Justice Denied: Journey of an Immigrant Scientist

By Christina Liao

Potential whistle-blower bewares. Whistling blowing act might lead to career suicide. So think carefully before you plunge into action, because ultimately the price you have to pay is your dismissal. Government agency apparently is rarely prepared to admit mistakes or attend to the views expressed by their workers. In fact, more often than not, they would rather deny the charges from workers and continue to not respond to it or even lie about it.

Government agency often issues its policy statement encouraging its employees to freely express their view without fear of recrimination or retributions. But be careful before you take the bait, which I did. Employees should know that there is also an unwritten policy, which is to harass or retaliate against people critical of or who disagree with any action taken by the agency. These people are labeled troublemakers and will eventually be terminated. Remember government rarely practices what it preaches, period.

Government will often spend an enormous amount of time and resources to orchestrate the removal of the so-called whistle blowers, a.k.a. troublemakers. These whistle blowers are often persecuted for the only crime they committed which is to tell the truth, and would ultimately be dismissed from their jobs.

My advice to the would-be whistle blower is this: do not blow the whistle unless you are prepared to lose everything. It is better to remain silence than to speak out to lose your job.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781463437329

Christina Liao

Christina Liao was born in Taiwan who came to the U.S. for graduate study. She attended Michigan State University and North Carolina State University where she received her Ph.D. degree in 1971. She was the recipient of the Canadian National Research Council Postdoctorate Fellowship affiliated with Canada Center for Inland Water in Burlington, Ontario from May 1972 through 1974. She spent an additional three years at the Center as a visiting scientist and as a consultant to a research team investigating nitrogen cycling pathways in lake ecosystems.. In July 1977, she joined the staff as Research Chemist in Soils and Fertilizer Research Branch at then the National Fertilizer Development Center, which was managed by the Tennessee Valley Authority in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. While at work, she was subjected to many blatant employment discriminations, which she aired openly hoping the management would get the message. Unfortunately she was retaliated for standing up for her right and was rewarded with dismissal. She then spent nearly a decade of her time fighting for her basic right, the right to work to no avail because the legal system failed her.

Book preview

1

Introduction

This is a story about an Asian American scientist’s struggle to gain equality in the workplace, but at the end she was retaliated for standing up for her right and dismissed from her job under the guise of budget cuts.

This is also a story about a government agency that spent more than six month designing an elaborate web of deceptive scheme to eliminate its then first and the only woman Ph.D. scientist at the research center.

The elaborate web was so well woven that it had even fooled Federal EEOC examiner and reviewer, and Merit System Protection Board. But fortunately it could not fool the District Court judge who ruled in her favor.

However, the Appellate Court was so sympathetic to the government agency that refused to remand the case back to lower court for further fact finding. In fact the Appellate Court had usurped trial court’s authority to issue its own decision. So, if you think the judges are all impartial, think again before you file your lawsuit.

In 1986, as American celebrated its centennial of the Statue of Liberty, I too joined in the spirit of celebration for the freedom this country offers to its people.¹ At the same time, however, I was saddened by the fact that after being in this country for then nearly 25 years (I arrived in America for graduate study in September of 1961), I was in a state of mourning for the opportunity denied to me in this land of plenty and justice. I had filed a lawsuit on August 8, 1986 against my former employer, a government agency for its prohibited personnel practice that resulted in my dismissal. In 1987, as the United States commemorated its nation’s 200th birthday of the constitution, I had yet to go to the court to fight for the basic civil right, the right to work which I was denied on January 8, 1982.²

My lawsuit went to trial without jury on April 9, 1987 at the U.S. District Court for Alabama’s Northern District in Florence, AL and the ruling was issued in my favor on May 6. Although I had won the case in the first round of my legal battle, I was not reinstated to my former position in my work place. The government appealed the case to the Eleventh Circuit Court in Atlanta, which reversed and rendered its decision in favor of the government in March 1989. And the Supreme Court simply denied our petition.³

American legal system, though considered to be the best in the world, it is far from perfect. Defendants, through legal maneuvering can often win by technicality or by concealing the key evidence pertinent to the case. Worse still, it appears that the victims, and not the defendants are often on trial. The famed Harvard Law Professor, Alan Dershowitz once quoted saying, The system is built on a foundation of not telling the whole truth. Even the respected members of the profession are part of the cheat elite who doctor facts to produce the results they want.⁴ I personally believe that the system tends to work, but the people involved, mostly defendants don’t want the truth out and thus the system is crooked. This reminds me of an old axiom which says that people do not seek the truth. It is the truth that pursues man who run away and will not look around.

