Struggling For Freedom:
A New Queens Immigrant’s Story

By Angela Montefinise

When 38-year-old Chinese native Celia Wang arrived in Queens last October, she said she felt “a little scared and totally alone.”

She spoke almost no English, had very little money, and had no idea how she was going to make ends meet.

Chinese native and Elmhurst resident Celia Wang (left) is struggling to reunite her family in Queens, where she currently lives with her son, and is working to bring her daughter and husband from China.

But she clutched the hand of her six-year-old son, Wesly, anyway, and arrived at her new home in Elmhurst to start a new life. After unsuccessfully searching for work in the book publishing and real estate industries – two fields she excelled at in China – she was forced to sell gloves on the streets of Flushing and Manhattan to pay the bills . . . sometimes sitting in cardboard boxes to keep warm.   

Wang doesn’t complain or cry about her situation, though. She said she always stays strong because, “My husband and daughter need me to stay strong. I have to fight for them.”

Wang’s husband, reporter Yuhui Zhang, is reportedly being held in a Chinese detention center for a series of articles he wrote on the controversial meditative group the Falun Gong.

Her daughter, five-year-old In San Zhang, is staying with family members in the former Portuguese colony of Macau until Wang can afford to bring her to Queens.

Wang is struggling to save money and gain political contacts that will allow her to reunite her family and she’s calling on the residents of Queens to help. Through an interpreter, she said, “People think they can’t help. They can.”

On Nov. 11, 2000, Wang was doing the laundry in her home in Macau when she received a telephone call from her husband’s lawyer, the man who she had called to find out where her husband was. He informed her that Zhang had been arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison because of his stories on the Falun Gong — a group that is banned in Communist China.

The lawyer told Wang her husband had been “tortured in horrible ways.” Wang told the Tribune, “I know it must be horrible. Not a day goes by I don’t worry about his health.”

Although a representative for the Chinese Consulate in New York City denied that such tactics are used by the government, Wang said she was so scared she decided to leave China and move to Queens, where she had friends and where there is a strong Falun Gong and Chinese population. She was able to bring her son Wesly, but not her five-year-old daughter, who is staying in Macau with Wang’s cousin.

“It breaks my heart that she’s not here . . . I need to settle here first. She has all of her paperwork to come over. I just have to save money so I can take care of her,” Wang said.

Wesly, a gifted student at P.S. 89, is a “spunky kid” who loves getting attention, and has already learned English “very well,” according to Crystal Liu, a Flushing resident who is helping Wang in her struggle. Liu said, “He’s always in front of the room. He’s not shy at all. He’s a very cute little boy.”

Sometimes, Wang said that Wesly will wake up in the middle of the night, screaming. “He wakes up screaming, ‘Daddy, daddy, daddy.’ Then he’ll ask me, ‘When is daddy coming home?’ He asks if daddy is okay in prison and whether people are beating him. When he says that I’m very sad because I don’t have the answer either.”

In Macau, Wang’s cousin took five-year-old In San Zhang to the Meixi Second Detention Center in Zhuhai where her father is being held, and Wang said, “I know my husband is usually very calm. But when he saw her, my cousin said his eyes grew wide and he got excited. He hadn’t seen her for two years . . . She was yelling, “Daddy, daddy,” and tried to hug him, but the bars were in the way . . . He tried to hug her and he couldn’t.”

Wang said it “hurts so much” to see her children suffering, and for their sakes, she maintains her strength and hope. She said, “I want them to grow up happily. I’ll do whatever I can to see to it that they do.”

Wang first met Zhang in Macau when she was working for a book publishing company and Zhang was ghostwriting a book. Wang was his editor, and helped him afford rent and food.

She said, “I loved his writing. I was very impressed with it, and very touched . . . He was so poor, but I helped him out.” Zhang was on a temporary visa in Macau, and Wang helped him get an extension. “I did what I could. He needed it,” she said.

Wang helped him write his own book from his home. Wang said, “The boss went up to my husband and asked if he would be interested in dating his daughter. He said, ‘Actually, the girl I like is Ms. Wang.’”

The couple was married in 1995, and Zhang started practicing Falun Gong in 1997. Wang said, “An accountant in his office brought in a book about Falun Gong. He read the whole thing in one night . . . He loved philosophy and religion and he thought it was interesting.”

Falun Gong is a Chinese meditative practice started in 1992 by now-Queens resident Li Hongzhi. The practice includes small, slow movements, usually done outdoors to quiet music. The practice has been banned from China.

A representative of the Chinese Consulate would not comment on the group.

Wang is slowly building up friends and support in Queens, and is learning English from her son Wesly, who has “picked up English very quickly,” Liu said. She is also learning the language just from hearing it, and Liu said, “Once she learns English, things will be much easier for her.” 

She’s also growing accustomed to the borough, and she said, “It’s easy to live here because there are so many Chinese people and cultural shops.” She said the multiculturalism of Queens has made her transition “much easier,” and said, “We like it here . . . Elmhurst costs less than Flushing, but it’s just one bus from Flushing, so it’s very convenient.”

Wang said she would love for her entire family to be united in Queens, and she said, “I like it here a lot. I think we would be very happy here . . . It’s free and happy and safe here. My kids will be safe here.”

Wang expects to be settled enough in Queens to bring her daughter here by next June, and she said, “I will be very happy that day. But I won’t be completely happy until we’re all together.”

Wang is not alone in her struggles to get her husband out of jail, and is working with Falun Gong members in Queens to get political power behind her efforts. She has already contacted Congressmen Gary Ackerman, Anthony Weiner and Joe Crowley, and all have expressed a willingness to help. They are currently deciding how to handle the issue, and Wang said with a smile, “Anything they can do, I would appreciate it so much.”

Liu said, “People think there’s nothing they can do, but in China, a letter from someone overseas is a big deal. People pay attention. It goes up the ranks, and we’ve already gotten 39 people released from jail just from letters.”

Write to the Chinese Consulate General in New York at 520 12th Ave., New York, NY 10036 or to the Meixi Second Detention Center, Zhuhai, Guangdong Province, People’s Republic of China, 510080.

E-mail the Trib