Comment by Thorrez
If you read about Huang's childhood it's quite surprising:
> At age nine, Jensen, despite not being able to speak English, was sent by his parents to live in the United States.[15] He and his older brother moved in 1973 to live with an uncle in Tacoma, Washington, escaping widespread social unrest in Thailand.[16] Both Huang's aunt and uncle were recent immigrants to Washington state; they accidentally enrolled him and his brother in the Oneida Baptist Institute, a religious reform academy in Kentucky for troubled youth,[16] mistakenly believing it to be a prestigious boarding school.[17] In order to afford the academy's tuition, Jensen's parents sold nearly all their possessions.[18]
> When he was 10 years old, Huang lived with his older brother in the Oneida boys' dormitory.[17] Each student was expected to work every day, and his brother was assigned to perform manual labor on a nearby tobacco farm.[18] Because he was too young to attend classes at the reform academy, Huang was educated at a separate public school—the Oneida Elementary school in Oneida, Kentucky—arriving as "an undersized Asian immigrant with long hair and heavily accented English"[17] and was frequently bullied and beaten.[19] In Oneida, Huang cleaned toilets every day, learned to play table-tennis,[b] joined the swimming team,[21] and appeared in Sports Illustrated at age 14.[22] He taught his illiterate roommate, a "17-year-old covered in tattoos and knife scars,"[22] how to read in exchange for being taught how to bench press.[17] In 2002, Huang recalled that he remembered his life in Kentucky "more vividly than just about any other".[22]
I grew up around that area, and this story has serious stench of PR crafted mythical origin story. Oneida Baptist Institute is a prestigious private school, not one of those child abuse mills, we've had a governor and a state rep attend that school.
Child labor is super common around these parts, especially on family farms. I grew up working on my family's tobacco farm just like pretty much everyone else. My uncle was even nice enough one summer to give me $20 a week for weeding and bug removal from a 5 acre farm. I thought it was so much money. I remember saving up to buy those bargain bin "300 Games" type CDs at Walmart.