My former employer’s stated reason for my dismissal was due to budget cuts. However, the published information showed that the funding through congressional appropriation for the agency had increased for the fiscal year of 1982.⁵ Yet I was terminated under the guise of reduction in force (RIF) due to budget cuts. The agency purposely concealed the budget data, an action that is amount to obstruction of justice. I was denied to refute agency’s claim of budget cuts during my administrative complaints process in which I had no legal counsel. Subsequently my attorney was not allowed to request any evidence relating to the budget from the agency during the discovery process by judge’s order. Thus the case had to go to trial under the assumption that the agency indeed had budget cuts. In my opinion, however, the judge in fact allowed the agency to lie all the way to the courthouse. So much for the truth loving people in this country.

By then my career was ruined and professional reputation defamed, I have to carry the stigma attached to me of being fired from work that prevented me from seeking employment elsewhere. The only way to clear my name is to write about the true story of my experience, at least for the record. I also feel that I have some obligation to inform my fellow minorities that being educated and qualified are not enough to guarantee your success in professional life if you are women or minorities because you are not being offered the same equal opportunity in real life, although the law says you are. However, if your education and qualifications are not in question, and the society still denies you to work and contribute, then I feel the society itself has a problem that we all have to deal with and solve it. It is truly a waste of money for the society to educate them, and then denied them the opportunity to participate and contribute.

Although American is known to be the foremost democratic country in the world, there is, however, very little democracy in the work place, especially in the government or public agencies where the kind of rights that are established in the Bill of Rights of the Constitution, such as the right to express one’s view. Most Americans are materialist people, particularly the working class who are so obsessed by their job security that they rarely comment or criticize on anything related to their work. Be it about waste, fraud or even when safety is involved. Employees are often afraid of expressing their view on the negative side of the issues for fear of losing their jobs; even their views are more often than not having positive impact on their job related matters. Countless examples from a wide spectrum of workplaces are described in a book entitled Do It My Way, or You are Fired.⁶

David Ewing tells us in his book that in the U.S., business corporations and government agencies alike apparently are rarely prepared to admit mistakes or attend to the views expressed by their workers. In fact, more often than not, they would rather deny the charges from workers and continue to not respond to it or even lie about it.

If you have experience working for government, you soon learn that government agencies are very fond of issuing a policy statement repeatedly encouraging their employees to freely express their views without fear of recrimination or retribution. However, employees usually know better and you ought to be a fool to believe in the policy. Employees know that there is a devastating unwritten policy that is to harass or retaliate against people who are critical of their agencies. Fortunately, there are still a few courageous loners, though endanger species, who dare to challenge the system tenaciously to get to the truth, despite the punishment they have to endure, for the alternative would be simply to look the other way and remain silent about what they had known or seen. These courageous individuals, however, are often persecuted for the only crime they committed which is to tell the truth. And in most instances, their stories are often the same: being harassed, threatened, intimidated, discredited and ultimately dismissed. Government agency or business sectors will often spend an enormous amount of time and resources to orchestrate the removal of the so-called whistle blowers, a.k.a. trouble makers, though at the time, their personnel action appeared on the surface to be just another normal practice.

For most part, I believe that employers want to send a signal to the would-be whistle blower to think twice before engaging in the criticism or whistle-blowing act if you want to keep your job because ultimately the price you have to pay is your dismissal. Thus the would-be whistle blower must be ready to loss everything. The worst consequence, however, may not be what happens to the whistle blower as described by Ewing in his book, though devastating as that may be: the loss of job and income, the rupture of a career, the emotional turmoil and, the mental stress and anguish, etc. It is what happened to the fellow workers of their collective decision to remain silent. It is the uptight, self-inhibited guilty atmosphere of a work place police by the belief that to get along one must go along.

Most of the people do not know or realize that in fact they are committing the greatest crime of all, i.e. the conspiracy of silence. From the trials of Nuremberg, we learned that simply following orders is not excused from crime. Unfair dismissal of workers would often lead to a work place that is plagued with decline of moral and erosion of trust, with people spending most of their time defending turf and ensuring their own survival. Company and public agency are usually very good at glossing over unfair personnel practice by announcing reorganization to improve efficiency. However, more often than not that the new organizational scheme is only a rearrangement of the old one that ends up costing more and involving more layers of administrative people, and thus no more effective than the old scheme they just replaced. Yet reorganization is often hail as the ultimate solution to business and government operation problems. In fact it is sort of a make believe type of action that is design to evade the real problem.

Mark Twain said he believes that The majority is always in the wrong. Thus he solemnly admonished, Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or change).⁷ This is perhaps why court’s duty is design to safeguard the fundamental rights of individual against the potential tyrannical attitudes of the majority. If only more people would have the courage to heed the advice of Mark Twain, the true spirit of democracy in the American work places could have been improved.

