Thomas Sung saw this coming. The rise in anti-Asian attacks in the United States was something he warned his daughters about last year, telling them to prepare themselves and buying pepper spray, whistles and tasers for them.
“My prediction always has been that this situation is going to get worse before it gets better,” Sung, founder of Abacus Federal Savings Bank in New York City’s Chinatown, said in an interview with FRONTLINE on April 6.
Sung’s bank was the subject of the Oscar-nominated 2017 documentary Abacus: Small Enough to Jail, about the only U.S. bank prosecuted in relation to the 2008 financial crisis, from director Steve James. Sung and three of his daughters — Vera, Jill and Chanterelle, who were all featured in the documentary — spoke to FRONTLINE about what their community has gone through during the pandemic and how they’ve weathered the rise in anti-Asian attacks in the city.
Even with the gear their father gave them to protect themselves, Vera Sung, director at Abacus bank, said she felt a sense of “constant alert” in the city. After a man was stabbed from behind in Chinatown in February, she said she has taken to looking behind her as she walks. When COVID-19 arrived, the family began to worry about everyone’s health. Now, she said, they also worry about everyone’s physical safety.
“It’s been extremely stressful and emotionally draining having to deal with the thought that somebody may actually come and attack you or hurl a racial epithet at you,” Vera said.
“Defend Our Existence”
Recently published analysis has shown that hate crimes targeting Asians and Asian Americans surged in 16 major cities in 2020, even as hate crimes overall dropped 7% in those cities. Hate crimes targeting Asians rose nearly 150% in the cities surveyed and, in New York City, rose from three events in 2019 to 28 in 2020, according to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University. The analysis noted that the first spike, in March and April 2020, happened “amidst a rise in COVID cases and negative stereotyping of Asians related to the pandemic.”
As an Asian American, Chanterelle Sung, who works as a director of compliance for a pharmaceutical company, has recently come to feel like she has to defend her right to be here. “I’m in my 40s, and it’s like, at this stage in life, being born here, and with parents who immigrated here many, many years ago, and have been fully integrated into our community here, it’s true that we’re now in this place where we have to defend our existence in this country,” she said. “That’s really shocking to me, but it’s nothing new for our community.”
In addition to that feeling, Vera said, “There’s also another truly bizarre thought that’s out there, which is that I also have to try and hide who I am. Because I am an object of dislike, hatred, so I need to hide myself.” She described how a friend suggested wearing a mask, sunglasses and a hat so people couldn’t identify Vera as Asian. “I’ve never ever had to think that way,” she said.
Thomas, who was born in Shanghai and came to America at the age of 16, said he was prepared to face some discrimination because he was an immigrant. He said it must be much harder for his American-born daughters to bear. “They are just as much Americans as any other American.”
The Trial of Abacus
The family considers the case brought against Abacus Federal Savings Bank in 2012, chronicled in the FRONTLINE documentary, as an example of discrimination.
In the documentary, Cyrus Vance Jr., district attorney of New York County, said, “I think the characterizations that this was somehow a cultural bias on the office’s part — entirely misplaced and entirely wrong.” Vance, who is still D.A., continued: “And I felt that our handling of the bank was consistent with how we would have handled the bank if we were investigating a bank that serviced the South American community or the Indian community. There was nothing different that we did or purposefully designed to treat this bank differently.”
Recalling the case now, Jill Sung, president and CEO of the bank, said she feels frustrated when she wonders where the bank would be today, and how many more people they could have helped, if they hadn’t gone through a five-year legal battle that ended in a “not guilty” verdict on all 80 counts.
The family said the case’s emotional toll hasn’t been dulled by time. When they participate in screenings and talks about the documentary, the old feelings of pain and anger resurface. “Maybe, usually, time heals everything, as people say,” Thomas said. “It’s healing very slowly.” He cited a “profound effect” on the family and damage beyond the legal costs.
“My dad is a very glass-half-full kind of person, so he feels that time allows things to heal, but I don’t know if you ever actually heal from this,” Vera said. “You learn to accept it, deal with it and put it in a corner and then extract some good from it.”
