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to adapt the short story into a play. A Rockefeller Yamauchi' s writings seem to follow a timeline of Foundation grant was awarded Yamauchi, and in Japanese American history, early immigration and 1976 the story was turned into a play. "I was sort of rural settlement, World War II and the camps, and pushed into playwriting" says Yamauchi. postwar readjustment. Convertingprose to drama was in itself a daunting The East West Players and The Mark Taper Forum task. Dialogue had to be added and this meant a crea­ have staged readings of Yamauchi's Shirley Temple, tion of a different kind of poetry. Yamauchi is of the Hotcha-Cha and Songs That Made the Hit Parade. opinion that her writing has a sense of the Japanese The East West Players have also premiered one-act enryo or self-restraint. Say less, be simple. She feels plays, A Fine Day, TheTrip, and Stereoscope. Yamau­ she is more "earthy" in her writings as compared to chi has won the American Theater Critics Regional the intellectual acumen of her friend Hisaye Yama­ Award for Outstanding Play (1977) and two Rockefel­ moto: "Every story reflects its economic and political ler Foundation playwriting fellowships {I 979, 1985). times. Nothing is in a vacuum." In October 2010, the University of Hawaii Press And the Soul Shall Dance won the Los Angeles published Rosebud and Other Stories, a collection of Drama Critics Circle Award for best new play of short stories by Yamauchi. Commenting on the book, 1977. The following year it was shown as a television Professor Paul Spickard of the University of film on PBS and was repeated on the Alts and Enter­ California, Santa Barbara, wrote: "It is not often that tainment Channel in 1987. Intergenerational bonding we get to hear a voice of an older Asian American and collective action versus individual self-interest woman in fiction, and that voice is richly present here form the basis of Yamauchi's work. She is firmly of in stories that celebrate change, memory, relationships, the opinion that "Every story reflects its economic things that are lost ... and kept." and political times. Nothing is in a vacuum. I simply Ambi Harsha felt the need to put down a few footprints of our See also Chan, Jeffery Paul; Chin, Frank; lnada, Law­ sojourn here." son Fusao; Spickard, Paul Russell; Wong, Shawn This play was followed by 12-1-A ( 1982), which like Soul addressed the issues of economics, power, racism, and the new specter of war. The characters "A Conversation with Wakako Yamauchi, William P. were simple but not of simple minds. The society and ReferencesOsborn and Sylvia Watanabe." 1996. In Sylvia Wata­ politics of the time were vividly captured by the play­ nabe and Carol Bruchac, eds., wright. This is also very evident in The Music Lessons Greenfield Center, NY: Greenfield Into The Fire: Asian ( 1980) (based on her shortstory In Heaven and Earth), Review Press. American Prose. which preceded 12-1 -A and again addressed the issues Houston, Velina Hasu, ed. 1993. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. of being a woman and growing up in the harshness of The Politics of Life. the Imperial Valley. Yamauchi's next effort was a departure in theme. The Chairman's Wife (1990) focused on a public figure; in this case the wife of Yang, Chen Ning ( 1922-) Chairman Mao. But here again the woman in question is faced with the challenges posed by power. Chen Ning Yang is one of the leading theoretical phys­ Yamauchi did return to prose with the seminal icists in the world and an influential leader in the Chi­ Songs My Mother TaughtMe (1994), a looking back nese American scientific community. Sharing the at a writing career spanning over four decades. Her obel Prize in Physics for 1957, he has played a key simple, lyrical plot structures were a testament to her role in facilitating U .S.-China scientific and educa­ growing up during the Great Depression. As she her­ tional exchanges and in promoting basic scientific self stated, "We are a tribe of wanderers remembering research and education in mainland China, Taiwan, a garden we'd left or looking for an Eden that waits." Hong Kong, and the rest of Asia. Yang, Chen Ning I 1225

Chinese American Nobel Laureate Chen Ning Ya ng with Richard Feynman in 1955. (SSPUGetty Images)

Chen ing Yang was born on October I, 1922, in mathematics to solve physics problems. After teaching Hefei, Anhui, China. His mother, Luo Menghua, in a middle school in Kunming fora year, Yang won a taught him to read, and his father, Yang Wuzhi, Boxer fellowship, which enabled him to follow in his received a PhD in mathematics fromthe University of father's footsteps to the United States to pursue a Chicago and became a professor, eventually at the Ph D at the University of Chicago, where he gave him­ prestigious Qinghua (Tsinghua) University in Beij ing, self the English name "Frank" in honor of Benjamin where the family moved in 1929. Yang excelled in Franklin. He initially worked on experimental physics school but his sheltered environment collapsed when under the eminent Italian American physicist Enrico the Japanese invaded China in the mid- 1930s and his Fermi, but in the end proved to himself and others that familyjo ined the refugees eventually to Kunming in it was not his cup of tea. "Where there is a bang, there Southwest China. is Yang," his friendsjok ed. He returned to theoretical In 1938, Yang emolled in the Southwestern Asso­ physics but remained in close touch with experiments. ciated University in Kunming, which combined the He collaborated with Tsung-Dao Lee, a fellow student three most prestigious Chinese universities (Beijing, from Southwest, on a paper on the so-called "weak Qinghua, and Nankai). Yang at firstmaj ored in chem­ interactions" among subatomic particles.Bot h of them istry but soon switched to theoretical physics, finishing also took classes with the Indian American astrophysi­ with a bachelor's in 1942 and a master's degree in cist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar on Chicago's fac­ 1944, impressing his professorswi th his talent in using ulty. In 1948, Yang finished a theoretical paper on 1226 I Yang, Chen Ning

