Thanks Steve. What people who are not lucky enough to be teachers will never realize is this: this story is repeated, with some variations, several times in most (if not all) of Portland's high schools. If the naysayers actually had any conception of who these children actually are, and the obstacles that so many have overcome, their hearts of stone would turn to flesh and blood.
Dan Li's journey can serve as an inspiration to all of us who, beset by adversity, chose to forge ahead with strength, dignity and courage. Whatever it was that Zhaoyan Yu did as parenting for this young lady, I wish it could be distilled into an elixir to be handed out with each newborn's birth certificate. A job well done, ladies!
I am sad that one commentator has chosen to tarnish this lovely story with name calling, aspersions and accusations. That kind of behavior has a chilling effect on free speech, in that it discourages people from wanting to participate lest they be insulted, because it hurts to be insulted even when the commentator doing the insulting is obviously just "flinging poo," even virtually. It's too bad people's outsides don't reflect their insides, so that we could recognize the trolls in real life. Then we could be rude to them to their faces and see if they could handle it, or if they'd go running back to hide under their bridges.
Did Canzano collaborate on this piece? One of his specialties is putting together sentimental offal. There was a three installment tear jerker brandished on the front page recently. What is going on?
You are there a lot. Is the oregonian's bend toward tabloidism a deliberate effort.
Steve,
Thank you for investing in the future of this young lady. I am hopeful that Harvard will incorporate these additional circumstances in their decision making process. Additionally, we all should recognize that she is not alone in overcoming challenges and although it would be wonderful if all stories were elevated to this level, it is a reality that only the rare and lucky few ever receive the limelight they truly deserve. That is an unfortunate reality of life and although harsh to those omitted, we must recognize the value received.
To the teachers and administrators of Clackamas (and elsewhere) thank you for your continued best efforts to guide the young minds entrusted to your care. Frequently, you (the teachers) receive the brunt of public's frustration on education matters and that is unfair, albeit a predictable response by the uninformed populace.
To those who view the world through muddied glasses of anger and hate, I am hopeful that you will reflect upon stench resides as you write and publish your thoughts. And, before you refer to me as a liberal, you might want to reflect upon why you are so upset about liberals (my voting record is private, although I will admit I have voted for at least one of every major party during my 30+ years of active voting). Our country's strength resides in our openness to accepted immigrants (physically and intellectually). We all move forward with the inclusion of all, even those that think, look, act, and conclude differently then you (and I) do. Hate and fear are the tools of the weak and weak minded. Fear, controlling, and closed minded persons hold our country and its citizens back and weakens our country.
Steve, again thanks for the column.
Why Harvard? What's wrong with Eugene or Corvallis or even UC Berkeley? The idea that we should send the brightest students in Oregon off to Boston to make rich friends and later billions of dollars and not return home doesn't make any sense at all. Maybe if Portlanders didn't have such an inferiority complex about Oregon, Oregon would stop being so inferior...
Mr. Duin,
A very nice piece, and I thank you for it. It is a shame that these comments sections continue to be full of toxic screed. My suggestion to these virulent commentators -left and right is to step away from the computer screen and volunteer at a shelter -a food distributor for the poor -or a hospital.
As for Ms. Li and her mother -all my best wishes -any University lucky enough to get Ms. Li as an undergraduate will benefit in many ways -not just by having DEDICATED PRETERNATURALLY INTELLIGENT AND MATURE young lady as an alum.
Across the country, to NYC, and today's NY Times, which has a story about a recent debutante named Hadley Marie Nagel, a very blonde, thin, attractive young woman of vast accomplishment born with a gold spoon in her mouth. Wealth at birth, exclusive private schooling. Now at Johns Hopkins, and she has every bit of the same drive, compassion, service to humanity as Dan Li.
No broken family and beatings in the Nagel background. Every bit of what wealth can offer on her plate. Yet, her path is the very same as Dan Li's. Same drive. Same accomplishment goals and success. And the opportunity is there for all in between the material wealth parameters of these two super accomplished young women. No matter your economic status, America is here to provide for those with top percentile intelligence who put out the effort, as witnessed by two newspaper stories published on the same day. What wonderful stories.
Steve Duin, The Oregonian December 26, 2010 at 1:43PM
Great post, Hilary ...
As this comment stream suggests, these inspirational stories greatly encourage one group of readers ...
And set another group to gnashing their teeth, lashing out at all the wrong people because they're so afraid that someone else might achieve something -- a dream, perhaps? -- that is lost to them.
