Austin Wong, 20, business economics major, says he never imagined he’d be living in the Bay Area.
Part of that is because he’s a loyal LeBron James — and now Los Angeles Lakers — fan.
Wong said he started watching the NBA during the height of the Warriors-Cavaliers rivalry while growing up in Hong Kong.
“Personally, I don’t like how K.D. (Kevin Durant) joined the Warriors,” Wong said.
Three years ago, Wong was sitting in a U.S. Customs and Border Protection holding room at the United States-Mexico border. Two years before that, he was on the streets of Hong Kong speaking out against the Chinese Communist Party.
Wong said, at age 14, he joined the 2019 Hong Kong protests despite his parents’ concerns.
The protests began in opposition to a bill that would allow extradition to China and grew into a large-scale movement promoting increased independence for Hong Kong.
Next Magazine, a sister publication of the defunct pro-democracy paper, Apple Daily, documented Wong speaking out against the extradition bill on the streets of Hong Kong in 2019.
In 2020, Beijing passed the National Security Law, criminalizing a broad range of acts deemed threatening to Beijing’s authority in the special administrative region.
The law would lead to hundreds of arrests in the following years. In 2020, authorities raided Apple Daily and imprisoned founder Jimmy Lai for violation of NSL.
Fearing arrest following his appearance in the news, Wong, his brother and their parents began planning their departure from Hong Kong.
His father lived in Texas decades earlier — the reason for his English name, “Austin” — so in May 2022, he proposed the family cross into the U.S. via the southern border. Mexico, unlike the U.S., does not require visas for Hong Kongers, making it a feasible route for asylum seekers to enter the U.S.
“We think he is crazy, but we just give it a try,” Wong said.
After saying goodbye to friends and family, Wong and his family flew to Istanbul on June 6, 2022.
From Turkey, they flew to Mexico City then to Tijuana, where they would purchase a dilapidated Nissan Cube — the first available car with U.S. plates.
They waited for hours in line at the San Ysidro Port of Entry and declared asylum as soon as the car crossed to the U.S. side.
Wong said the family was taken into custody and separated into holding rooms. Wong and his brother were placed in a room with about 15 other boys where they spent the night eating chips and watching the movie “Up” on repeat.
“(The officer) goes back to my mom and just says three sentences: ‘They are good. They are fat. They eat a lot.’ And my mom knew me and my brother were all good,” Wong said.
The family was released within 24 hours under asylum protocol and rode into San Diego by bus.
“It was Highway 5. I saw the sunset with the beach and everything,” Wong said. “(It’s) the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen in my life.”
Today, Wong is headed to Los Angeles. He plans to transfer to the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business in the fall. Wong works at Higher Education for AB 540 Students at De Anza College so he can help students who are new to this country and feel lost like he once did.
“It might be a little bit cringe, but I feel like I’m living my dream right now,” Wong said.
Wong said his journey to America proved he could make the most of limited resources — that he could be “successful without anything.”
If he had to do it all again, with nothing in his pocket, Wong said, “I would be back in this chair. No doubt.”