nuclear reactions under the superv1s10n of the several experiments to test their hypothesis. Against Hungarian American physicist Edward Teller and widespread skepticism, Chien Shiung Wu, Lee's received his PhD. Chinese American colleague at Columbia, conducted Yang stayed on forano ther year at Chicago as a an experiment with scientists at the National Bureau physics instructor before moving to the Institute for of Standards in Washington, D.C., and proved Yang Advanced Studies at Princeton where he married Du and Lee to be right. The news electrified the world of Zhili, one of his former students from Kunming in physics as a fu ndamental law of physics was over­ 1950, and gained the prestigious status of a "Penna­ turned. Yang and Lee received the obel Pri ze in nent Member" of the institute in 1954. That same year, Physics in 1 957 "forthe ir penetrating investigation of Yang spent the summer visiting the Brookhaven the so-called parity Jaws which has led to important National Laboratory on Long Island where he devised, discoveries regarding the elementary particles." with a graduate student Robert Mills, the so-called Lee and Yang continued their fruitful collabora­ Yang-Mills gauge field theory to describe patternsof tion when Lee visited Princeton in the early l 960s. In interactions between elementary particles. It has since 1962, however, personal friction developed and their become one of the most fundamental theories in phys­ collaboration stopped, partly over a dispute about ics with far-reaching impact even in mathematjcs. In credit for their famous discovery. In 1966, Yang fact,Yan g would later recognize that the mathematical accepted an invitation to become the Albert Einstein frameworkof his theory is the so-called theory ofcon ­ Professor and the founding director of an Institute of nections on fiber bundles, an area pioneered by the Theoretical Physics at the new State University of Chinese American mathematician Shiing-Shen Chem, ew York at Stony Brook. His work in this period Yang's former teacher and lifelong friend. led to the so-called Yang-Baxter equation with wide­ Yang's best-known work on the breakdown of spread applications and growing importance in both left-right parity in the microcosm derived from his physics and mathematics. renewed collaboration with T. D. Lee in the 1950s. 1n In 1971, Yang became one of the first Chinese 1956, the two studied the problem of theta and tau, American scientists to visit the People's Republic of two so-called "strange particles" that shared every­ China. Yang felt strongly about the need to modernize thing except for their decay patterns, which puzzled his country of origin and sought to help rev italize physicists. There was one solution to the problem, but Chinese science and technology pattly by re-establishing it would lead to a violation of parity conservation. In U.S.-China scientificexcha nges. He pushed forreforms physics, when a physical system and its mirror image in science and education policy when he met with Zhou behave identically and follow the same laws, it is said Enlai, the Chinese premier,dur ing his 1971 trip,and with that parity was conserved. In all of physics up to that Mao Zedong, the Chinese communist leader, in 1972. In point, it was widely bel ieved that all processes in the United States, he became a prominent voice in pro­ nature obeyed this law of parity conservation. moting U.S.-China reopening of relations. In 1977, he Yang and Lee, however, decided to check whether became president of the National Association of Chinese parity conservation was ever explicitly tested in a rela­ Americans and pushed for the reestablishment of U.S.­ tively new process in physics-weak interactions that PRC diplomatic relations, which finally took place in governed how a particle from an atomic nucleus 1 979. Traveling frequently to mainland China, Taiwan, decayed into others. To their surprise, they foundt hat and Hong Kong, Yang becatne an influential advisor to parity conservation had never been experimentally policy-makers and a populat· lecturer on science and cul­ established forwe ak interactions as for the other three n1re in the greater China. He retired from SUNY in 1 999, fundamental forces in nature: the electromagnetic, and in 2003, after the death of his wife, moved to Qing­ gravitational, and strong interactions. They published hua in Beijing where he works as a professor and lives a paper entitled "Question of parity nonconservation in a special residence built for him by the university with in weak interactions," suggesting that parity conserva­ his second wife, Weng Fan, whom he marriedin 2004. tion was violated in weak interactions and proposed Zuoyue Wang