Each of the Sungs spoke of translating their experience into becoming stronger advocates for their community. For a while, Chanterelle said, she thought she could separate her career, personal life and success from her identity as an Asian American, but what happened to her family’s bank changed that: “there’s much more of a motivation, a sense of responsibility — I would emphasize that latter aspect. It’s a sense of responsibility that I feel towards the larger community.”
When COVID Arrived
Abacus has remained open throughout the pandemic as an essential business. Jill credited the customers’ awareness of COVID-19 from the earliest days of the crisis with helping the bank prepare.
“A lot of our customers who have relatives in China … they were already aware of it. They also knew from SARS, Avian flu and all these things that happened beforehand that this kind of stuff is not to be taken lightly.” She said customers began asking employees to wear gloves and masks in January 2020, months before New York City shut down businesses in response to the virus.
Jill said the bank also moved quickly to procure personal protective equipment, such as masks and gloves, and to ensure people could work remotely, come in on alternate days or reduce their hours in the office to decrease the risk of infection. “We were not caught flat-footed.”
In addition to having to move quickly to protect employees and customers during the pandemic, Abacus has also seen the economic effects of COVID on other businesses in the community. The bank has handled 189 Paycheck Protection Program loans for small businesses, according to Jill.
Some of Chinatown’s small businesses have not been as fortunate. Vera and Jill’s office windows overlook a street where about three-quarters of the storefronts and restaurants are still closed. They weren’t sure if those businesses would be able to recover, they said.
On top of the virus and its economic side effects, Chanterelle noted that “scapegoating and stigmatizing” of Chinese Americans has made an already tough recovery for Chinatown businesses even more difficult.
“I hope that the resilience of the community is such that we will come back,” Thomas said.
A Way Forward
Grappling with their own experiences and with the current atmosphere of rising hate crimes against Asians, the Sungs see education, increased civic engagement in the Asian American community and working with other minority groups as the way to foster real change toward a more accepting society.
Thomas said that, in order to be heard, the Asian American community would need to take a larger role in civic activities, vote, and “assert their rights as citizens in a democratic country.” He also said there are so many people from other communities willing to help, because “there’s so much goodness among Americans.”
“Maybe through uniting with them, we can change that overall system and that overall attitude,” he said.
Jill said more Asian American history should be included in school education, pointing out that some people are not aware of the Chinese Exclusion Act, which, from 1882 to 1943, barred Chinese workers from coming to America and Chinese in the U.S. from becoming American citizens. Vera suggested also highlighting in school curriculums positive contributions Asian Americans have made, from building railroads in the 1860s to fighting for the United States since at least the First World War, despite the discrimination they faced.
“I get really worried about these hate crimes because hate breeds hate,” Vera said. “We have to be so careful not to fuel that or fan that, and really show solidarity.”
Watch Abacus: Small Enough to Jail in its entirety, click links:
The Story of Sun Qicheng
*In the midst of the 2008 subprime financial crisis in the United States an inspiring story emerged.*
A 74-year-old man of Chinese descent was arrested in the United States, and became a scapegoat for the US government, but the outcome was beyond everyone's expectations.
The arrest of Meng Wanzhou has shocked the world. 10 years ago, there was actually a similar arrest that also shocked the world.
The defendant was just an innocent Chinese old man. He was suddenly arrested and *became a scapegoat for the US government. He faced 182 charges and 240 indictments.* He never expected the ending which exceeded everyone's expectations.
He is Sun Qicheng (English name: Thomas Sung). He was born in Shanghai in 1935. His father Sun Ruilin was a famous entrepreneur and a philanthropist who founded a large orphanage in Nanshan, Chongqing and rescued thousands of children who were displaced by the Japanese invasion of China.
Under the influence of his father, the seed of national justice was planted in his young heart until it grew into a towering tree in later years. When he was 16 years old, his family migrated to the US. At the university, he obtained a master's degree in economics and a doctorate in law. Such excellent results in the education system were rare among Chinese and even Americans at the time. After completing his studies, he could have successfully entered the upper class of the US, but he made a decision that surprised everyone.
