Asian American and
Pacific Islander
Changemakers
People Who Made A Difference
Compiled by Tuyen Tran, Ph.D.
California History Social-Science Project, Assistant Director
In what ways are you a changemaker? Your students?
Who is a change
maker?
How
do you
know?
What did they say or do?
Changemaker
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API Profiles from Across the Internet
Kahanamoku
The History of Us: The Changemakers Within & Among Us
Wong Kim Ark
Birthright Citizenship
March 28, 1898
The Chinese Exclusion Acts (1882) denied citizenship to Chinese immigrants. Moreover, by treaty no Chinese subject in the United States could become a naturalized citizen. Wong Kim Ark was born in San Francisco to parents who were both Chinese citizens who resided in the United States at the time. At age 21, he returned to China to visit his parents who had previously resided in the United States for 20 years. When he returned to the United States, Wong was denied entry on the ground that he was not a citizen.
Because Wong was born in the United States and his parents were not “employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the Emperor of China,” the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment automatically makes him a U.S. citizen. Justice Horace Gray authored the opinion on behalf of a 6-2 majority, in which the Court established the parameters of the concept known as jus soli—the citizenship of children born in the United States to non-citizens.*
*This summary of United States v. Wong Kim Ark is provided by oyez.org. “Oyez (pronounced OH-yay)—a free law project from Cornell’s Legal Information Institute (LII), Justia, and Chicago-Kent College of Law—is a multimedia archive devoted to making the Supreme Court of the United States accessible to everyone.” Source: "United States v. Wong Kim Ark." Oyez. Accessed April 17, 2022. https://www.oyez.org/cases/1850-1900/169us649.
Source: The National Archives hosts an online exhibition of text and images related to Wong Kim Ark’s citizenship case. Accessed on April 15, 2022: https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/documented-rights/exhibit/section2/detail/departure-statement.html
Cecilia Cruz Bamba
Senator, Community Leader�Nov. 14, 1934 – Sept. 3, 1986
Micronesian Resource Center One-Stop Shop (MRCOSS) honored Cecilia Cruz Bamba on social media on March 16, 2021. “The MRCOSS is a project of Mañe'lu that provides informational and educational resources to individuals and families from our neighboring islands in Micronesia as they transition to a new life on Guam.”
Additional resources:
Source
Source: https://www.facebook.com/MRCOSSGuam/photos/women-of-micronesian-cecilia-cruz-bambacecilia-cruz-bamba-1934-1986-was-a-commun/3730144823688924/
Grace Lee Boggs
Community Organizer
Jun. 27, 1915 – Oct. 5, 2015
The child of Chinese immigrants, Grace Lee Boggs was born in Rhode Island, spending most of her childhood in Queens, New York. She says that the varying levels of discrimination she experienced both as a woman and as the daughter of Chinese immigrants allowed her to see that “the world needed changing.” Despite the barriers that a woman of color faced, especially in the 1930’s, Grace Lee Boggs has done everything in her power to do just that, change the world.
As an activist for the South Side Tenants Organization in Chicago, she organized protests and meetings, solidifying her decision to pursue a career as a community organizer. In 1953, Grace Lee Boggs moved to Detroit with her husband, James Boggs, a black autoworker and union activist. Through the 1960’s, she organized tirelessly for the civil rights movement. More than 60 years later, she still remains in Detroit, where she is best known for her work in the African American community. Through her work, Grace Lee Boggs challenged the world around her to be better. Grace Lee Boggs’ commitment to community activism and social action has been honored with lifetime achievement awards from numerous organizations and institutions. She has also been inducted into both the National Women’s Hall of Fame and Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame. (Kiran Ahuja, 2015)
Source: “100 Years of Action,” The White House Blog , written by Kiran Ahuja (2015).
Photograph: From the National Park Service; Grace Lee Boggs during an interview with Krista Tippett, 2011. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Photograph: The James and Grace Lee Boggs School, accessed on April 12, 2022. https://www.boggsschool.org/grace-and-jimmy
Dosan Ahn Chang Ho
Korean Independence Activist
Nov. 9, 1878 – Mar. 10 1938
Dosan Ahn Chang Ho was a Korean American leader and Korean patriot who founded the first organized-Korean American settlement in the United States in early 1905. He was a political and Korean independence activist who fought for the rights of Koreans in the US and around the world. He raised the Korean American voice and identity in the early 1900s. Dosan also created a Korean Labor Bureau in Riverside, CA to help Korean workers find better jobs and working conditions. Dosan also established several Korean organizations in the US in the hopes his community would gain voice and identity in America.*
- Written by the “Ethnic Studies Group” from California Educators Together online as part of their lesson introduction.