I find it curious that a society piece reeking with pretense, would invoke a response. I believe that no reader/responder wants Dan to not achieve anything and so, resents it. I think your topic and presentation offended some. Would you write me a letter of recommendation if I applied to Ace Trucking Driving School? I've helped some people. I imagine you caused a chuckle in Harvard's administration offices.
This is actually not that unusual for Asians that have worked hard at coming to the USA and integrating into it's fabric. Notice that she enthusiastically and aggressively learned english.
Now why can't the hispanic culture take tips from the Asians that risk it all to get here?
Huge difference in how education is viewed.
This girl did her homework or someone did. When you pick up a handbook that advises you on how to get into a ivy-type school the first rule is that grades, even top grades, won't do it alone. You have to have extra-curricular activities and the more unique and creative the better. She should be commended.
Two things I find curious. Chinese cannot tolerate alcohol. Her daddy must have been pretty dedicated.
And how did Duin get in on the act.
OMG, are the haters out in force. Thanks Steve for an excellent piece. Dan Li deserves a letter of recommendation for what she has achieved. As someone else pointed out, immigrants are precisely the reason this country has been great. She deserves an entry into Harvard, or anywhere else since many ivy leaguers get in because of their family clout. I see there was even a Latino slam. Go back in your holes. Of all the things to get your panties in a wad over, a Mexican not learning English should be at the bottom of your list. Maybe you can get some Americans to learn English first.
it's amazing the amount of hate in this community. fortunately it's the same old group; the folks who hide in their nazi bunkers. aka. mother's basements. their talk is not conservative speech. if anything conservatives are in these immigrants corner. conservatives believe in the axiom you come here legally and work hard and good things are apt to happen. yes, steve duin is carrying water for her and now why don't some of the rest of you do the same for other high achievers in our local communities. steve is merely using his power of the pen to advocate for someone he has either met or has been brought to his attention.
What about Oregon Universities? Please stop perpetuating the stereotype that Harvard provides some sort of magical life after graduation -- it does not. It's so self hating to assume the best is found elsewhere. Oregon is a special place. Don't sell our universities short and act as a shiftless "tastemaker" for Oregon parents and students by offering a free endorsement in your column that only re-inforces the ridiculous notion that our best should leave Oregon and not re-invest in our community. What has Harvard done for you lately?
A similar type of student lives in our home, the exception being I chose to marry a terrific man who is an amazing father. Apparently our daughter's hard work, good grades and test scores, volunteer work, athletics and leadership pale in comparison because of our good choices.
Steve,
Excellent article. I'm just sorry that people don't see the story for what it is.
I volunteer at Clackamas high school about 30 hours a week. I know Dan Li and in the years I have been there, I never would have known her situation. This young lady is always bright and cheery regardless of the time of day or what is happening at that time. I always admired her volunteering and helping those who are in need and never realized she was probably in more need than those she helped!
Your column only strengthened my belief that this is one exceptional human being with far more compassion for others than many of the negative responders have. There are a lot of exceptional students and this does not take anything away from them, it only strengthens my belief in the power of the desire to help others and not think only about yourself.
Yes, I am an old Liberal, Progressive or what ever label one wants to put on me and proud of it. I try to put my money where my mouth is and I am but one drop of water in an ocean of caring humans.
Published: Saturday, December 25, 2010, 9:00 PM Updated: Saturday, December 25, 2010, 9:55 PM
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Dean of Admissions
Harvard College
86 Brattle Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Dean Fitzsimmons:
Among the thousands of applications that will arrive at Harvard before year's end, you will find one from Dan Li, a senior at Clackamas High School.
Dan has the raw numbers you might expect from a student who aspires to attend the best colleges in the land: an 800 on her Math SAT and 800s on her SAT subject tests in Chemistry, Chinese and Math II. In a two-week span of her junior year at Clackamas, she took seven advanced-placement tests, scoring 5s in Chinese and Chemistry.
In the calculus of your admissions' process, I know there is prestige in those numbers. There may be enough to guarantee her that celebrated free ride through Cambridge.
But those are not the numbers that have shaped Dan's life. They are not the numbers that define her.
And they are not among the reasons this young woman has changed the way so many in Oregon think about perseverance, opportunity and gratitude.
By the time she was 15, Dan -- and her mother, Zhaoyan Yu -- had survived two troubling relationships. When Dan was a young girl in China, her father was an abusive alcoholic. "There were countless nights when after he got drunk, he would beat up my mother like crazy," Dan writes in a college essay.
"I would kneel on the floor, beg him to stop, and pray some neighbors would hear the noise and knock on the door."