At that time, there was no place where more Chinese gathered in the US than in Chinatown in New York. The barber shop, the small Chinese street vendors doing business on the street, the humble Chinese shoe repair stall, and theatrical performances. Everything here made him feel extremely comfortable. He said: Whenever I walk in Chinatown, I feel that it is like home...I want to be a part of them.
However, behind the Chinese existence in the US, there is actually endless bitterness and injustice.
The Chinese hawkers who set up stalls in Chinatown would be fined if the stalls encroached little bit into the road; for a short distance of one meter, they were fined USD1,000. This is the money earned for their hard work for months. The police cars would park in Chinatown at will, occupying the business space of vendors without any restriction.
He saw all this with his eyes, so when he graduated in 1964, he gave up high-paying jobs & the opportunity to enter the upper class, and established a law firm in Chinatown, where there were many shoe repair shops, vegetable stalls, and butcher shops. What he did was for only one purpose: to provide much needed & timely help for the unfair treatment suffered by his Chinese compatriots.
After more than ten years of helping to solve their legal woes, he discovered one of their most difficult problems; many small Chinese businesses in Chinatown paid their workers daily or weekly salaries. While several banks in the US had taken in tens of millions of dollars from Chinese deposits & made huge profits, when Chinese people wanted to borrow money from these banks, they faced difficulties as they were unable to come up with a convincing source of income. The result was the Chinese living in Chinatown found it difficult to buy a house, and even harder to invest in expanding their business. He tried to help his compatriots by lobbying mainstream American banks, but failed time after time.
He found this very unfair. In order to help his compatriots as much as possible, he decided to give up his law firm and open a bank himself. He said: "It's time. I want to give back to society and the Chinese."
"To many Chinese, the abacus is the treasure of China's five thousand years of culture." So he decided to call the bank Abacus Bank (National Treasure Bank) to work for the well-being of his compatriots. He invested all his wealth and resources and finally in 1980, the Abacus Bank was established.
The opening of the Abacus Bank brought great vitality to the local Chinese community & hope from helplessness and hardship. He helped them overcome all these with low-interest loans from the US government to help thousands of low-income Chinese who had settled in the US to make a living.
After 20 years of unremitting efforts, countless Chinese families regained & improved their lives. Whether it is an aunt who sold flowers or an old man who sold vegetables, with his help, they could finally afford a house, have their own business & a foothold in the US. Local Chinese often said: If you have difficulty, you can find a "national treasure".
"National Treasure" became famous, and became the well-known OCBC Bank among the Americans.
Sun said: "The unity of Chinese people abroad should be something integrated into the blood. Abacus Bank aims to enable compatriots to live in a foreign country with dignity."
He opened the bank in New York, and even more in the hearts of overseas Chinese. While he succeeded in his career, he always missed the China where he was born and raised. He knew the importance of talent to the motherland. In 2000, he preached the establishment of the "US-China Education Foundation" to contact many universities in the US. China’s education department cooperated in running schools and provided China with a steady stream of talents: lawyers, accountants, computer experts, finance, corporate management, etc., which deepened the exchanges between China and the US. Unanimously praised, he was called "the goodwill ambassador of China and the US" and "the architect of the Sino-US friendship bridge."
Everything was moving towards a better place, but because of a huge storm that came suddenly, he instantly fell into a dead end. *In 2008, a severe subprime mortgage crisis blew up in the US. All mainstream banks panicked.* Unemployment, poverty, and bankruptcy became a huge social disaster. In order to save the country’s nearly collapsed economy, in October, President Bush signed the "Emergency Economic Stability" bill. The bill authorised the use of taxpayers’ money of up to USD700 billion in taxes to rescue those financial giants. But the American people who had been badly affected needed a reasonable explanation. To spend taxpayers' money to rescue the Bank of America, who will be responsible for this crisis?
