Betty Lee Sung

Betty Lee Sung, esteemed educator, activist, and pioneer of Chinese American studies, passed away on January 19, 2023 at the age of 98. Born in Baltimore in 1924 to Chinese immigrants, she grew up in Washington, DC where her parents operated a laundry. Defying her father's traditional values of a woman's place in the home, Betty attended the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana with a full scholarship, graduating Phi Beta Kappa with a major in economics (1948), the first college graduate from DC's Chinatown. She married a U. Illinois classmate and moved to New York City but struggled to find non-secretarial work. Sung eventually landed a job with the Voice of America writing radio scripts for the show "Chinese Activities" about Chinese living in America. Mortified by the demeaning portrayals of her people as she sought material for her scripts, even in the Library of Congress, Sung vowed to rectify this situation and began collecting source material and writing her first book "Mountain of Gold" (Macmillan, 1967), which was received with critical acclaim as one of the first serious examinations of Chinese American history and identity. In 1970, Sung established the first department of Asian American Studies in the eastern US at the City College of New York and taught as its founding professor for 22 years. She furthered her scholarly research with 7 additional books, numerous papers and journal articles, and a memoir (all books listed below). Prof. Sung obtained a Master of Library Science at Queens College, a branch of the City University of New York in 1968, and a Doctor of Philosophy from the City University Graduate Center of New York in 1986. Prof. Sung spoke 3 Chinese dialects: Mandarin, Toishanese, and Cantonese.

In addition to conducting more than four decades of sociological research within Chinese American communities, Prof. Sung has been involved in important Asian American archiving efforts. She led an effort to catalog more than 12,000 immigration records she discovered in a New Jersey warehouse. These documented the arrival of Chinese immigrants to New York as early as 1860 and filled in a missing piece of Chinese American history following the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. These records are now stored at the National Archives’ Northeast Region division in New York City at 1 Bowling Green. Sung also pushed for the creation of an Asian American Collection within the Library of Congress to ensure that those with the power to legislate could be informed by sources from the community. She has donated a trove of her personal and academic papers to MOCA.

In 1972, she married her second husband, Charles Chia Mou Chung (1918-2015) and raised their blended family in Douglaston, Queens, NY. She was proud to note that while maintaining her academic career, she was also able to raise the children from both marriages and manage most of the household responsibilities. She moved to Manhattan in 1983, and became even more active in the Chinatown community, leading rallies, meeting political leaders, and supporting Chinese American candidates for political office. After retirement, as Professor Emerita, she co-founded the City University of New York (CUNY) Asian American / Asian Research Institute (AAARI, 2001) to support research on Asian Americans and Asians. Other details of her life may be found at the New York Times obituary (tinyurl.com/bettyleesung-obit), AAARI (aaari.info/betty-lee-sung/), The Committee of 100, and the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA).

Throughout her career, Dr. Sung has been honored as a luminary in her specialty, and she has accrued accolades from the Organization of Chinese Americans, the American Library Association, the Asian American Higher Education Council, and the Museum of Contemporary Art. Moreover, she was recognized with a 1996 honorary doctorate from the State University of New York at Old Westbury and an eponymous undergraduate scholarship administered through the Asian American/Asian Research Institute and another one at her undergraduate alma mater. Prof. Sung remained active in many professional organizations, including the Cosmopolitan Lion's Club, the Committee of 100 and the Organization of Chinese Americans, among others. She was recognized in an exhibit at the Shanghai Government Exposition in 2011 and by the New York Historical Society in 2015-2016.

Dr. Sung loved to travel and visited 6 of the continents. Wherever she went, her curiosity and friendliness led her to meet and talk with the Chinese, Asians and citizens around the world and that information also helped to inform her work.

Donations may be made in honor of Prof. Sung's memory to Princeton University or MOCA. The Betty Lee Sung Fund for Asian American Studies at Princeton was established to further research on Asian Americans (check payable to Princeton Univ. with Betty Lee Sung Fund in the memo line; mail to P.O. Box 5357, Princeton Univ., Princeton NJ 08543). Dr. Sung taught at Princeton in 1990. The Betty Lee Sung Fellowship at MOCA will support graduate students to conduct research for the opening exhibit of MOCA's new museum building in 2026, featuring Prof. Sung and many other Chinese-American luminaries (link to donate on-line at mocanyc.org/mojo/dr-sung/).

Prof. Sung is survived by four children: Tina, Victor, Cynthia, and Alan Sung and six granddaughters. A funeral service will be held February 18, 2023 at the Hines-Rinaldi Funeral Home in Silver Spring, 10 a.m. visitation, 1 p.m. service. Interment at the Pinelawn Cemetery in Farmingdale, NY will take place on February 21, 1 p.m. A memorial service will be held June 11, 2023 in New York City at the Museum of Chinese in America, 215 Centre Street. Please add a memory to the Legacy.com guest book for posterity.

Books

1. Mountain of Gold (Macmillan, 1967)

2. The Story of the Chinese in America (Colliers, 1971)

3. Chinese in America (Macmillan, 1973)

4. Survey of Chinese Manpower and Employment (Praeger, 1976)

5. Album of Chinese Americans (Franklin Watts, 1977)

6. Statistical Profiles of the Chinese in the United States (Arno Press, 1979)

7. Adjustment Experience of Chinese Immigrant Children in New York City

(Center for Migration Studies, 1987)

8. Chinese American Intermarriage (Center for Migration Studies, 1990)

9. Defiant Second Daughter: My First 90 Years” (Advantage Media Group, 2015)