Sophia Ho, who has lived in Lexington for over 60 years, told LexObserver that when she immigrated to the US in the 1950s, her family didn’t mark Chinese New Year with a big celebration.
Immigrants noticed how holidays such as Christmas were promoted and others — namely the holidays that aren’t celebrated by white people — weren’t.
To help children who did not observe Christmas feel included, Chinese families began celebrating their culture’s holidays more festively.
Today we celebrate Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander heritage month, or AAPI month, in the same vein, Ho explained — “because we have to.”
“There should be no Black week or Asian week if we are reminded we are all one family. I am as American as you — that will be the day,” Ho said. “We are working at it to bring attention to people to say we are here, we don’t look the same.”
During AAPI month in May, Ho spoke at an event that honored local members of the AAPI community and how they shaped Lexington as a part of the town’s celebration. Lexington also hosted a sustainable 5k road race to celebrate the community.
LexObserver sat down with Ho, who is one of Lexington’s first Asian immigrants, to discuss her experience immigrating to the US and what advice she has for immigrant families.
Ho grew up in China during the Sino-Japanese War, a conflict between Japan and China that led to World War II. She graduated high school in Taiwan and moved to Connecticut to attend Annhurst College to study biology on a need-based scholarship.
“As an immigrant, my family expected me to study something useful that could make a living,” she said. “We could not be lawyers, we don’t speak the language.”
Ho attributes her passion for helping others to how her roommate and her roommate’s family treated her while at Annhurst. They let her live with them during the summer which helped her learn about American home life and how to speak English. Ho said her roommate’s family wasn’t very wealthy, but they made room for her. And her roommate’s father got her a job.
“I was just so lucky to have met good people and it makes me want to be just like them,” she said. “Good breeds good.”
Ho has since strived to emulate her roommate’s family’s hard work and generosity in her everyday life.
“I want to share my fortune, fortune doesn’t mean money — my opportunities, my knowledge,” she said. “I want to give back to society.”
In her free time, Ho helps people register to vote and educates them about the candidates.
“People say [voting] is useless,” she said. “Well, if you don’t do anything, it’s useless.”
Ho is a founding member of the Lexington Educational Foundation. She also joined the Chinese American Association of Lexington, or CAAL, in the 1990s. About 6 percent of Lexington’s population was Asian back then. Today, Asians make up about 33 percent of the town’s residents.
Ho has also been a member of Lexington’s Council on Aging, Community Center Task Force, and MLK Day of Service Committee, among other groups. She won the Presidential Volunteer Service Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016 and the Minuteman Cane Award the following year.
Ho and her husband, Larry, moved to Lexington in the 1960s so their children could attend Lexington’s public schools. Around that time, they also became US citizens.
Ho found Lexington to be accepting of all people, regardless of their race. Neither she, nor her neighbor, who was Black, had trouble buying a house in Lexington because of the color of their skin or where they came from, she told the Observer.
Ho said she was “very seldom” treated differently because of her race while living in the US. But in college, she was.
When Ho was choosing her dorm room, she was told she could have the room on the corner of the building until another girl, who was wealthier than her, asked for it. Ho said she asked the school’s dean if she, a student who was attending the school on a scholarship, had the same right as a student who could afford to attend the school, to choose a dorm she wants.
“The next thing I knew, I got that room,” she said. “I was very proud of myself that I spoke up, it was not a very big deal, but I just did not want to be treated that way.”
She hopes others will continue to stand up for what they believe in.
“Speak up if it’s within your rights,” she said. “You enjoy everything, but don’t just take, you give.”
She also hopes immigrant families that are working to build a life in the US will work hard and lead by example, like the family who took her in during college.
“I learned America is paved with gold but you have to bend down and pick up the gold, the gold doesn’t hop into your pocket,” she said. “If you’re willing to work hard, yes, you will pick up the gold.”
From the pre-civil rights days of early ’50s to today, Sophia and I lived fully the ‘American Dream” – Only in America! Larry Ho
My family and I lived on the same street as the Ho family in Lexington and we just focused on school and neighborhood pickup games when we were kids. Now, as an adult with a decades-long perspective, I feel very proud that my parents, as they sought a place to raise their Jewish family, also found a comfortable, welcome home in Lexington where my brothers and I could grow up among so many diverse families and learn about one another’s cultures so comfortably and casually. May we all enjoy good health, long lives, and the continued appreciation for what we share and what we can learn from one another.
Very proud of Sophia and Larry. Their hearts are made of gold.