But Pei was different. His name—not to mention his unmistakable appearance, with the enormous round glasses he always wore—seemed to have little effect, in this country, at least, on how he was viewed. He wasn’t famous because he was a good architect among Asian-American architects. He was famous because he was a great architect who happened to be Asian-American. To a young immigrant from China, this decoupling of identity was exhilarating.

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