Video by Pam Stevenson, Agave Productions Inc., for Historical League
Esther Don Tang is a dynamic community leader and successful businesswoman. Born in Tucson, she grew up working in the family grocery business where she learned about hard work, loyalty, and community service.
Her father emigrated from China to America around 1900. He came to Tucson and worked as a chef for the railroad. After three years in Tucson, he returned to China to find a bride. It was arranged for him to marry an eighteen-year-old girl from a wealthy family. They thought their daughter was coming to America, or "Gold Mountain" as they called it, to live a life of luxury. Instead, Mrs. Tang’s mother helped her husband operate a grocery store in Tucson and raised a family of ten children.
Esther Tang recalls that her parents taught their children to take pride in their home, and in the outside community as well, because it is “also your home and you’re going to be working out there doing business so you should work to improve it.” The children were also taught to be on their best behavior because, “Everything you do reflects on your family.”
Mrs. Tang says she grew up as a tomboy, and learned to speak Spanish playing with the Mexican children in her neighborhood. Her parents sent her to Chinese school to learn to read and write Chinese, and she regrets not being a more serious student of her parents’ language. Esther graduated from Tucson High School and attended the University of Arizona. She studied nutrition and sociology, planning to help people in China. Instead, she met and married David Tang and they built a prosperous chain of grocery and drug stores in Tucson.
Like her parents, the Tangs worked long hours, cooking and eating their meals at the store. They raised their four children to help out in the business after school. Esther Tang also found time to volunteer for a wide variety of community causes and organizations, including the YWCA, the Democratic Party, and the Roman Catholic Church. She recalls writing speeches on grocery sacks or butcher paper while running the grocery store.
In the 1960s, the Catholic Diocese of Tucson opened the Pio Decimo Neighborhood Center. Mrs. Tang served as director for twenty-five years. She helped develop after-school programs for children and practical life-skill classes for adults, including instruction in the U. S. Constitution to help migrants become American citizens. Esther Don Tang’s Tucson home is filled with mementos and awards for her many years of service to the community. In 2002, a portion of the new Learning Services Building at the University of Arizona was named in her honor.
In 1999, Esther Don Tang had the honor of introducing President Clinton when he visited Tucson. She remembers her surprise when she got a call from the White House. She was able to welcome Bill Clinton eye-to-eye at the Tucson Convention Center because the Secret Service constructed a two-step platform behind the podium, on which she stood.
Mrs. Tang says that her family has experienced a good life in Tucson. “People have been very good to us and we’ve tried to make it a better community.” She keeps her family close to her with weekly Sunday dinners. She says the family continues to grow and the dinners have become a sort of “United Nations” as her children married and added grandchildren.
Esther Don Tang’s energy and enthusiasm for life is an inspiration to the next generation. She believes, “A person should never do any kind of work unless they’re happy in it. That’s the only way you’re going to succeed. So I say, never do anything unless you enjoy it and then you grow with it.” As a community activist, Mrs. Tang continues to promote diversity and tolerance of age, ethnic, and religious differences. She is diminutive in stature, but her achievements for the Tucson community stand tall.
