Betty Lee Sung is known as the “Leading authority on the Chinese in America”. She has helped with the evolution of the ideal image of an Asian American/ immigrant in the United States. Her first book, Mountain of Gold was written in 1970 at CUNY. She retired in 1992, having advanced to the chair of the department.

Betty Lee Sung grew up in Washington, D.C. with her siblings. As she and siblings grew older, all of her siblings got married to what she called “match-made people”. But Sung knew that she was different. She knew that she didn’t want to get married, but instead she wanted to go to college. She wanted to be the first daughter of a laundry man to go to college. Her father, angry at her ideas of ideal freedom, set up an arranged marriage for Sung. When Sung once again told her father that she would not marry, he disowned her and kicked her out of the house. From there on, Sung went to the University of Illinois because she had a four year scholarship from there. To get her room and board, she had to do many things such as cleaning the bathrooms, washing the dishes, etc. Although Sung went through all this hard work and tough times, she is proud to be be the first person of Washington/the first daughter of a laundry man to go to college. According to an interview with Betty Lee Sung, she said, “that was very rare those days, for a woman, especially a Chinese woman to go to college."