There are times Jay Teng wonders what his life would be if his family had been forced to go back to China in the early 1950s.
“My brother and I would have been 17 when the cultural revolution occurred, and we would have been sent to the countryside, at best,” Teng said.
Growing up, Jay and his twin brother, Ray Teng, heard stories about how their parents in May 1951 were ordered by the U.S. Department of Justice Immigration and Naturalization Service to leave the country. As the story goes, an up-and-coming senator from Texas named Lyndon B. Johnson wrote a letter to INS and helped secure their parents’ stay in the country.
In June, which marked the 73rd anniversary of Teng’s family learning that they would not be deported, Jay and Ray Teng, for the first time, reviewed documents from the National Archives and Records Administration showing that more than 70 people signed a letter to LBJ in support of keeping the Tengs in the country. The letters also provided a clearer picture of why the couple was ordered to leave.
“When you have a history you get little fragments, now the puzzle has more parts that fit in together,” Jay Teng said. “It’s always nice to have the full puzzle rather than just the few segments of the puzzle.”
A different time
After reviewing the documents, Ray Teng, said he was surprised at how many people wrote in support of their parents.
“Unfortunately, there was a lot of anti-Asian sentiment, I didn’t realize it was this complicated,” he said.
Less than a year before the U.S. government ordered Jay and Ray Teng’s parents to leave the country, the recently-formed People’s Republic of China had entered the Korean War, causing a significant shift in momentum in the conflict.
A wave of anti-communist paranoia — sentiments propelled by Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin — swept across the United States.
Jay Teng’s parents, Dr. Hsi Ching “H.C.” and Catherine Teng, had come to the U.S. as students, and arrived in Dallas in 1948. His father, H.C., came to do his residency at St. Paul Hospital on Bryan Street, and his mother to study at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Jay Teng said.
They befriended the Rev. W.A. Criswell, the pastor of First Baptist Dallas church, and became heavily involved in the church, Teng said.
The young couple also started a family. Jay and Ray were a little over a year old and Catherine Teng was pregnant with her third child, Neal, when, on May 4, 1951, the couple got a letter telling them their application for extension of temporary stay in the country had been denied.
“Failure to so depart will necessitate steps by this Service looking to your removal,” the letter stated.
Not knowing whom to turn to, the Tengs reached out to Criswell, who then wrote a letter to LBJ and “the rest is history,” Teng said.
That part of the story was well-known in the family, Jay Teng said — the family had seen some the written correspondence between Criswell and Johnson, as well as those between INS and his parents.
Teng and his relatives did not, however, know about some of the other influential Dallasites of the time, such as the Rev. Luther Holcomb, who lobbied in favor of H.C. and Catherine being allowed to stay in the country.
Holcomb, who in 1965 would be appointed by Johnson to serve in the country’s first U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, wrote:
“Please help this couple secure at least a one or two year extension. I shall be forever grateful to you for this favor. I can thoroughly and whole heartedly endorse this couple as to their loyalty to this country. I feel that they will be a great asset to this country if Dr. Teng can finish his training, and then return to China.”
A community of support
Records obtained from the National Archives included a handwritten letter to Johnson from Criswell in which he describes H.C. Teng as “most worthy.” Documents also showed that more than 70 women from the Women’s Missionary Union of the First Baptist Church of Dallas signed a letter requesting help from Johnson.
The letter from the women’s missionary union also documented, in part, the anti-communism fears that may have contributed to the Tengs’ situation.
“They have been members of our church and have proved they are genuine Christians. Dr. Teng has been head of the interns in St. Paul’s Hospital for the past year, having earned the position because of his ability and faithfulness. He has now secured the position of Fellow in the Southwestern Medical School here to study and teach Cardiology,” a part of the letter read.
“They are not Communists and do not want to return to China now. Dr. Teng, along with several other doctors, plans to return to China later to open a Christian hospital and do real mission work,” the letter added.
A different letter to Johnson, signed by St. Paul Hospital’s medical director Dr. F.W. Veninga, stated that Teng’s service at the hospital had been “exemplary.” It also described some of the political persecution Teng’s family would have faced if forced to return to China.
“Dr. Teng feels that on his return to China after training and association with Americans he will probably be placed in a prison camp for reorientation,” the letter read.
Anti-immigrant sentiments persist
Jay Teng is grateful for the people who wrote letters and signed their names in support of his family, but he’s also proud of the contributions his family has made to their community.
“The decision to let us stay has benefited the country markedly,” he added.
In the years that followed, H.C. Teng became chief resident at St. Paul Hospital, where he would later practice cardiology, and taught at UT Southwestern Medical School. Many of their children and grandchildren became doctors or experts in other fields to contribute to society, Teng said. The couple would also help form the Chinese Christian Fellowship of Dallas, which would grow and expand into the First Chinese Baptist Church of Dallas, where Catherine was a pianist for more than 40 years.
Jay Teng said his parents gave back to the community that embraced them in their time of need until their death — Catherine in 2004 and H.C. in 2012.
He said he disagrees with political rhetoric that demonizes immigrants. His parents produced generations of Americans who contributed to the success of the country, Teng said.
“America has done well because of immigrants from all over the world, and it’s not they have distracted from America, they’ve made it what it is,” Jay Teng said.
Staff researcher Spencer Bevis contributed to this report.