Source: “Lesson 2: Korean American Leader Dosan Ahn Chang Ho—Community, Struggle, Voice, Identity,” California Educators Together, Ethnic Studies Group, Accessed on April 11, 2022, https://www.caeducatorstogether.org/lesson-plans/mfg2vv/lesson-2-korean-american-leader-dosan-ahn-chang-ho-community-struggle-voice-identity.
Courtesy of the Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection. Dosan Ahn Chang Ho, Circa 1920. Date of access at Calisphere: April 17 2022.
Permalink: https://calisphere.org/item/e42c7933d06e2645315d7c92b597815f/
Kieu Chinh
Actress, Philanthropist
July 3, 1937
Kieu-Chinh, a legendary Vietnamese-American actress and a philanthropist, who has contributed six decades of her life to the motion picture industry worldwide, including Vietnam, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, China, India, Australia, Canada, and Hollywood. Kieu-Chinh was born in 1937 in Hanoi, North Vietnam. She moved to the South Vietnam as a refugee in her own motherland at the age of 17, and started her acting career at the age of 19. Since then, she has appeared in over 100 movies and television shows including ``M.A.S.H'' and ``The Joy Luck Club.’’
In addition to her acting success, she was honored as ``Refugee of the Year'' by the United States Congress in 1990 and was invited to be the first Vietnamese woman to speak at the 10th Anniversary of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall Groundbreaking Anniversary in Washington, D.C. in 1992.
In 1993, together with Lewis Puller--an American veteran and Terry Anderson--a journalist, Kieu-Chinh co-founded the Vietnam Children's Fund (VCF). Since its establishment, the VCF has built 51 schools in Vietnam to provide safe and high-quality education for more than 30,000 students annually. In the same year, she became a lecturer for the Greater Talent Network, Inc. in New York and has made multiple appearances at different conventions, academic conferences, and universities around the country for over two decades.*
* J. Luis Correa,”Tribute to Kieu-Chinh,” Congressional Record Vol. 163, No. 190. November 21, 2017. Accessed April 23, 2022.
Sources: IMDb official photograph, Accessed April 23, 2022. Vietnam Children’s Fund social media account, May 5, 2016. Accessed on April 23, 2022. https://www.facebook.com/Vietnam-Childrens-Fund-VCF-132523136807751/photos/1088262914567097
Susan Ahn Cuddy
Legacy
Jan. 16, 1915 – Jun. 25, 2015
Cuddy was born on Jan. 16, 1915, in Los Angeles. She was the oldest of five, born to Dosan Ahn Chang Ho and Helen Ahn, the first married Korean couple to immigrate to the U.S. in 1902. At the time, their home country was facing increasingly forced Japanese influence, so many pro-independence Koreans fled to America as the situation worsened. Korea became a Japanese protectorate in 1905 and was annexed by the country in 1910 as Japan tried to eradicate the Korean language and its cultural assets.
When Pearl Harbor happened, that [anti-Asian sentiments] distrust increased dramatically in America, but it didn't deter Cuddy from wanting to do her duty to her country. She said her dad had always taught them to be good Americans while not forgetting their Korean heritage. She wanted to honor her father and fight the Japanese who had imprisoned him. So, in early 1942, despite criticism that it wasn’t suitable for an Asian woman, she enlisted in the Navy.
In November 1943, she was sent to gunnery school in Pensacola, Florida, to train on a variety of weapons. Upon graduation, she became the first female Navy gunnery officer. In January 1944, now-officer Cuddy was sent to Atlantic City Naval Air Station to train naval aviators on how to fire a .50-caliber machine gun.
As a civilian, Cuddy worked as an intelligence analyst and section chief at the National Security Agency and ran a think tank during the Cold War. She worked on top secret projects for the Defense Department and supervised more than 300 scholars and experts in Russian affairs.* (Katie Lange, April 30, 2021)
*Source: Photos and captions provided by Philip Cuddy for the a Department of Defense feature written by Katie Lange, April 30, 2021.
