Fortunate Sons: Young Men Called Back to China and Arrested

In 1850, Yung Wing--who had been brought to the U.S with returning missionaries--entered Yale as a freshman.  (see post one.) Upon his graduation, Yung Wing returned to China, and succeeded in creating an educational mission to the U.S. in 1772. (see post two.)
In the summer of 1881, nine years after the Chinese Educational Mission had started, and a year before the Chinese Exclusion Act went into effect, the young men returned to China. "As the ship cut through the shallow waters of the port....it became clear that they were being welcomed not by their families but by a phalanx of of police officers....What, the officials demanded, were they doing in the United States for so long? Why hadn't they returned earlier? Were they still loyal subjects of the Emperor?) (pg. 174, 175)
Despite their struggles, many of these young men went on to work with the government to improve the society, to help the country build a railroad system, a telegraph communications system, and an efficient mining system. " (They were) pioneers who put their Western education to use in the service of their nation, men to whom modern-day China owes a great debt." (pg 280.) And, more importantly, the tradition (this bridge) was revived...a new group of students was sent to American Universities in 1911.

Fortunate Sons by Liel Leibovitz and Matthew Miller