A Mark of Change

Crystal Luong is a restaurant owner and real estate manager in Buffalo, NY. She is the image of an entrepreneur that developed from an impoverished, immigrant background.

Having lived in the United States for 19 years, Crystal Luong is now a proud restaurant owner and real estate manager. However, her keen business acumen is a skill borne from her childhood in a village in Anhui province, China.

Growing up in rural China in the 1970s was no easy feat, and much of Crystal’s early life was marked by poverty. She remembers the continuous struggle her parents faced in supporting Crystal and her two younger siblings. Her father worked long hours outside the home while her mother’s time was split between both household and field work. 

This hard work was not reserved to Crystal’s parents either. Oftentimes, Crystal would go door to door asking for food, but this task was not without its costs. Filled with a deep sense of shame, Crystal once hid the family pot in the fields to avoid having to beg the neighbors for rice. When she returned home, she lied to her mother, claiming that she had broken the pot instead. Crystal was never scolded for the action, but she will never forget the tears gathering in her mother’s eyes. From then on, she vowed to protect her family’s happiness and deliver them from their impoverished conditions.

Then, Crystal was sent to live with relatives in the now-booming Shanghai as a teenager. It was there that Crystal realized the opportunity that business towards advancing her family’s financial situation. She threw herself into the business world wholeheartedly, working in industries from construction to steel, but despite this enthusiasm, Crystal’s success was limited by the sexism surrounding her. In business projects, Crystal was often the only woman, and many of her male colleagues initially hesitated to work with her, believing that she was a soft girl. 

Eventually, Crystal’s strength and dedication brought her the recognition that she deserved. With the money Crystal earned, her family’s economic condition finally began to turn around. On one momentous occasion, Crystal purchased an apartment for her family, allowing her to keep her family safe and cared for on her own terms.

Then, everything changed when she married her ex-husband. As an Asian-American, Crystal’s husband had ties to the US, prompting her to move there with him in 2003. Although Crystal was financially stable, the move to America still proved a major disruption. Alongside the culture shock, the language barrier prevented Crystal from securing the same work she had had in Shanghai despite her desire to expand into real estate.

Hindered from pursuing her business career, Crystal was trapped in a cycle of endless job searches and entry-level employment all while raising her two children. Nevertheless, she opened her first restaurant, Crystal Asian Cuisine, seven years after her arrival to the US. Her business skills back in full force, she soon expanded into a wine-liquor store and a second restaurant: Dancing Chopstick in the University of Buffalo’s North campus.

At the same time, Crystal’s family was also making their way to the United States with her parents and brother arriving in 2009 and her sister arriving in 2010. Still, her family’s arrival also brought them in conflict with Crystal’s divorce: an action discouraged by traditional Asian households. 

Despite the hardship this caused, Crystal persisted in her growing success in business, and continued her investment in real estate. Although these plans were hampered by the pandemic, Crystal saw this as an opportunity to adapt her business model with the support of her life-partner Jack Lin. 

Reflecting on her journey coming to America, Crystal wishes to share both her successes and, more importantly, her failures to other immigrants seeking to own businesses. Alongside that, Crystal hopes to reinvest in her community by converting an abandoned old school building in Buffalo’s East Side into a multicultural community center. Through this, Crystal wants to run economic empowerment programs to support immigrants and refugees in achieving the financial stability she had sought in those early years in Anhui.