It is rather sad to know that the public who is also the majority of American workers generally have very little curiosity to learn about the true cause of unfair dismissal. They tend to accept whatever the reason given to them with little questioning. Alexis De Toqueville, the author of Democracy in America, was quoted that The public will choose to believe a simple lie in preference to complicated truth.⁸ One tend to think that the difference in the level of education might have some influence on the state of mind, because the educational process consists of training of the mind which teaches people to think independently and to question freely. And science is, after all the pursuit of the truth. However, from my own experience with most of my colleagues who are Ph.D. scientists, I find them no difference from the ordinary or less educated workers. In fact, I felt it was worse than I had imagined, such as warned by Vivian Gornick, author of Women in Science, because as scientists, they believe that they act rationally and their action are guided by intellectual objective. Gornick described Scientists have a more difficult time than other kind of workers do in perceiving themselves as being prejudice. She stated, however, that Scientists, like all other people, make decisions on the basis of a shared social reality; and are pulled about by convictions rooted in emotional prejudice and are certainly influenced by politics, ambition and issues of class, sex and race.⁹

Although an agency, Merit System Protection Board (M.S.P.B.) was established by Congress under the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 to protect the rights of whistle blowers, it appears to exist only on paper.¹⁰ The agency often fails to act swiftly and fairly to protect whistle blower’s right, as revealed by Donald Lambro in his book entitled Washington, City of Scandals.¹¹ From my own experience, I learned that even though evidential facts had supported my unfair dismissal, M.S.P.B was not willing to charge my former employer, a government agency, of its wrongful act, for they are all sister and brother of the U.S. Government. The practices of prohibited personnel action will continue to persist in part, because of this lack of interest by the news media to expose the story of those who dare to challenge the system, especially if you are in a small town where your employer happened to be one of the big company or agency that provides jobs to the local people.

My experience taught me, much to my surprise that even nationally known newspaper or media have no interest to do some investigation and declined to report on the story. American people are often advised to write to their Senators and Congressmen concerning government impropriety. I also had done that and the effort was of no avail. I think the public would be very naïve to heed to that kind of advice, especially when the subject matters have to do with job related matter to constituents in law makers’ home state because it would create bad publicity for Senators’ and Congressmen’s reelection in the future.

The removal of troublemakers or whistle-blowers from their jobs is usually carried out with a concerted effort among supervisors, managers and personnel officers often with an elaborated scheme to cover up their action. It is sort of a conspiracy among managers to mislead the workers in believing that the removal was due to budget cuts, to improve efficiency or to reorganization. Simply to accept the reason given by the management without any enquiry would be truly an insult to the intelligence of average workers. Furthermore, if you think the Inspector General of the company or agency would be of concern about the improper action, think again before you report to them. From my experience, the I.G. duty appeared to defend the survival of the company or the agency, and not to defend the truth or your rights. The ultimate irony is that those supervisors and managers conspired to destroy your career are often not punished, but rather rewarded with promotion. If the society truly wishes to have work places with genuine democracy, the unfair personnel practices should be stopped. The only way to achieve this is, however, to punish those managers who willfully violate employees’ civil rights. This is easier said than done, because it rarely happened, as Lambro told us in his investigative book.¹¹

Although Congress seems to be rather sympathetic about the plights of the whistle-blowers, and often reacted to it by passing more legislative measures or laws to protect them. But since laws created to protect them are seldom enforced and difficult to do so, the congressional efforts appear to only further frustrated those who have to go through the ever lengthening and prolonging administrative procedures that are supposed to protect them. I think Congress should be more innovative and bolder if it sincerely is trying to stop the unjust dismissal. Congress should pass a law that would punish those who are involved in decision—making process leading to the unfair dismissal of the employees. Only then the prohibited personnel practices can be totally stopped in American work places.

Whistle-blowing act has many forms and shades, and the one that gets the least attention is the employment discrimination, especially in the 1980s, during the Reagan’s administration. When employees speak out against discriminatory personnel practice carried out by their employers who naturally don’t want to be charged with the unlawful discriminatory practices. In response, employers might sometime increase their illegal practice by making life more difficult for individuals who assert their right and retaliate in the form of subtle harassment against those who blew the whistle. At the end, however, the ultimate rewards to those whistle blowers are the loss of their jobs. Employers are rarely willing to admit that the problem is there and then come to terms with it. Rather they choose to believe that the solution to discrimination is elimination and not correction. I said this based on my personal experience.

With the passage of Civil Right Act of 1964 that prohibits employment discrimination, the public in general is lead to believe that there is no more discrimination in the work places because of the Federal anti-discrimination law.¹² Indeed in an ideal society, no one should be discriminated against under the law, but they do by the people. Since a perfect, ideal society is far from in sight, the public must acknowledge that discrimination still exists in the workplace, perhaps even wide spread though in a more subtle form, and have to deal with the problem. It is a much better solution to admit that the problem is there and then come to term with it.

