Although scholarship on the Chinese diaspora has increased in recent years, much study remains to be done to place the history of Chinese in America in a proper perspective. One event in cross-cultural relations has only recently attracted renewed investigation. The Chinese Educational Commission, established by the Qing dynasty, and located in Connecticut in 1872-1881, provides us with a counter-example of the early Chinese experience in America at a time of growing anti-Asian sentiment. Western trade with China burgeoned in the early decades of the nineteenth century and the need for reciprocal trade led to the rise of opium smuggling into China's ports. The Qing dynasty was in decline and foreign conquest threatened the existence of the Manchu Empire. Yung Wing came to America with a returning missionary to seek a western education. The first Chinese to graduate from an American university, Yung eaned his degree from Yale in 1854 and returned to China. Yung spent nearly twenty years in various capacities seeking to convince the Chinese authorities to send many youths to America to study. Finally, in 1872, the first delegation of thirty boys, ages ten to sixteen, arrived in New England, to be joined by other groups of thirty each year in the three years that followed. Established in Hartford, the Chinese Educational Commission prepared the boys for entrance into secondary schools and colleges. Although the students achieved great success, political jealousy resulted in conservative bureaucrats recalling the studentsi n 1881, when only a few had completed their education. Nevertheless, the CEC students provided China with its first generation of western educated diplomats, engineers, railroad builders, physicians, uiversity presidents, and naval admirals. Yung Wing became an American citizen and married Miss Mary Kellogg, and with their two sons, they resided in Hartford where Yung became a friend of Mark Twain. Yung continued to seek ways to help his homeland improve relations with Western nations until his death in April 1912. He was buried beside his wife at Cedar Hill Cemebery in Hartford. The Chinese Students Memorial Society sponsors educational programs to inform the general public about the role of this special group of students and their American sponsors during an important period in China's history and Chinese-American reltaions. The CSMS seeks to establish appropriate permanent monuments to memorialize the achievements and contributions of the students to the development of China and to foster mutual respect between the Chinese and American peoples. The CSMS is a registered non-profit educational organization founded by college professors and administrators who have spent years tracing the stories of the Chinese youth who studied in Connecticut more than a century ago. For more information, check the English articles here.