Susan Ahn Cuddy, a Navy Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, or WAVES, poses in uniform in 1942 with her brothers, Ralph and Philip , center, who also served during the war in the Navy and Army, respectively.
Accessed on April 15, 2022, https://www.defense.gov/News/Feature-Stories/Story/Article/2586537/navy-lt-susan-ahn-cuddy-carved-the-path-for-asian-american-women/.
Hari Singh Everest
Teacher, Community Leader
Jan. 16, 1916, Aug. 18, 2011)
Hari Singh Everest was a writer and educator who migrated from India to the United States in 1955, settling in California, working first as a farm laborer to earn money to pay for his graduate school tuition at Stanford University. Everest graduated with a Masters’ Degree in Communications from Stanford in 1957. He was unable to secure either a university faculty position or work as a journalist in California, despite his many degrees, because of his traditional Sikh appearance. In 1961, Everest secured a teaching position in Yuba City, California, at Tierra Buena Elementary School, where he stayed for the next 20 years. A prolific writer, Everest’s articles and letters appeared frequently in the local press. He was a highly respected community leader in Yuba City, serving as a spokesman and community representative for the Tierra Buena Gurdwara (the Sikh place of worship) and contributing to the betterment of the broader community.*
*By the California History-Social Science Project and Dr. Nicole Ranganath, curator and historian of the UC Davis Pioneering Punjabis Digital Archive collaboration with Yuba City’s Punjabi American Heritage Society and the broader Punjabi community.
Source:“Hari Singh Everest.” n.d. Pioneering Punjabis Digital Archive. UC Davis Library, Archives and Special Collections. Accessed April 17, 2022. https://digital.ucdavis.edu/collection/pioneering-punjabis/D-643/d30887.
“Hari Singh Everest and Wife Portrait, Old.” n.d. Pioneering Punjabis Digital Archive. UC Davis Library, Archives and Special Collections. Accessed April 17, 2022. https://digital.ucdavis.edu/collection/pioneering-punjabis/D-643/d3r60b.
"I was a 'British subject' by subjugation, an Indian by birth, a Pakistani by circumstance, and an American by choice.”
Pioneering Punjabis Digital Archive. UC Davis Library, Archives and Special Collections. Accessed April 17, 2022,https://pioneeringpunjabis.ucdavis.edu/people/professionals/hari-singh-everest/
Yuji Ichioka
Legacy
Jun. 23, 1936 – Sept. 1, 2002
Yuji Ichioka was born in San Francisco, California, as a son of Japanese immigrants. Having interned at the Topaz internment camp in Utah during the Pacific War, he returned to the San Francisco Bay Area with his parents and siblings to start a new life in Berkeley, where he stayed until his high school graduation in 1954. Ichioka then served in the United States Army to station in Germany, and after his discharge, he attended UCLA and graduated in 1962. After he returned from the trans-Pacific trip, Ichioka enrolled in an MA program in Japanese history at the University of California at Berkeley, which he completed in 1968. Around this time, he also played a central role in forming the Asian American Political Alliance, and Ichioka, along with his partner Emma Gee whom he had met at Columbia, steered the younger generations of Asian Americans to a civil right/antiwar movement. Recruited as the instructor of the first Asian American studies course at UCLA, Ichioka took part in the establishment of the UCLA Asian American Studies Center while maintaining his ties to early leaders in UC Berkeley's ethnic studies. By 1972, Ichioka permanently moved to southern California, where he continued his research and writing on Japanese American history until his death in September 2002.*
*This biography is provided by the Yuji Ichioka Papers Collection from the UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library: http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt3z09n6d9/
Source: Yuji Ichioka, who taught UCLA’s first Asian American studies class, spoke at an Asian Americans for Peace march and rally in Los Angeles on Jan. 17, 1970.
From UCLA Asian American Studies Center, Gidra Photo Collection, https://newsroom.ucla.edu/file?fid=603ebc692cfac276351b3e13.
“Asian American”
- Yuji Ichioka is credited with coining the term Asian American in the 1960s.