As a scientist I follow the employment survey closely and learn that even in the mid 1980s, women and minority scientists generally have higher rates of unemployment and underemployment, ironically at a time that scientific community has repeatedly cried out of manpower shortage of scientists in the U. S. The survey general shows that women are still substantially, and minorities grossly underrepresented in the scientific work force. This is not necessary, in my opinion, due to the shortage of qualified women and minorities, though which is often claimed by many employers, but rather in many instances due to unequal opportunity. Women and minorities are generally not hired in numbers proportional to their availability, and many qualified women and minority scientists fail to find positions suitable to their qualifications or ability.¹³

Personally I fear that employment discrimination will continue to exist in American workplaces for many years to come, especially when the issue of race is involved. And no one would ever have to go to jail for violating the anti-discrimination law. The public is, however, more sympathetic toward discrimination involving issue of gender. But when it comes to race discrimination in the workplace, due to this nation’s long history of curious prejudicial ideas, the public often responds with disbelief, and then blush aside with simple comments, such as these minorities perhaps are not qualified for the jobs or they have poor performance that lead to slow or no promotion. What a simple answer to a deep-rooted problem!

If America wants to remain as number one in science and technology, and be competitive in the global economy, the only way to achieve it is to allow the educated skilled and talented persons of all races to participate and contribute in the scientific research and technological development. However, a technology policy issued in September 1988 by Reagan Administration suggested that the U.S. should be less reliance on foreign students and scientists to staff its Federal laboratories. This is clearly a wrong and unwise policy, and many top scientists believed that greater restrictions on foreign access to Federal labs are not needed or desirable.¹⁴, ¹⁵ Fundamentally, America is a country of immigrants, and foreign scientists contribute a great deal to U.S. technological progress. These skilled and educated people rarely displaced American professionals only supplement them.¹⁶

With my career destroyed and little hope in finding job elsewhere, the only thing left for me to do was to protest with my pen; to tell the Asian American community and the world how minority scientist was being treated so unfairly and unequally in this land of justice and land of plenty, no matter how well educated you are.

Although my experience happened in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I believe my story is still quite relevant in today’s workplace where Asian Americans continued to be discriminated. According to a New Gallup Poll on discrimination in today’s workplace released by U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on December 8, 2005 showed that 31 % of Asian surveyed reported incidents of discrimination, the largest percentage of any ethnic group. However, there was only 3% of Asians filing complaint with EEOC.¹⁷ The point is if you do not file complaint with EEOC, no one knows you are being discriminated. And the public rarely heard Asian Americans taking legal action against their employers. They would normally just remain silent. This is one of the reasons that I have to tell my story. I believe it is long overdue, but finally the public, especially Asian community will learn about my sad experience, which I do not think is unique at all even in today’s workplace.

The recent EEOC report on February 1, 2007 stated that job bias charge edged up in 2006. The agency received a total of 75,768 discrimination charges against private sector employers, the first increase in charge filing since 2002, though no data was mentioned about the charges against public or government sector employers.¹⁸ Nevertheless, the report indicates that discrimination remains a persistent problem in the 21st century workplace.

With the signing of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in January 2009 by President Obama, I hope more women and minority workers, especially Asian Americans will be willing to exercise their rights in the workplace without fear in the future.¹⁹

2

Graduate Study in the U.S.

When I graduated from National Taiwan University in June 1960 with a Bachelor of Science degree from the Department of Agricultural Chemistry, I have very little idea about what I was going to do next.¹ There was no graduate school at the time in any of the university in Taiwan, though my university was getting ready to establish graduate school at master degree level in many departments including my own department. At the time, however, I paid very little attention to it.

During my senior year in college, many of my classmates, mainly females, because male college graduates have to serve in the military for about two years before they would be let go pursuing their future, were busying themselves writing letters and filling applications for admission to attend graduate school in the U.S. Because of the strict U.S. Immigration Laws at the time,² and even in 1952’s McCarran Walter Act that allowed a small numbers of Asians to immigrate again,³ the only mean to come to America is through student visa. The Immigration Reform Act of 1965 might have improved the situation slightly.⁴ College students usually perceive America as the land for advanced education. America was indeed at the time offering a great deal of opportunity to many foreign students for advance learning.

Shortly after the graduation, I was busy studying for the examination to study abroad which is given by the Taiwan Government’s Education Department every July. It is required to pass the examination for those who wish to study abroad at their own expense, though few of us could afford to do that. I did pass the examination. But since I did not write to any university in the U.S. for admission, I was still not able to obtain visa to go to U.S. This meant that I had to look for work at least for the next 6 to 12 months until I decided whether to attend the graduate school at home or abroad. Through some contact with friends, I learned that U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit Number 2, which was located in Taipei, Taiwan at the time, was recruiting technical assistants. So I submitted my brief resume and was contacted for interview shortly thereafter. Luckily I was offered a position.

