“A lot of what I am today came from that 9-year old girl who refused to be a slave,” Dr. Russell Low said. “I call that ripples.”
In 1880 Low’s great-grandmother, Ah Ying, came to California from China at age 9. Although family legend was that missionaries brought her from China, Low thought that was unlikely given laws at the time banning female Chinese immigration.
Low began research in 1982, which continued over several decades until he finally learned the truth about Ah Ying.
She was sold into slavery and brought to California. At the time, there was a shortage of Chinese females in America resulting in a lucrative slave trade of women and girls to serve as prostitutes and domestic servants.
Ah Ying was whipped, beaten and branded at age 9. In 1886, however, she escaped. Police found her and brought her to a missionary in San Francisco, now a social service facility called Cameron House. Through Cameron House’s records Low learned much about Ah Ying.
A man named Hung Lai Wah helped rescue Ah Ying, and they fell in love. Due to his religion, however, the missionaries prohibited their marriage. So, they eloped.
Shortly thereafter, thugs kidnapped Ah Ying, They planned to, again, sell her into slavery. But she escaped.
Police, again, found Ah Ying and returned her to Cameron House where she was separated from her husband. She escaped yet again.
This time she filed a lawsuit seeking her freedom and, in a highly publicized court battle, she won.
Sue Lee, former Chinese Historical Society of America’s executive director, called Ah Ying “feisty and smart [with] a mind of her own [and] so different from the stereotypical docile, filial Chinese daughter.”
Ah Ying and Hung Lai Wah were Low’s great-grandparents. They had five children, one of whom became the first Chinese American to graduate the School of Engineering at UC Berkeley.
Nearly all of their descendants attended college.
“There are more than 100 of us now who’ve had incredible lives and accomplishments and contributions that were only possible because of this young girl and her survival and ripples,” said Low, who has written three books on his ancestors. “The attitude of never giving up hope is a key to who these people were and who I am.”
Born in 1953 and raised in Stockton along with three siblings, Low said his parents instilled strong values of “hard work, education, honor and contributing to society.”
He said he always saw tenacity in his family. “It is not an accident,” he said. “It is in all of us.”
Low worked hard and did well in school, graduating high school in 1971 and college in 1975 with a bachelor’s in biology. He graduated UCSD medical school in 1985.
In 1990, while working at Stanford on a fellowship, Low studied MRI imaging. There, he and Dr. Isaac Francis perfected a software developed by General Electric that changed MRI imagery to increase its speed. This enabled for the first time MRI to be used on the abdomen and pelvis, with breath holding, thereby providing images superior to CT scans.
Low continued perfecting the process after relocating to San Diego’s Sharp hospital in 1991. He stuck with his research throughout his 27 years serving as Sharp’s director of MR imaging and authored some 60 papers on the process.
Collaborating at Sharp with Dr. Robert Barone and Dr. Tom Song, Low further improved MRI imaging clarity, which they used to detect in patients Crohn’s disease and certain types of cancer, including colon and peritoneal cancers.
Use of the MRI process developed by Low and his collaborators is now accepted practice worldwide and has saved countless lives.
Low believes Ah Ying deserves some credit.
Today, Low is retired living with his wife of 40 years, Carolyn, in La Jolla. They have two adult sons, a museum designer and neuroscientist.
And they have a 17-month old granddaughter, Ah Ying’s great-great-great-granddaughter.
“Like her ancestor,” Low said, “she has fast feet and a determined personality.”
About this series
Jan Goldsmith is an Emeritus member of the U-T’s Community Advisory Board. He is an attorney and former law partner, judge, state legislator, San Diego city attorney and Poway mayor.
Someone San Diego Should Know is a column written by of the U-T’s Community Advisory Board about local people who are interesting and noteworthy because of their experiences, achievements, creativity or credentials.
