Food for thought in American characteristics

Having Americanised and become a top government official, Joseph Jen's work takes him back to the country of his birth

WHEN HE WAS a child, Joseph Jen's head was full of Chinese poems and Buddhist scriptures and he wanted to be a writer. English was his worst subject.

Half a century later, Mr Jen is under-secretary in the United States Department of Agriculture, the highest-ranking ethnic Chinese person in the Bush administration after Elaine Chao, the secretary for labour. Ms Chao migrated to the US at the age of eight, while Mr Jen went when he was 23.

'When I took the oath to become an American citizen in 1977, it was a hard moment, with my training in classical Chinese. It meant giving up being a Chinese,' he said in an interview during a visit to the mainland in April.

He had been eligible to apply for several years but put off the moment. What forced the decision was a six-month sabbatical in Taiwan in 1976, helping to establish its food and drug administration. 'I realised that I no longer belonged there and did not want to go back. I had become Americanised. I wrote, dreamt and thought in English and could no longer write Chinese as well as I could in the past.'

He became under-secretary at the USDA in July 2001 after a distinguished academic career in biochemistry and food science and six years as research director at Campbell Soup. At the USDA, he is in charge of research, education, economic analysis and the national agricultural library.