In mid September of 1960, I started working as technician in the Biochemistry Department’s Toxicology Section at the Number 2 Unit, a name often called by general public.⁵ As I recalled during my job interview or job offering stage, I was never asked how long I would stay on the job. Neither did I know at the time how long I would stay because it would all depend on my admitting to the graduate school in the next several months. Two years later in 1962, one of my sisters who also graduated from the same university in the School of Medicine, Department of Pharmacology went to interview for a job at the same Research Unit. The Head of Biochemistry Department who interviewed her some how found out that she was my sister. So he asked her how long she intended to stay on the job, and told her that I stayed on the job for less than a year; and assuming that my sister would also do the same. Sadly my sister was not offered the job at the research unit though her educational training was much better suited for the work at the unit. The Department Head was not very happy about having to train new persons every year and thought that we might be using this working experience as stepping stone to go to the U.S. The work place did have some opportunity allowing us to learn some conversational English because top personnel including most of the Department Heads and Laboratory Supervisors are Americans.

Educational curriculums in Taiwan required at the time that every junior and senior high school student take English classes; three hours per week for a total of 6 school years (i.e. from grade seven to twelve in the U.S. system.) This enable high school graduates to read English, though slowly and also to write some simple English sentences. However, as to the conversational English, it was all up to the individuals to expose themselves to various opportunities whatever they could get. Because of 6 years of English lessons in high school, students who entered the university are able to use mostly English textbooks, especially in science and engineering. This further enhanced our English reading ability but not in conversational English. Some of my college classmates had even hired private teacher or tutor to practice their conversation skill because it is a must-learned skill if you plan to study in the U.S

During the early 1960s, America was indeed a land of opportunity for advanced learning. I had written to about a dozen of universities in the U.S asking for application forms to their graduate schools, and I believe half of them sent me forms for admission and some financial aid information. Early in 1961, University of Minnesota and Michigan State University (M.S.U.) had informed me that they had accepted my application and would grant me the admission; the former offered me a part-time work related to my study and the latter gave me graduate research assistantship. I was overjoyed and felt very lucky to be given the opportunity. During my senior year in the college, I chose soil chemistry and plant nutrition as my major subject, and did my thesis on phosphorus chemistry in soils, a rather hot subject at the time. The work was later published in Science Magazine in 1963 by my major professor, Dr. S.C. Chang and I as the coauthor. ⁶

University of Minnesota would like me to do research in the area of phosphorus nutrition in soil and plant that was closer to my undergraduate research experience. However, the work-study program that was offered to me would not allow me to have my out state tuition exempt which was rather substantial. The research area at the Michigan State University was to study nitrogen transformation in soil. Though I did not know much about soil nitrogen at the time, I accepted the graduate research assistantship from M.S.U. because the assistantship would allow out of state tuition exemption. As I reflected later on the decision I made at the time, I was rather please that I had made the right choice because nitrogen is one of the most important and interesting elements in soil and crop science. It turned out that nitrogen research was the area that I was to be involved in my Ph.D. program and expanded further thereafter during most of my professional research activities.

Being accepted by U. S. University is by no means automatically entitled you the student visa at the time. During the visa application, one has to inform U. S. Embassy in Taipei about your study plan. Then the Embassy would set an appointment to interview you and to have you taken the English Proficiency test which usually included writing a ten minutes short essay on the subject given by the Embassy interviewer at the time. This is the last hurdle everyone has to overcome before obtaining a visa to study in the U. S. and is perhaps the most difficult part because there were no written instructions or rules to follow that might enable you to prepare for it. And it is very unpredictable and we were all very scared of the process, especially when rumors started flying that someone very good and well prepared did not pass.

I believed around March or April, I informed M.S.U. that I would accept its offer and started my graduate program in the Fall quarter of 1961, though I was not sure whether I would pass the test or not given by the Embassy in order to get my visa. Henceforth, I work pretty hard on my English mostly by reading to increase my vocabularies or listening to radio stations that offered some simple conversation lessons in English. I have not spent a penny on private tutor though many of my friends did. I read novels such as Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin and Ugly American by William Lederer & Eugene Burdick that were very popular at the time.⁷ It is not an easy task because you have to look up the dictionary so often because my vocabularies are so limited. In addition, I tried to read Time Magazine, in fact I studied it though not on a weekly basis because it usually took quite a while to finish just one issue. I also was able to buy some back issues of Evening Post from street newsstand that sold a variety of papers and magazines printed oversea. Since I have to work during daytime including Saturday morning, it didn’t leave me much time to prepare for the most crucial moment of my life.

I was very nervous on the day of my interview at the U.S. Embassy, because if you failed, you had to wait for another 6 months. It was in June, and now I could not even recall the exact title of the essay given, or what I wrote. Luckily, it went rather smoothly for me, and my student visa was granted to me shortly thereafter. At the end of August, I resigned from my job at the Naval Research Unit No. 2.

