5 East Asian Americans in Biopharma on Pivotal Moments in Their Immigration Story

They called it Gold Mountain.

For Chinese in the 19th century, the “gold mountains” of California and North America represented the promise of success and upward mobility. It was their name for the American Dream.

And at a time when America’s appeal to dreamers and strivers around the world is under strain, it’s worthwhile to reflect on the incredible paths of people within our industry. 

The non-profit ElevAAte, which supports East Asian American leadership in biopharma, gathered these stories for Asian Pacific Heritage Month. These narratives told in each person’s own words have been edited for clarity and length.

 

Angela Hwang 

Angela came to the US for graduate school from apartheid South Africa. She described the turning point that led to her decision to emigrate. 

Early in my career I worked at a beer brewery as a microbiologist.  

As is customary in many places in South Africa at that time, colleagues would meet up around mid-morning and take a “tea break.” It was a familiar and welcomed part of the day to meet and socialize with your colleagues, one-on-one or in a large group. Generally it was always filled with lively chatter and humorous storytelling.

One day, during a regular tea time, one of my white colleagues proceeded to tell a joke and make fun of my black colleagues. 

Silence fell upon the tea room. I remember looking around at everyone, and it was clear that a line had been crossed. 

Yet what was shocking was everyone’s reaction—or more accurately, lack of reaction.  

My black colleagues tried to make light of the situation and responded back with polite humor even though they had clearly just been insulted. And everyone else just continued the banter, like nothing had happened.  

At that moment I asked myself, “Has this been going on all this time and I didn’t notice or is this building up, and I have now reached my breaking point?” I was 24 at the time. And that’s when I decided that I needed to find a new home in a new country.

 

Connie Batlevi

Connie was born in Hong Kong, but after the death of her father, her mother moved them to Boston and worked at restaurants. Her mother’s chance encounter on a train changed their lives. 

It’s a very beautiful love story actually. My mom was taking the MBTA subway in Boston. It was very slow, a little bit clunky, and there were some hooligans on a late-night train. 

There was a uniformed officer who was taking the train home, and she’s smart, she’s savvy so she goes to stand next to him. 

And he started a conversation with her broken English–because she didn’t really learn a lot of English. But he was trying to teach her English. He wanted to protect her. 

He was smitten, and he missed his train exit and took her all the way home. 

They exchanged numbers, and a short while later, he became our stepfather and gave us a childhood filled with memories like riding on the lawn mower or the back of his red F-150.

 

David Chang

David was 12 years old when his parents brought them from Korea to Los Angeles. After being inspired by professors like Tam RajBhandary at MIT, he got an MD-PhD and went into oncology.

I was at UCLA for about eight years. I was tenured, and in terms of grants and things like that, I was doing very well. 

But when I turned 40, that’s when I said, “I can just continue doing what I’m doing, or I want to try something different.”

I chose the latter. 

I didn’t want to have this feeling of not having at least explored what it was like outside the academic environment. 

And as it happened, at that time, academic discovery translating into drug development, as well as people moving from academia to industry–although it was relatively uncommon–it was happening.

So that really gave me an opportunity to explore. That first job that I took – technically I was on sabbatical from UCLA. And after the sabbatical was done, I decided to stay with a company that I joined, which was Amgen back in 2003.

If you had asked high-school-me about biotech, I would have said, “What? What are you talking about?” 

At that time, the focus was to be a good student and either pursue medicine–I mean, those are the common sort of professions that a lot of Asians pursue–or go more in the science and technology-related areas.

Business and all those things weren’t really what my parents were talking about. 

 

Aileen Pangan

Aileen moved to the US from the Philippines for residency and fellowship. Though she had intended to return to Manila, events during her training led her in a different direction. 

When I was a medical resident at Rush University Medical Center, I represented the hospital at the American College of Physicians Illinois Chapter Clinical Vignette competition. 

The year before, the person who won first place presented her case in a poetic type of way. The presentation could be creative.

I had an interesting case of amyloidosis, and I decided to sing it to the blues. 

One of my chief residents was a musician and gave me a cassette tape of background blues rhythm. 

I won the competition and was asked to present the case at Grand Rounds at Rush.

I thought to myself, how wonderful that I can combine my love of medicine with my love of music. That was when I got the sense that in this country, I have the opportunity to do something unique.  Doing something different—and doing it well—can be a rewarding experience. 

It was also when I presented the winning case at Grand Rounds that my future husband first saw me.

 

Leo Qian

Born in China, Leo was the first in his family to go to college and went on to Ohio to pursue a PhD. When he was wrapping up his graduate work, he grappled with whether to turn his academic work into a company. 

At that time, the other option was to become a senior scientist at a pharma company. So I could have gone to a job where I would get paid every single month no matter what I was doing or I could take a leap of faith and do this.

The specific thing I remember was on a road trip to visit friends in Cleveland with my wife. We were driving in my 1997 Pontiac GT—I don’t know why I bought that car! I spent so much money fixing it. 

On the way back to Columbus, I was just debating whether I really should do it or I should just take a safer approach and become a senior scientist where I will get a paycheck. 

So my wife told me, “You should just do it. Even if you fail, you’ll learn something. You can afford it, you are so early in your life. You can always get a job any time you want.” 

She said, “You know in the worst case, I will make a living for the three of us.” At that time, my older daughter had been born. “I make a living”–which was $55,000–“we can survive.” 

That kind of pushed me to do it. 

I really believe the immigrant experience shapes your ability to become an entrepreneur. Starting a company is hard and sometimes scary, but it’s still easier than figuring out how to build a life in a completely new country. If you can do that, you can do anything.