NYTimes | Sue-ling Wang prided himself on being a self-made businessman.
The son of a farmer in Taiwan, he attended a vocational school that trained students at a factory producing zippers and ballpoint pens. But he made his ascent after arriving in America on a scholarship and obtaining a Ph.D., then starting his own company in the Atlanta area three decades ago.
He appeared at civic events, donated to Republican candidates and ensconced himself in an exclusive country club community northeast of Atlanta where he bought two stately homes, each valued at about $1 million.
Later this year, he will assume the role of head of the World Taiwanese Chambers of Commerce. It is a prestigious post: Taiwan’s government recently produced a 14-minute video of him discussing his life that included a photo of him with the island democracy’s president, Tsai Ing-wen.
“When we go abroad, we are not afraid of hardship, because we must raise our children, we want to glorify our ancestors,” Mr. Wang, himself a father, said in the video.
In telling his immigrant success story, Mr. Wang, 68, did not mention his tie to a business whose employees had little opportunity to follow his path: Gold Spa, one of the three Atlanta-area massage parlors where a gunman last week killed eight people and wounded another.
Six victims were of Korean or Chinese descent, fueling outrage and despair about the surge of anti-Asian violence, particularly against women, in the United States.
But as details about the employees emerged, so too did another narrative: the story of the wealth divide among people of Asian descent in America — a community often viewed by outsiders as monolithic and whose economic disparities have long been misunderstood.
The income gap between the rich and the poor in the United States is, in fact, greatest among Asians, who are considered the most economically divided group in the country, according to the Pew Research Center.
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