Every one in my family was very excited for me; though my parents were kind of worry because I had never been away from home for an extended period of time. I lived at home even during my college years; never stayed in the student dormitory except in the summer of my freshmen year that everyone was required to stay in the dormitory for a compulsory training in practical agriculture. It is a required training for each student in the College of Agriculture, so we would learn that the food comes from the farm and not from the market, or from books and laboratories where most of us would spend for the next three years studying science.

My mother was very busy providing ideas or suggesting what kinds of clothes I should bring with me. As you can imagine a first time long distance traveler who would naturally over-packed everything whether s/he need them or not. Foreigners’ perception of America and its people are normally coming from seeing Hollywood movies that are far from reality for average people’s daily life and students’ life on campus. In retrospect, I can say that most of us spent too much money trying to bring too many formal dresses, especially Chinese styled dresses called Chi-Pao that we seldom had occasion to wear them. But most of us felt that we might need them just in case. My first impression on the campus was that the students life style in the U.S. was not different from what we had at home in Taiwan, which is simple and practical, nothing fancy or excess about their attires.

My original departure time for America was, I believed on September 9 or 10. But because of the severe typhoon, it was postponed to September 13. Since it was a chartered flight so there were many students like me on board to America. Two friends of mine, one of them my classmate and the other from Naval Research Unit No.2 were on the same flight. We flew to Tokyo for an overnight stay and to make connection to San Francisco next day via Hawaii where we went through immigration process.

While in California, for two days I visited a classmate of mine who came to U. C. Davis for graduate study the year before. Then I rode on the Greyhound Bus with my girl friend who was on the same flight from Taiwan. We rode across the country together all the way to Chicago with a brief stopover in Salt Lake City to meet her friend who had come to greet us. From Chicago, we each went our separate way, she to Virginia Polytechnic Institute at Blacksburg and I heading for Michigan State University in East Lansing. Regretfully to say that we have never met again nor corresponded with each other since we parted at Chicago bus station that day. In hindsight, I guessed both of us were so busy with our study and with adjusting and learning American ways of life that we probably never thought of contacting each other until it was kind of too late to make up for it.

To be away from home for the first time is always difficult, especially so far away in a foreign land where you do not speak the language well. At the time the only way to communicate with my family at home was by airmail and air letter, which is cheaper. Telephone was prohibitively expensive and nor so popular as it is now. The climate was also quite different from where I am from. Taiwan is a subtropical region where rarely snow except at the peak of some mountains. But in Michigan, winter could often be quite harsh and plenty of snow and freezing rains. My mother thought I might not survive the cold winter months, which normally lasts 4 to 5 months. However, due to sheer necessity and partly by choice, one is often easily, though not always quite willingly to adapt to the new ways of life. The good news was that on the campus, older students of their respective national always welcomed new foreign students. There were a substantial number of Chinese students at M.S.U. and many of them were very helpful in getting me settled and assisted me running the chores of a new comer needed to do. I am indeed very grateful to them because without their help I would be quite lost in the new environment.

I also received a warm welcome by the faculty in then the Department of Soil Science (the Department was renamed Soil and Crop Science in the 1980s), especially by the Department Head, Dr. R.L. Cook and my major professor, Dr. A.R. Wolcott, a soil microbiologist/biochemist. In the 1960s, there were very few female graduate students on the campus, and I was pretty sure the first one in the department. When I was invited to my first Thanksgiving dinner in my major professor’s house, one of his daughters was rather curious about my coming to the U. S. to study with her father. She told me if I were as slim as you are (I weighed less that 100 pounds at the time and 5 feet 4 inch tall), I would go to New York for modeling career or something related to that. Only at much later time, did I fully understand what she was really referring to. Fashion modeling is the ultimate dream of many American girls who aspire to it in their teen.

There was a horrendous racial unrest going on in the South in the early 1960s; the University in Mississippi was not desegregated until 1962 and Alabama in 1963, the last state to have done so. At the time, I was oblivious to all of these ugly historical events and only learned about it at a later day, perhaps partly due to my own ignorance. As a new foreign student you really did not have much time for anything else including reading newspaper except study. Since I saw students of all color on the campus where I attended, I could not at the time envisioned the blatant segregation practice in the South, not just in the university system but about every social matters in everyday life.⁸

I could not recall whether I had applied for admission in any university in the South, but if I had done so, I assumed I would have been rejected at the time since Asians would be labeled as color people. After living in Alabama for many years since mid-1970s, I have thought that the mild weather condition in the South should be more preferable to the north, especially for foreigners coming from the subtropics like me. Every now and then, I often wonder why there are not more business and industrial development in the South despite the mild climate condition and plenty of natural resources. From my own experience living in the South, I believe it has something to do with the nature of human attitude; the Northerners are more open minded and socially progressive but Southerners are relatively close minded and socially conservative, even backwardness at a time.

