‘We Are Americans’

Eric Rojas/The New York Times

He was a philanthropist you should know but probably don’t. A steel magnate and global entrepreneur, he provided high school, middle school, and college scholarships for 100,000 students, some of whom called him “Grandpa.” He helped build elementary schools in rural areas, and his nine-figure donations put his name on policy institutes and a museum hall. Long before the Giving Pledge, he promised to give away his wealth, and he regularly put tens of millions of dollars into one of several foundations he controlled.

Philanthropy’s New Citizens

One out of every seven Americans was born outside the United States. Among those immigrants are a number of big donors who have become an important yet overlooked force in charitable giving. 

• 22 Immigrant Philanthropists to Watch
• ‘I Have No Choice': An Iranian-American Focuses Her Philanthropy on Helping Immigrants

Yet the death of 88-year-old Cyrus Tang this summer caused hardly a ripple. “Nobody knew what Cyrus was doing. It was all under the radar,” says Stewart Kwoh, head of Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Los Angeles, an organization that Tang supported.

Tang is illustrative of a type of big donor often overlooked today: the immigrant philanthropist. A Chinese-American, he left Hong Kong in 1950 and attended a small college outside Philadelphia before becoming an industry titan. Hundreds, if not thousands, like him — from the Far East, the Middle East, Africa, South America, and more — are donating millions to charity each year. Yet unlike women or tech giants or Wall Street players, immigrants are not a class of donors studied for their influence or giving habits.

Perhaps that should change, particularly given the immigration issues roiling the Trump-era national conversation. A record 44 million U.S. residents were born outside the country, or roughly one out of every seven — the highest percentage since 1910. The Forbes list of America’s 400 wealthiest individuals in 2016 included an all-time high of 42 immigrant billionaires.

The influence of immigrants on charitable giving is obvious — when you look. Among living donors, Hungarian-born George Soros has built the largest private foundation save for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Tech titans upending philanthropy conventions include Pierre Omidyar (born in France), Jan Koum (Ukraine), and Sergey Brin (Russia). At least 15 of the 140-odd American signers of the Giving Pledge are immigrants, including Elon Musk (South Africa), Chobani founder Hamdi Ulukaya (Turkey), and Miami real-estate billionaire Jorge Pérez (Argentina).

Darren Gerrish/WireImage/Newscom

There’s no research tallying up the total dollars donated by immigrants, but it’s generally believed to be growing. For instance, the number of U.S. foundations established by Chinese-Americans — including immigrants — grew more than 400 percent from 2000 to 2014, to 1,300.

Some immigrants publicly embrace philanthropy to underscore their commitment to their adopted country. “We’re Chinese-Americans; we didn’t come over on the Mayflower, and it’s important for us to declare that we are Americans,” financier Oscar Tang told the Chronicle in 2015. His giving includes a $50 million gift to Phillips Academy Andover, his alma mater.

Many others do their giving quietly. Cyrus Tang’s foundation is among the largest created by a Chinese-American, but “he never wanted to do media,” Kwoh says.

Such a penchant for anonymity may stem from the cultural influences of an immigrant’s home country. Many Latin Americans see public displays of charity as crass. Also, in volatile places such as Colombia, where the rich are kidnapping targets, philanthropy grandstanding can be risky, says Vicente Leon, a finance professor at the Universidad del Pacífico in Lima, Peru.

“You don’t necessarily want people knowing that you endowed a whole building at a university or a library,” says Leon, who studies philanthropy in many Latin American countries.

Todd Anderson/The New York Times/Redux

Varying Traditions

It’s dangerous to generalize about the philanthropy of immigrants, even when they come from the same part of the globe. Leon notes that the traditions of philanthropy in Chile are very different from those in Peru.

Some immigrants hail from relatively wealthy families and came to the States to attend college. Others grew up in poverty and escaped tyranny, violence, or instability. Similarly, immigrants from the same country yet born in different eras may share little in common. An older philanthropist from a Latin American country might invest in Catholic causes and institutions, while a younger donor may be a disciple of Silicon Valley strategies of giving, Leon says.

“You cannot paint with a broad brush,” he adds.

Like many American philanthropists, immigrants often give to education and their alma maters — particularly if the college or university contributed to launching their life in America. Higher-education programs that promote cross-cultural understanding are also popular.

Some immigrant philanthropists earmark a significant chunk of their giving to their country of origin. Though Cyrus Tang made million-dollar gifts to the Field Museum in Chicago, the Rand Institute, and a handful of American colleges, his family says he was equally generous with more than 20 hospitals and universities in China.

Whatever their differences, each immigrant philanthropist shares the experience of being a newcomer to a foreign land — an experience that can shape and inspire their giving. This summer, Qualcomm co-founder Andrew Viterbi made a $50 million gift to the University of California at San Diego’s ophthalmology program to honor his father, Achille, an ophthalmologist who fled Mussolini’s Italy with his family in 1939. Achille, Viterbi noted, struggled to establish his medical practice in the United States.

Trump administration policies and rhetoric have prompted some philanthropists to increase their support for fellow immigrants — and their advocacy. Jan and Marica Vilcek, who left Communist Czechoslovakia in 1964, have for decades run a foundation that aims to raise awareness of immigrant contributions to the United States — notably through $100,000 annual prizes to foreign-born artists and scientists. Though the couple have stayed largely silent in political debates about immigration over the years, the Trump administration policies toward “Dreamer” children prompted them to speak up, writing in a statement, “How many stellar future scientists, artists, inventors, and entrepreneurs are there among the 800,000 Dreamers?”

They added, “Thanks to the supportive environment and the opportunities offered to us, we thrived in our professions and, yes, we did well financially, too. In turn, we tried to pay this country back.”