Fin Qi

Historical Record of Chinese Americans | Qian Xuesen – Under the Shadow of McCarthyism

Qian Xuesen(Hsue-Shen Tsien) was a Chinese engineer and physicist who contributed to aerodynamics and rocket science in the United States. Recruited from MIT, he joined Theodore von Karman’s group at Caltech. In the 1950s, the US government accused him of communist sympathies and stripped of his security clearance. He was forced to return to China, but was detained at Terminal Island, near Los Angeles for over 10 days. After spending five years under the fight between the deportation order and house arrest, he was released in 1955 in exchange for the repatriation of American pilots who had been captured during the Korean War. Upon his return to China, he made important contributions to China’s missile and space program.

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Historical Record of Chinese Americans | Wong Kim Ark and Citizenship: Right of the Soil and Right of the Blood

United States citizenship law is founded on two traditional principles – “jus soli” (“right of the soil”) and “jus sanguinis” (“right of the blood”). A person born in the United States who is subject to the jurisdiction of the United States is a U.S. citizen at birth. However, this was not true more than 100 years ago. As a pioneer of Chinese immigrants in this country, Wong Kim Ark obtained his citizenship by challenging the U.S. law through “right of the soil” and later helped his sons (including one “Paper Son”) become U.S. citizens through “right of the blood”.

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