Every foreign student at MSU had to take an English Proficiency test at the university before the school started. I did not pass the test in part because I could not find the building where the test was given, so I was late for the test and did not have enough time to finish it. Thus I had to take English class for foreign students in my first quarter term that I enjoyed it very much. Besides learning English in the class, you had chances to interact with many other foreign students from various countries and learn about their cultures. It was quite a memorable experience. I would recommend it to every new foreign student regardless of his or her English proficiency.

Dr. Wolcott had a large laboratory where he had his office, and the desks and workspace of his two graduate students who were Ph.D. candidates with their program near completion. One of them was a black student, and I was to learn some research techniques from him because my research program would be some extension or expansion of his that would involve testing other chemicals. The research project was funded and supported by the Dow Chemical Company in Midland, Michigan. I was to study the effects of fumigants, which were produced by Dow, on microbial activities and nitrogen transformation in organic soils. There was an empty desk waiting for me and I would use and share the laboratory space with others.

In second quarter of my first year, I took a plant physiology course in Botany and Plant Pathology Department that was taught by a black professor who, I believe, had his Ph.D. under a very famous professor from California Institute of Technology. Thus from my own immediate surrounding on the campus and from my own point of view at the time, it was hard for me to perceive the harsh segregation system in the south that had even existed at the time. It is also difficult for foreigners to understand why a great country like America could have such a great divide between North and South in its social systems.

Officially, I was a part time student who needed to devote part of the time to my research project under research assistantship program. The research, however, would primarily be my own thesis, which was required as part of my Master program. Since my minor subject was in Biochemistry, I took three biochemistry courses that had laboratories exercises. I was familiar with some of the materials taught in these classes, which I had learned in my undergraduate class. This gave me a chance of refreshing my mind and followed the new materials with much ease.

I also took two courses in plant physiology, which was my major interest and was the prime reason for my majoring in soils and plant nutrition in my undergraduate program. The only course I took in our own department was a course in soil microbiology/biochemistry that was taught by my major professor. Dr. Wolcott suggested that I should take some advanced Mathematic course, such as differential equation which I did, and a statistics course, analysis of variance plus some basic computer course at night that would be useful in handling my research data. Although I got As in both math. and stat. courses, I was not very interested in the subjects. At one point Dr. Wolcott suggested that I should take more math. and stat. courses in my Ph. D program if I decided to stay and work with him. I vetoed the idea and started looking for opportunity elsewhere on the campus.

By the end of 1963 summer I had taken all the course work requirements, and finished all the experiments for my thesis research except writing it up for submission. Since I chose not to stay in the same department and had not applied for other universities, I went to talk to a plant biochemistry professor in the Biochemistry Department. I had visited his laboratory a couple of times when a Chinese girl was getting her Master Degree a year earlier. She also helped me a lot when I first arrived on the campus and gave me plenty of good advices that a new student needed to know. The professor probably thought that I already had taken many biochemistry courses, so he offered me a research assistantship.

In retrospect, my decision at the time was probably not a good one, for I was not very familiar with the scope and depth of the research activities each scientific discipline was engaged in. Nevertheless, I was just happy to continue to have my financial support to keep myself going. In hindsight, I should have tried other departments, such as crop science or horticultural science, which would have been a better choice for me since I have been so interested in the growth and development of flowering plants.

So in the fall of 1963, I was in Biochemistry Department taking more advanced biochemistry, Plant physiology and chemistry courses. At the same time, I have to spend some of my time, mostly at night and weekend writing my Master thesis. In March of 1964, I scheduled to have my oral examination to defend my thesis and was granted Master of Science degree from Soil Science Department.⁹ I was much relieved to have my degree behind me, so I could concentrate in studying those advanced level courses that required a lot of reading of current research papers.

Although I was doing quite well in my course works, somehow I knew I lacked the broadness and the depth of the knowledge in biochemical research perhaps due to my limited reading of current research papers and related references. The professor wanted most of his students to take the qualifying exam for Ph. D. candidacy as early as possible. And I was asked to take the exam in the spring quarter of 1964, right after finishing my Master program. Though I hardly had time and knew how to prepare for it, I had no choice but to take it. I knew I did not make it because the questions were very broad that required an extensive writing on the subjects. Worse still that I did not know how bad I made on the exam because the results were not returned to us.

In the Fall of 1964, I was again asked to take the second time as required. And again I did not make it. However, I had a very strange feeling about the second exam, which was mainly to solve the enzyme kinetic problems that were covered in one of the course every one of us took earlier. As I recall, only a few of us, me included were able to solve the problems during our class assignments. Thus, I was very surprised to see the very similar problems, which were quite difficult in the exam. Again, I did not know how bad I did since the results were not returned to us. But this time, however, I had some doubt about how well other exam takers came out with their results.

