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Asians in Minnesota Oral History Project: Interview with Huai-Chang Chiang

Titles: Asians in Minnesota Oral History Project: Interview with Huai-Chang Chiang (Supplied title)

Description: BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION: Chiang was born February 15, 1915, in the city of Sunjiang, which was later incorporated into the municipality of Shanghai, China. His father was a technician employed by the Chinese Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Chiang arrived in Minnesota January 9, 1945, to enroll as a graduate student in entomology at the University of Minnesota's College of Agriculture in St. Paul. He received a master of arts degree in 1946 and a doctorate in 1948. From 1948 until 1953 he served as a research fellow in a project on biological control of the European corn borer, which entered Minnesota in 1943 and had become a troublesome pest by 1947. In 1953 Chiang left the project to become an assistant professor of biology at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. From 1956 to 1958 he studied as a Guggenheim Fellow at Cambridge University in England. In 1957 he became an associate professor in Duluth, and in 1960 a full professor. In 1961 he returned to the university's St. Paul campus to teach ecology in the entomology department and to head continuing on the corn borer. In 1968 Chiang initiated international cooperative research on the corn borer at the International Entomological Congress in Moscow by bringing together entomologists from ten countries and designing field tests to be carried out in their own countries and reported annually at fall workshops. The group met in Minnesota in 1974. Since 1975 Chiang has played an important role in initiating scientific exchanges between the United States and the People's Republic of China. In 1975 he was a member of a delegation organized by the Committee for Scholarly Communication with the People's Republic of China, jointly sponsored by the National Academy of Science, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Social Science Research Council. This early delegation presented lectures and visited Chinese academic institutions. In 1978 Chiang took his family to China and lectured in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou. In 1979 he was delegation leader for a group from the United States Department of Agriculture that concluded an international agreement with the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture. Also in 1979 Chiang coordinated a visit to Minnesota by Chinese entomologists and plant pathologists who attended the International Congress of Plant Protection in Washington, D.C. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Student life in China during the Japanese occupation, 1937-1945; arrival of Chinese students at the University of Minnesota during and after World War II, and their relatively large number in the entomology and plant pathology departments at the College of Agriculture; research on biological control of insect pests both at the University of Minnesota and various universities in China; international exchange of scientific research through visits of Chinese scholars to the University of Minnesota and reciprocal visits of University faculty to Chinese universities. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: Chiang is an important source of information on the intellectuals in Minnesota's Chinese community, particularly those who studied at the University of Minnesota during the post-World War II period. He also provides material on the many scholarly exchanges between University faculty and Chinese scholars that began in the late 1970s.

Dates

  • 10/08/1981 (Creation)

Creation

Identifiers

  • Library Call Number: OH 51
  • Accession Number: AV1981.361.1

Holding Type: Oral History - Interview

Project

Quantity: 1.5 hours sound cassette 43 pages transcript

Format

  • Content Category: sound recordings
  • Content Category: text

Measurements

  • 01:07:03 running time

Subjects

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Documents

Audio:

Audio Part 1

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Audio Part 2

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