The government knew that the main reason for the outbreak of the subprime mortgage crisis was that the financial tycoons on Wall Street had packaged extremely risky loans and sold these to the public. This vicious circle finally triggered this unprecedented financial disaster. But because these people were too big & strong to be offended (& prosecuted), the US government targeted Sun and Abacus Bank which unexpectedly, became the only financial institution at that time that was sued by the US government for loan fraud. The police went to the bank to arrest its employees. The scene was shocking. The staff were chained together and walked out one by one with their heads bent. This method of arrest even caused upset among the local lawyers in the US. “They were herded down the corridor like herding cows. There is no precedent before..." Someone said: "This is very unfair, it is a shame! If it were a group of African-American workers, they wouldn't be treated like this!" Just because they are Chinese and living in Chinatown, they had to suffer such discrimination and injustice.
Sun was 74 years old. He never expected that a financial turmoil caused by the American banks would make him a scapegoat. He did not expect that he would be convicted of 182 charges and 240 fines in court. The farce of "the big bank is too big to fail, and Abacus Bank is small enough to be prosecuted" was staged in the US. His family was exposed to the eyes of the American people by the media, and suddenly became "the sinners of the US", on this absurd charges. The average bad debt rate of mortgages in the US was 5% at that time, while only 9 people did not service their loans out of Abacus Bank's more than 3,000 loans. The bank's bad debt rate was only 0.3%, which had the lowest non-fulfillment loan rate in the US. It is unacceptable for such a reputable bank to be held responsible and carry the blame for the US financial crisis.
U.S. news reports severely humiliated the Chinese. Seeing that their father was wronged so much, his youngest daughter who was serving in the D.A.'s office resigned from the government.
"The U.S. government' s action made me fail to see the justice and fairness preached. On the contrary, I only saw their incompetence and arrogance. I was so disappointed."
She took up her father's case. However, there were hundreds of lawyers on the Government's prosecution side who investigated Abacus Bank. It was then proposed that as long as Sun Qicheng is willing to pay a fine of USD6 million, the matter could pass.
But for the dignity of his family and for the dignity of the Chinese, he did not compromise.
He decided to fight for fairness and justice no matter what the price was. In this way, a Chinese family's war against the entire government started. In the face of powerful government agencies, his only strength was that of his four daughters. Three were lawyers and were quite familiar with U.S. politics, economy and law. “The government doesn’t know that I’m not that easy to bully, but my daughters, they are also strong, wise, and capable women..." The U.S. Prosecutor’s Office did not expect that he was so stubborn and tenacious. He had 182 charges. The prosecution used hundreds of well-known lawyers to investigate the files of Abacus Bank in full, so that his family would plead guilty.
In this most difficult period, he was supported by his closest compatriots in Chinatown.
Every day, the owner of the noodle shop presented his daughters with hot wonton noodle. They would stay in the shop for a whole day, discussing the case to "restore dad's innocence!" Many Chinese were waiting for the day when he would be cleared of his charges. He said: "When I was in trouble, my compatriots did not abandon me. They gave me encouragement, support, and told me that I would win this lawsuit."
The lawsuit lasted for five full years and involved more than 600,000 files. In this power disparity contest, he finally won justice with extraordinary courage. In the end, none of his 182 counts and 240 counts were proven.
After learning of the victory of the lawsuit, many Chinese came forward, verseas Chinese
Later, the story of Sun Qicheng's family against the US government was filmed as a documentary depicting the Chinese resisting injustice: "Abacus Bank, small enough to jail" was nominated for best feature documentary for the 90th Oscar Award & won other film awards.
This is the legacy of the elderly Sun Qicheng, and the spirit of all Chinese people who strive for and value peace. The backbone of the Chinese people will never be broken, and the faith of the Chinese people will never be torn apart. An unyielding China will eventually win.
Watch the documentary "Abacus: Small enough to jail" (2017) - How a Chinese family fought against the US government for 5 years.
“My mother’s side of the family was very creative,” says Jill Sung. “But my father’s side was very business-oriented, and we joke that my father’s side of the family suffocated any creativity that was left on my mother’s side.”
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