You could imagine, by this time that my confidence was quite low and my interest for further advance study in biochemistry was nearly lost. Subsequently, I tried to get back to my training in soil microbiology/biochemistry again by applying for admission and assistantship in several universities across the country. I was granted nothing from any of the universities I applied to. Naturally, I was very disappointed by then, and did not know what the future would be for me.

In the mean time, the professor was kind enough to keep me in his laboratory and offered me a three quarter time of research assistant stipend instead of one half time. So I continued to take courses and do research for him until the end of Spring quarter of 1965 school year. In retrospect, I wish I had arranged to get a master degree in Biochemistry Department. But for some reason, it never came across my mind at the time. Only years later, did I realize that it is easier to get a job if you have two master degrees than a Ph.D. degree which job market is rather limited more to academic pursue.

Because of their language problem, foreign students with Ph.D. degrees are not very easy to get into the academic circle where you must undertaken heavy teaching responsibility. Most of them will end up getting post-doctorate jobs, and latter if lucky enough to become research associates, perhaps for the rest of their life with no other job opportunity. I remembered a male classmate of mine from Taiwan who got his Ph.D. in biochemistry from a U.S. university in the 1960s, but could not find a permanent job. All he could find was a post-doctorate job, one after another, with his family constantly moving from one place to another. Finally he was so tired of moving around that he decided to go to medical school. I think medical professionals are more open-minded, since medicine is sort of an universal subject that has no boundary among countries, people or races. Thus you are more easily accepted in the work place. My classmate has since been doing biomedical research and later practicing medicine in San Francisco Bay Area.

I also learned later that a lot of foreign students with science and engineering Ph.D. degrees ended up teaching in black universities where they are more easily accepted.¹⁰ A close friend of mine whose husband had a Ph. D degree in physic from a top university in Texas but could not find a job in the 1960s. So he ended up teaching at a black university in Alabama. I often wonder if he were given a better opportunity elsewhere, such as at Princeton, his contribution to physic research naturally would be much greater. I also have friends who had Ph.D. degrees but end up running a restaurant. I often wonder if they did it by choice, which I doubt it very much. It is obvious that although there is a plenty of opportunity for advanced learning in the U.S., job opportunities are not necessarily there as you expected to.

3

Opportunity Found then Gone

When I was in the Soil Science Department, the Head of the department, Dr. R.L. Cook was a very considerate individual who was always very interested in and took special care of foreign students in the department. During the holiday seasons, all the foreign students were always invited to his house and Mrs. Cook was such a graceful hostess that she always made sure we were comfortable, relaxed and had a lots of fun playing different games. I remembered playing table tennis with one of the student guests, and to my amazement, I was still able to use the trick and tactic that my grade school sport instructor taught me when I was in 5th and 6th grade—I took some special training class and participated in local school table tennis contest.

Occasionally I would get a special treat from Dr. Cook. He would take me home with him for lunch so that I could have a short visit with Mrs. Cook who was such a sweet lady. Dr. Cook also had a special working relationship with one of the universities in Taiwan, the National Chung Hsin University in Taichung, which however, is not my alma mater. He was invited to give a series of lectures in 1963, and had since been invited back many more times as a visiting professor after he retired as the Department Head in 1970s. Although I was no longer in Soil Science Department after finishing my master program, Dr. Cook was still very much concerned about the state and progress of my study and/or my future plan after the study.

In February or March of 1965, Dr. Cook informed me that an associate of him at North Carolina State University (N.C.S.U.), in Raleigh was looking for a soil scientist with strong chemistry background. The associate was, Dr. J.W. Fitts, the former Head of Soil Science Department at N.C. S.U. who was at the time heading a new program funded by Agency of International Development (AID) in Washington, D.C. The program was initially called International Soil Testing Program (ISTP), but later changed to International Soil Fertility and Evaluation Program, which was located on the university campus. The position was an adjunct appointment that was as an instructor on the faculty of Soil Science Department and as a chemist in the control laboratory of ISTP. Dr. Cook told me that should I be interested in the position, I should contact Dr. Fitts directly.

I was very appreciative of Dr. Cook’s consideration of me since I had already left the department. This really showed how much he cared about the welfare of his students whether past or present. I also might have left a good impression on him about my work in the department. Dr, Cook had a chance to review my thesis, and had made a dozen of corrections and suggestions. And at the end of the note, he stated, This is very well written, you have done a fine piece of work. I am proud of you. R. C. At the time I was kind of embarrassed because my major professor spent quite a lot of time correcting or rewriting many sections of the text because of my poor English and writing skill. I was, however, quite proud of the work; countless experiments that I spent so much time doing and repeating them often over the weekend or sometime at night.

I thought the opportunity was very good and the job would be quite challenging. It also would give me a much needed break after all those years of studying and taking tests. In addition to my own personal reason, I thought that both of my younger sisters were planning to come to the U. S. for graduate school in the near future, and they might need some financial assistance since assistantships were not as