[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 125 (Wednesday, July 24, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Page S5055]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       REMEMBERING EVA YEH CHANG

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I am sorry to note today the recent 
passing of a dear friend to many and the ending of her quintessentially 
American story.
  On July 13, Mrs. Eva Yeh Chang of San Francisco died peacefully at 
the age of 100. Eva was born in 1919 in Shanghai during a different era 
for China. Though she was born into a well-to-do banking family, her 
first three decades involved significant hardship: the Chinese Civil 
War, the Japanese occupation in the late 1930s, the Second World War, 
and the beginning of the Communist Revolution. That final event led Eva 
and her husband, Fu-Yun Chang, a Harvard-educated diplomat, statesman, 
and scholar, to leave their lives behind and depart for American 
shores. They essentially started over in a new country with three young 
children under the age of 10.
  What followed was the kind of entrepreneurial ``start-up life'' that 
would sound impossible in many other lands but has been the building 
block of our Nation from the beginning. Eva worked multiple jobs, from 
retail to waiting tables. Eventually, she saved enough to strike out on 
her own. First she opened a diner. Then she started one of San 
Francisco's early Northern Chinese restaurants--a big success--and then 
came more investments in enterprise and real estate in the city.
  Eva didn't just keep what she had built for herself. She put it into 
service for others. Eva built a new life for her children. She became a 
pillar of her community, and she used her resources to help a number of 
her relatives back in China complete the same journey she had made and 
follow in her footsteps to America.
  This remarkable woman may have left us, but the positive effects of 
her life continue to ripple out. For example, she lived to see her 
daughter, Ambassador Julia Chang Bloch, become the first-ever Asian-
American to serve as a U.S. Ambassador and continue the family legacy 
of giving back to this Nation.
  The Senate stands with the entire Chang family and all who mourn Eva 
in this time of grief, and we stand with them in celebrating 100 years 
so well lived.
  (At the request of Mr. Schumer, the following statement was ordered 
to be printed in the Record.)
 Ms. HARRIS. Mr. President, I was necessarily absent but, had I 
been present, would have voted no on rollcall vote No. 226, the motion 
to invoke cloture on Wendy Williams Berger to be U.S. District Judge 
for the Middle District of Florida.
  Mr. President: I was necessarily absent but, had I been present, 
would have voted no on rollcall vote No. 227, the motion to invoke 
cloture on Brian C. Buescher to be U.S. District Judge for the District 
of Nebraska.

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