing through NYC, I met my wife, Sophia, with whom we have been married happily for 65 years, raised a family which now has four living generations and lived in Lexington MA for the past 65 years. Sophia is beautiful, intelligent, and public service minded. She has received the highest honor the town of Lexington can give to a resident, the Minuteman Cane award, the lifetime Presidential Volunteer Service award for her forty plus years of volunteer service , and the LexSeeHer banner honor. I am proud to be known and introduced in town as the husband of Sophia Ho.

I was present at the dawn of the revolution in my profession and was able to get in on the ground floor working with THE leader of the revolution at the beginning on foundational knowledge of the new field.

I co-authored an enduring textbook for the new subject and several other publications which have became citation classics of the subject and still being referenced almost everyday after 50+ years.

I am now 90 years old, retired, but write a popular blog about life in these United States and my professional experience that have scored 9 million hits by readers in 70+ countries.

I always jokingly say I lived an un-American life (not in the usual pejorative sense of the word but as not-at-all typical). Since finishing school I had one job from which I retired. I married a woman 65+ years ago to whom I am still happily married and now enjoy having four living generations (a traditional Chinese blessing). I bought and lived in one house until two years ago when we moved to this retirement community. I started with one insurance agency in 1958 with the owner until he retired and then start working with his son who also retired two years ago. I am now dealing with the third generation. I was the first client of my lawyer who retired and now his junior partner works with me. I started with my CPA for tax filing in 1961 until he was 91 years old and now his son inherited me and do my taxes. All my three children went to the same kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, high school, and university.

To paraphrase slightly the Frank Sinatra signature song, I say with sincerity and all the gratitude only an immigrants is privileged to experience about his adopted country – “regrets I have a few but then again too few to mention . . . I lived my American Dream and did it my way”

For more of my life stories and experiences, one can consult the link to my blog
https://blog.sciencenet.cn/home.php?mod=space&uid=1565&do=blog&id=274536