Edward K. T. Chen

Much of what is known about Chen beyond the plaque comes from his son, chemist Edward C. M. Chen. Born in San Francisco on November 30, 1909, the elder Chen was invited by Oklahoma's governor in the mid-1930s to watch the trial of a woman charged with trying to kill a Chinese student, and a Tahlequah jury convicted her. His mother's 1940 funeral led him to start the Sunday school that became Houston's first Chinese church. He was the first Asian to appear weekly on Houston television, as a KUHT panelist. He died in Washington on October 16, 1957.

What the plaque says

Edward K. T. Chen Born in San Francisco, California as Chen Yuk Chow, Edward K.T. Chen, the son of Chin Yuen Yee and Chin Luk Oi, had a profound impact on the lives of Americans, particularly those of Chinese descent. In 1928, he attended Columbia University in New York City. While there, he worked as a typesetter and reporter for the Chinese Nationalist Daily, a Chinese language newspaper. In November 1932, Chen came to Galveston as secretary of the Republic of China's First Vice Consulate for the southern U.S. The office moved to Houston the next year, and he simultaneously attended the University of Houston, where he earned bachelor's and master's degrees and became the first Chinese-American professor in the city. In 1934, Chen married Janie Ng (d. 1965); the couple had two children. While in Houston, Chen helped to increase the visibility of Chinese and Chinese Americans. In 1937, his lobbying efforts helped to defeat a bill that would have prevented Chinese from owning land in Texas. In 1940, he helped organize the forerunner of the First Chinese Church in Houston. During World War II, he was a spokesman for the Republic of China, which promoted Chen to Deputy Consul in 1948. During the Korean war, he worked to convince the federal government that most Chinese Americans were loyal to the U.S., translated Chinese intelligence and taught Cantonese to Federal Bureau of Investigation agents. In 1954, Chen was the founding president of the Houston Lodge of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance, fighting prejudice directed toward Chinese Texans. Today Chen is remembered as a diplomat and educator whose work made a lasting impact on the lives of Chinese Americans and others in Houston and throughout the United States. (2009)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• The Menil Collection — 9.4 mi
  John and Dominique de Menil's free museum in Montrose: a grey-sided Renzo Piano building among bungalows, holding antiquities, Surrealism and art of Oceania under natural light.
• Rothko Chapel — 9.5 mi
  An octagonal chapel open to all faiths, built by the de Menils around fourteen dark canvases by Mark Rothko, with Barnett Newman's Broken Obelisk standing in the pool outside.
• Museum of Fine Arts, Houston — 9.8 mi
  The oldest art museum in Texas, grown from a 1900 schoolroom art league into a campus of Watkin, Mies van der Rohe and later buildings, with Ima Hogg's Bayou Bend up the bayou.
• Buffalo Soldiers National Museum — 11 mi
  A museum in Houston's 1925 Light Guard Armory that tells the service of Black soldiers from the Revolutionary War onward, built from one veteran's thirty years of collecting.

More markers nearby

• Dairy (Alief) — 2.5 mi
• The Kinkaid School — 3.0 mi
• Chinese Texans and Civil Rights — 4.1 mi
• Hamilton Shirts — 4.5 mi