Eugene Sit’s grandfather was one of the twelve thousand Chinese immigrants who were paid one dollar a week to build the Central Pacific railroad in the 1860s. But before the end of the nineteenth century, Chinese immigrants were all but forced to return to China by the Chinese Exclusion Act legislation of 1882. Although the Sit family prospered in China, the Japanese invasion of World War II and Mao’s subsequent takeover put an end to that. Sit’s father had escaped to the U.S. in 1938, and his son was finally sent to join him in 1948. His mother stayed in China and was a political prisoner for thirty years.
Today, Sit has rebuilt the family fortune, and then some. He is the founder of Sit Investment Associates, which has built an initial $1 million investment portfolio to over $6.6 billion under management. But what he’s most proud of these days is the Minnesotans’ Military Appreciation Fund, which he started with $1 million of his own money. He has continued to raise more to give financial grants to every Minnesotan serving in the U.S. Armed Forces in a combat zone since September 11, 2001.
Were you in the military yourself?
I was in ROTC, and I was excused when I started having a family.
You have a son, who went to the Air Force Academy and served in the Air Force.
Yes. Roger. We chose Roger to serve because we felt very strongly that freedom is not cheap, and every family has to do its part.
You say, “We chose Roger.” Did Roger have something to do with the discussion as well?
In his letters from first year, it was clear he was not a happy camper. “Get me out of here, get me out of here” every day. But later, he became an upperclassman …
Why did you start the MMAF?
Basically the genesis of it is, we understand the sacrifices that are being made by the military in terms of the financial sacrifice, the personal hardships, the family hardships. Most of these people are citizen soldiers, part-time soldiers who are giving up their regular jobs, not only career opportunities, but taking fifty- to seventy-five-percent pay cuts. It’s hard enough for a middle-class family to make ends meet, but then when you separate the family, losing the heads of the household, families take a tremendous financial hit. That is something we need to recognize.
We realized that relatively few people are doing the heavy work for us. There are only a few of us that are really making sacrifices, and that is quite different than in other conflicts—Korea, World War II, even Vietnam.
And the third part of it is that it is part of our values, our family’s values, that I truly believe that when you are doing well and are fortunate, you should think really hard about giving back to the community.
You have said that the fund takes no political position. Do you personally?
Well, I do and I don’t. I’m a pragmatist. I’m a patriot. I’m appreciative of what we have in this country. I’ve voted both Democrat and Republican.
What would a pragmatic person do in this war? That’s a loaded question.
I think there were many mistakes made in the beginning. But having said that, the alternatives are so bad that we have to find some way to give it one last try and hopefully send a message to the factions that “Listen, we’re not going to be here forever. We believe in helping you, but you guys are going to have to cut this ethnic conflict between yourselves.”
We have to find a way to stabilize the situation and find some way to extricate ourselves.
It’s very hard on our men and women.
You suggested that you think people could be doing more. Do you think there should be a draft?
I think we can have something similar to that for young people, and maybe old people like me, whether it’s community service, whether it’s neighborhood service, whether it’s helping in the Appalachians—I think all these things would be very good.
You are in the finance business. I have a financial question around the topic of sacrifice. Do you think there should have been a tax cut while we were at war?
Number one, I believe in the private sector. I believe in the market and the economic system. We’ve had growth twenty-four of the last twenty-six years. A lot of that could be due to economic policies that I call incentive economic policies, which included incentives for people like you and me to be enterprising, creative, and entrepreneurial. Lower taxes on capital gains allow us to invest more, to be more competitive, and that contributed to the growth of the economy. But having said that, I do believe in times of war, we should not have a segment of society bearing the burden. I think the whole country should be asked to join in to make this a unified effort. We should have had a gas tax and a higher tax on people like me.
I don’t believe we should mortgage the future—putting the burden on future generations.
You are an immigrant. What advice would you give to new immigrants coming to the United States?
This is a great country, a great community. You can do a lot to help yourself. There are a lot of things here that will help you. And don’t forget to be responsible and do your part.
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