Black couple rented to a Chinese language American household when no person would. Now, they’re donating $5M to Black group.
In 1939, the Dongs, a Chinese language American household in Coronado, California, discovered themselves unable to lease a home amid racially restrictive housing legal guidelines that favored white consumers and renters.
Emma and Gus Thompson, a Black entrepreneurial couple on the town, allowed the household to lease and ultimately purchase their Coronado property when no person else would. Now, to thank the Thompsons for serving to them get a toehold in American society, the Dongs are donating $5 million to Black school college students utilizing proceeds from the sale of the home.
“It might allow some children to go and flourish in school that may not have been capable of in any other case,” Janice Dong, 86, stated in regards to the plan to promote the household residence they later bought, in addition to an adjoining property.
The Dong household may even work to have San Diego State University’s Black Resource Center named after Emma and Gus, who was born into slavery in Kentucky.
Lloyd Dong Jr., 81, stated the Thompsons gave their household a begin with the land, and it’s time for them to do the identical for others.
“With out them, we might not have the training and the whole lot else,” Lloyd Dong Jr. stated.
The Dong household’s Coronado properties embrace the Thompsons’ unique residence at 832 C Ave. and an eight-unit condominium complicated subsequent door. Members of the family estimate the mixed worth to be value $8 million. Lloyd Dong Jr. and his older brother, Ron Dong, plan to donate their parts — $5 million.
Amid the backdrop of a nationwide dialog about reparations, this isn’t a narrative about atonement and restore, stated Kevin Ashley, a Coronado historian. The Thompsons’ gesture was a transaction with no strings hooked up; the Dongs didn’t have something to pay again.
As a substitute, Ashley stated, the story is about honoring and recognizing the enduring influence of 1 household’s will to assist one other get forward. Because the nation continues to debate the deserves and logistics of reparations for its historical past of chattel slavery, the Dong household’s determination to provide again to the Black group might serve for example, he stated.
Ron Dong and his spouse, Janice Dong, are each retired academics who consider that training can change lives.
“It’s simply precisely what’s acceptable,” Ron Dong, 86, stated about their donation.
Unity within the margins of society
The Dong household’s roots in California date again to the late nineteenth century. Lloyd Dong Sr. was a farmer within the Central Valley earlier than he moved to Coronado to develop into a gardener. He labored on the land six days every week, in line with his son Ron. On the seventh day, he did additional work to permit his American-born youngsters to attend colleges, construct careers and put money into actual property.
On this chapter of their lives, when Lloyd Jr. and Ron Dong are fascinated by their legacies, reminiscences bubble to the floor of individuals of their previous who modified the trajectory of their lives. In 1939, Gus and Emma Thompson gave the Dong household a spot to remain, a promise to promote them the land and an opportunity to construct a greater life.
It was a time in Coronado, a resort metropolis recognized for its opulent hotel and white sand seashores on the San Diego Bay peninsula, when folks residing on the margins of society discovered it tough to stay inside metropolis limits. Racially restrictive housing covenants prohibited immigrants and folks of coloration from renting and shopping for in Coronado.
“I feel that after we discuss racism typically in California, and particularly in locations like San Diego and L.A., folks assume as a result of there was no slavery in California, that racism didn’t exist,” stated Jo Von M. McCalester, a Howard College political science professor who grew up in San Diego. “But it surely doesn’t imply that teams and people didn’t perceive their locations throughout the society.”
On the time, the one place for minorities and immigrants to remain in Coronado was Gus Thompson’s boarding home on the higher stage of their barn. This didn’t occur by likelihood. Thompson had traveled from Kentucky to California to work on the Hotel Del Coronado. He constructed the home and barn on C Avenue in 1895, earlier than the town’s racial housing covenants took impact making him exempt from the restrictions. Thompson transformed his barn right into a boarding home for the susceptible.
Gus Thompson’s initiative exhibits a spirit of defiance and a resolve to assist others, stated Ballinger Gardner Kemp, his great-grandson.
The Dong and Thompson households had been on the identical aspect of historical past. They had been folks attempting to make it in a land that didn’t see them as full residents. It wasn’t irregular then to have marginalized people residing collectively and supporting each other, McCalester stated.
“It was simply one thing understood that marginalized folks in San Diego needed to rely very closely on each other,” she stated.
In 1955, Emma Thompson bought the Coronado residence and the barn subsequent door to the Dongs, who turned the primary Chinese language American household to buy actual property in Coronado, stated Ashley, the Coronado historian.
The Dong household lived in the home at 832 C Ave. and in 1957 changed the barn with an condominium complicated. Ron Dong turned a highschool trainer and Lloyd Dong Jr. turned a jack of many trades, together with a tax preparer. The brothers moved away from Coronado to totally different components of California and managed the properties on C Avenue from afar.
Reminiscences of the Thompsons largely light away till the Dong brothers began planning for his or her Coronado properties. They lived comfortably and had no youngsters. Repairs of the properties, which they did themselves, felt more and more tough.
“It’s time,” stated Janice Dong, Ron’s spouse, about their determination to promote the Coronado properties. “We need to give again.”
In 2022, Ashley contacted the Dongs after researching Black historical past in Coronado and requested the fateful query: Do you keep in mind the Thompsons?
Holding a mirror as much as society
The Dong household’s determination to donate to SDSU’s Black Useful resource Middle coincides with California lawmakers’ introduction of 14 reparations bills to handle a few of the state’s legacy of racial discrimination. The payments are primarily based on suggestions from the state’s Reparations Job Drive, shaped in 2020 amid a nationwide racial reckoning and questions on why California, a traditionally free state, would lead the reparations effort.
California entered the union as a free state, however its legacy of racial discrimination is usually neglected, stated Don Tamaki, a member of the California Reparations Job Drive.
“There’s lots that California has to account for,” Tamaki stated, citing histories of native governments seizing properties and proscribing entry to housing and well being care. “In huge and small methods, we have to reckon with this.”
The talk on reparations is emotionally charged and mired with questions of accountability, budgetary constraint and arguments to let bygones be bygones. Most individuals don’t assume descendants of enslaved folks ought to be paid again, in line with a Pew Research survey.
“I feel they perceive how one household’s sacrifice can form the lives of so many,” stated McCalester, the Howard College professor. “I feel that’s the place reparations have to come back from.”
In these households’ intersecting tales, the spirit of insurrection endures. Again then, the Thompsons thumbed their noses at racism by renting and promoting to the Dongs. In 2024, the Dongs are doing one thing comparable.
The Dong household determination holds up a mirror to society to take a deeper look, stated Ashley.
“They’re saying, ‘Take a look at all you guys combating about reparations. We’re giving this all again to the Black group,’” he added.
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