Campus Connection

Cancer and Culture
(continued)

Sacramento has a personal hold on Chen as well. Chen’s grandfather, fleeing famine in his home province of Guangdong, boarded a junk bound for California a century and a half ago, hoping to make his fortune in the gold rush. Discovering upon his arrival that the gold mines were closed to Chinese immigrants, the young refugee found work on the transcontinental railroad instead. Chen figures his ancestor most likely passed through Sacramento at some point along the way.

Following newly laid track, the elder Chen eventually wound up in Columbus, Ohio, where he again encountered limited economic opportunity. “There were two jobs Chinese could have at that time,” Chen said. “Working in a Chinese restaurant or working in a Chinese laundry. Since my grandfather couldn’t cook, he opened a laundry.”

Chen’s father, Hong Moon Chen, was born in that laundry, which doubled as the family home. Hong Moon, who, like his 11 siblings grew up speaking only English, left Ohio after high school to study aeronautical engineering at the University of Michigan, earning his degree in 1932. Unable to find a job in his field after graduation, he joined the Army Air Force to train as a pilot. Soon afterward Hong Moon signed on with the Flying Tigers, a volunteer air corps led by legendary General Claire Lee Chenault, to help defend China against Japan. Hong Moon flew C-46s over the Himalayas, from China to Burma, but in a stopover in Shanghai met, and later married, a young woman from Shanghai who spoke English. Moon S. Chen, Jr., was born there in 1947.

After World War II, the senior Chen went to work for Civil Air Transport, a Taipei-based airline. The family spent a couple of years in Washington, D.C., and a year in Tokyo before settling in Taipei. Every few years the family returned to the United States for a six-month home leave.

Chen learned languages or dialects wherever he was transplanted: Shanghaiese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Taiwanese and a smattering of Japanese, in addition to English. After graduating from high school in Taipei, he enrolled at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in biology. A draft notice arrived just as he started a master’s program at the university, leading to a four-year stint in the Army, including a year-long tour in Vietnam. Although military service interrupted his postgraduate studies, it also pointed him toward his eventual career. Chen volunteered for the Army’s preventive medicine program, and discovered his life’s work.