Categories: Avon, CHD Turning Points, Education, Immigration
Avon’s Educational and Cultural Pioneer Yung Wing was the first
Chinese student to graduate from a university in the United
States. A former resident of Avon, Wing was a political
activist, reformer, and educational pioneer who helped bridge
cultural gaps between the US and China in the 19th century. Born
in 1828, Yung Wing grew up in poverty near Macao, a Portuguese
colony in China. He attended missionary schools there and in
British-owned Hong Kong. When Reverend Samuel Robbins Brown, the
headmaster of the school in Hong Kong, returned to the US in
1847, he brought Wing and two other students with him. First
Chinese Graduate of US University Yung Wing lived with the Brown
family and attended Monson Academy in western Massachusetts. In
1850, he enrolled in Yale College and just two years later
became a US citizen. In 1854 Wing earned his BA from Yale.
Although other Chinese students had attended US universities by
this time, Wing was the first to g