Dan was eight when her mother finally secured a divorce. In 2007, Zhaoyan Yu married again, this time to J.K. Smith, 64, who courted her online and during trips to China. Dan and her mother came to Grants Pass that summer believing America to be "a land that is full of dreams and justice."
The romance lasted 40 days.
When Yu and her daughter were not properly subservient to the man of the house, push came to shove. When Dan's mother responded by throwing a plastic water bottle at her husband, he called police, terrifying the women with the threat that they would be hauled off to jail.
After listening to Smith describe all this, the police dispatcher asked him what his wife and stepdaughter were doing now. "They're hugging each other," he said.
Some things never change.
After Oregon State troopers arrived that August morning and sorted things out, Smith was arrested for menacing and domestic violence, and Dan and her mother were entrusted to the local Women's Crisis Support Team. Over the next several months, they lived in seven different women's shelters between Grant's Pass and St. Helens before Dan Li finally arrived in Clackamas.
Somewhere along the line, Dean Fitzsimmons, you might have expected Dan to spiral off into despair or resentment.
She did nothing of the kind. Dan was, instead, acutely aware of the small, unexpected bursts of kindness from teachers, shelter volunteers and hospital nurses.
"This experience helped me learn English," Dan says. "I had to step up. Go out with my mother to find housing and a job. If I had stayed in my stepfather's house, I wouldn't have been able to do these things.
"I consider myself really lucky. If this had happened in China, this would have ended badly."
Harley Potampa, a retired math teacher and the Key Club advisor, first noticed Dan in December 2007. No matter how early he arrived at the high school, Dan was always working at one of the school computers or waiting in the rain for the custodians to unlock the doors.
Potampa introduced himself. Over the next two years, he watched, with increasing awe, as Dan raised money for Mercy Corps to help earthquake victims in China and Haiti; single-handedly brought English language learners into the fabric of the Clackamas community; enrolled in college courses at Reed College; and volunteered at Kaiser Sunnyside.
She showed up for Kaiser for the first time on the morning she turned 16. Her first birthday in the United States. The first morning she was eligible to volunteer.
"I'm seen her develop into one of the two or three most inspirational high-school students I've ever met," Potampa says.
"I'm amazed at her resilience. She's stronger than any human being I've ever met. Watching her take advantages of opportunities we take for granted, she's taught me a lot about what this country has to offer."
Everyone echoes those sentiments, even as the tumult in this girl's life continues. A serious auto accident last February forced Zhaoyan Yu to quit her job as a nurse. Money is so tight that Dan lives with her mother in a low-income apartment off Southeast 82nd Drive in which the SAT study guides outweigh their furniture.
And she lives without a quiver of self-pity or doubt. Lives with a blind eye to her problems and an open heart for yours. Lives only to respond to the kindness she has found in this angry, divided country of ours.
"All I can say," notes Ford Morishita, who taught Dan Advanced Placement Biology, "is this student has inspired me to be a better teacher and human being."
She wants to work for Mercy Corps. She wants to go to medical school. She wants to study Chinese medicine in Beijing and serve in the poorest village on the planet.
But first, Dean Fitzsimmons, she would like to attend Harvard.
She'll do fine if she never takes a run at orgo or the Yard. She's applying to a dozen other schools, including Stanford, Washington, Duke, UCLA and Cal Tech.
But you have first shot. If you realize how fortunate you are, you better call and you best hurry.
Dan Li is just getting started. And she is no longer waiting for that knock at the door.
Sincerely,
Steve Duin
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A good liberal koombayah piece, Duin. What I would expect from you. There are lots of American women in even worse abuse situations, many with talented children as well. Guess it doesn't fit the liberal model though, writing about Americans and their problems in this country. It's better and...well...more liberal to write about foreign immigrants and their problems in this country, right? That way you can help the Democrats push the DREAM act and open the flood gates. Gee..that will mean we'll need more welfare, tax and spend social programs, more govt employees to administer the mess, and these new citizens will be so grateful, they'll vote Dem forever.
Duin, you're a Dem facilitator.
Well, sir.
You appear to have lost sight of your country's goals engaging in two wars of choice, now for the stated reason of "nation building", and enthusiastically supported by the political party with which you heretofore have appeared to identify. Instead, you would favor us with your abject criticisms of the desires of the young woman here as being somehow out of place.
Indeed, your hatred of "all things foreign" is the "facilitator" for the terrorism aimed at this country. It is, sir, your fault that we are.
