The Ballad of Sherman Wu

Sherman Wu was a 19 year old freshman at Northwestern University in 1956 when he became national news —and the subject of a Pete Seeger folk song —after the Psi Upsilon fraternity offered him membership, then retracted it because his fellow pledges complained about having an Asian frat brother.

When Hsiu Huang Wu was a little boy in China, he and his older brother would dig holes in their backyard, trying to reach America.

He would get here, eventually, in a big way — featured in Life magazine, lauded in song by Pete Seeger. But mostly forgotten today, which is why, this being Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, I thought I would share the story.