Thereby, your screen name is accurate. No country that observes today's holiday would admit you except this one. Stop spitting on the people who would help it -- and you.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, Ed. I, for one, would like to see more Oregonian Op-Ed pieces focusing on how to help American citizens. Instead we get a steady diet of "cry me a river" from the "O" for people from Mexico, Bhutan, and now China....asking for money and help. But nary a word about our fellow citizen hard-luck cases. Why is it liberals would rather help exotic foreigners over their own citizens? I guess regular Americans aren't exotic or interesting enough for liberal tastes...but, hey, throw in a sari or two, some exotic looks, a different lingo, and libs are all over themselves to help.
Well, at least you're safe from anyone's "entitled opinion" as to where you can put your prejudice-posing-as-patriotism.
Your head is already up there.
And shame on you.
No, shame on you, Ed. You're just another dumb libtard incapable of logic or reason. As for patriotism, I served my country in the armed forces. How about you?
You don't read much or you wouldn't ask me about my military service.
Nonetheless, it appears whatever "service" you gave didn't take.
"[A]nother dumb libtard incapable of logic or reason?"
Sadly, you display neither logic or reason, just poisoned value judgements and the Sarah Palin thesaurus.
Dan Li isn't asking for a thing.
Nor does she feel "entitled" to a thing.
She has worked selflessly in the last three years to excel in her classes, and she has given tirelessly after school to help others.
The generosity of her spirit is absolutely extraordinary.
So extraordinary that she would probably cure your xenophobic bitterness if the two of you ever spent an hour together.
Also, Ed, I do not hate all things foreign. However, I am sick of this entitlement mentality some foreigners have, who come to our country; and I am thoroughly sick of liberals who will jump all over themselves to provide financial aid to these people, yet will not make anywhere near a similar effort for American citizens down on their luck, because they basically hate their fellow Americans and this country.
No, you're just miserable. But the world is running out of pity for you.
You haven't a clue about me at all. I am not miserable. I am on a mission, along with many millions of other Americans, to turn this country around and to the right...PERMANENTLY. And we are succeeding!
nocountryforoldermen .... I certainly hope that those who simply read these comments Do Not think that they are representative of all Conservative Republicans who consider themselves on the right. Your mean spirited comments about a child who came to this country legally, has done everything right, has never asked for anything that she has not earned, and when given the opportunity has volunteered to be of help and service to others, serve to shame you. I am a conservative Republican. I believe that this is a country made up of immigrants, and if anyone, from any country in the world chooses to come to this country legally, and do what it takes to make something of themselves, I only have respect for them. Yes, illegal entry into this country should be taken seriously and dealt with swiftly and severely, as should any crime. But wanting to come to America Legally, and be successful, and help others is a quality to be honored, not spit upon as it would appear you would prefer to do.
To Dan Li, please know that the ramblings "nocountryforoldermen" do not in any way represent the true feeling of respect most who read this article have for what you have accomplished.
To Steve Duin, thank you for bringing us this story. However, I too, as an educator, would hope you would visit schools, where you would find this story repeated over and over with children from all sorts of different difficult backgrounds.
Are you for real? All I am saying is that there are plenty of American citizens who have had it much worse, and they do not get the same level of help or media exposure. I have nothing against the Li's getting ahead. I am talking about a consistent pattern of "cry me a river" media stories from the "O" with nary a word about similar stories of assistance given to American citizens. How about some balanced coverage from the "O" for a change?
oldman...
"I am talking about a consistent pattern of 'cry me a river' media stories from the 'O' with nary a word about similar stories of assistance given to American citizens.'
Didn't you read the series of articles about the students at Roosevelt High School and the adults who have done so much to help them? I think that sort of counts as being written about Portlanders and Oregonians and American citizens.
Oh yeah, and thank you for your service.
Which I think should usually be followed by, "Gesundheit."
It's funny that this country attracts the best, brightest, and most ambitious from all over the world, whether it was my dirt-farming Austro-Hungarian ancestors 100 years ago or a woman and her intelligent daughter recently.
We're the greatest country in the world *because* of immigrants, not in spite of them. While certain countries were killing people for not being racially pure, we were welcoming scientists from those countries, and previous immigrants' healthy 18-30-year-old children were filling fresh military units, while the "master race" was sending POWs, old men, teenagers, and previously-wounded soldiers against them.
Best of luck to Dan Li. May she have success and happiness in the future.
@Steve- Well written inspirational story on Christmas. Thank you.
@ nocountryforoldermen- please change your moniker. You're giving us older men a bad name.
Merry Christmas. What would Jesus have written differently in your comment? Oh yes. EVERYTHING! :-)
I am sorry for your pain. Peace.
I have no pain that is not caused by the blatant stupidity and irresponsibility of libtards. Merry Christmas!