Larry Itliong
Labor Organizer
Oct. 25, 1913 – Feb. 8, 1977
[W]e celebrate the birthday of trailblazing Filipino-American labor leader, organizer and California Hall of Fame Inductee Larry Itliong. While working as a migrant laborer in the fisheries and canneries of Alaska, Itliong helped found the Alaska Cannery Workers Union. Within a year of founding the union, Itliong fought for a contract that gave workers an eight-hour workday with overtime. Through this work, Itliong emerged as a leader in the Filipino-American community of “Manongs” – respected elder workers who were instrumental in shaping the farm labor movement.
After serving his country in World War II, Itliong settled in Stockton, California and continued his work in the labor movement. [I]n 1956, Itliong founded the Filipino Farm Labor Union in Stockton. Itliong, Philip Vera Cruz and the Manong leaders helped create the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC).
In 1965, Itliong fought alongside grape workers in the Coachella Valley for increased pay. After that victory, the Manongs voted in September 1965 to organize against grape growers in Delano who were exploiting workers toiling in their fields. Shortly after, the Manongs joined forces with Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta and the National Farmworkers Association, beginning a nationwide boycott of grapes that lasted five years and led to the first farmworker union contracts.*
*From the Proclamation Declaring Larry Itliong Day on October 25, 2021, by Governor Gavin Newsom.
Source: Mabalon, Dawn Bohulano, Gayle Romasanta, and Andre Sibayan. Journey for Justice: The Life of Larry Itliong. Stockton, CA: Bridge and Delta Publishing, 2018. PublisherGayle Romasanta of Bridge+Delta has also made available of a curriculum unit written by the Pin@y Educational Partnership (Daisy Lopez, Aileen Pagtakhan, Aldrich Sabac, and Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, founder of PEP. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1WBgVGP3ERuxAUnp6TFxBqyPvSQZWrIrI
Soh Jaipil (Philip Jaisohn)
Korean Independence
Jan. 7, 1864 –Jan. 5, 1951
Dr. Philip Jaisohn, M.D., a man who left an indelible mark on Korean history as a pioneer and reformer, was born in 1864, near the southern tip of South Korea. As a child, Dr. Jaisohn studied the Confucian classics and Chinese writing. At age 19, he studied at the Youth Military Academy in Tokyo, Japan. Upon his return to Korea, he was appointed the commandant of Korean Military Academy. Two years later, in 1885, at age 21, he participated in a historic, unsuccessful coup against the government, the goal of which was to unmoor Korea from its feudalistic structures and begin rapid modernization. One of the more immediate results of the failure was that, along with two other young leaders, he became a fugitive in Japan for a brief time before he crossed the Pacific on a ship as a political refugee bound for San Francisco.
In 1892, Dr. Jaisohn became the first Korean ever to receive an American medical degree. (Two years earlier, he had been the first Korean to become a naturalized U.S. citizen.) Marriage followed in June of 1894. It was the first interracial marriage on record between a Korean and an American in the U.S.*
* This is an abbreviated biography from the Philip Jaisohn Memorial Foundation, established in 1975. Accessed on April 15, 2022,
https://jaisohn.org/dr-philip-jaisohn/.
Photograph: Korean American History Museum, ”Dr. Philip Jaisohn studying medicine.” Accesssed April 21, 2022, https://kahistorymuseum.org/philip-jaisohn/
Duke Kahanamoku
World Famous Surfer, Olympian
1890 - 1968
Duke Kahanamoku (1890-1968), the only modern Hawaiian to be featured on a postage stamp, captured the attention of the world. Hawaiian folk hero, three-time Olympic gold medal swim champion and father of surfing, Kahanamoku cultivated the interest of the outside in the islands and culture of Hawaii with his impressive performances in the 1912, 1920 and 1932 Olympics.
Kahanamoku brought attention and popularity to surfing all around the world and was dubbed the “Father of Surfing.” As recently as 1999, Kahanmoku was named the Surfer of the Century by Surfer magazine, and today, numerous places and competitions bear his name.
Kahanamoku served as a goodwill ambassador for Hawaii until his death in January of 1968. Kahanamoku continues to stand as a symbol of pride and a hero for Hawaiian people as demonstrated by a life-size statue of him on the beach at Waikiki and also in the 2002 stamp issue bearing his image.*
Source: “People and Places of the Pacific” Virtual Exhibition. Smithsonian National Postal Museum. Accessed April 25, 2022.
Source: United States Postal Service, August 24, 2002. All rights reserved. Accessed April 15, 2022.
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.
Young Woo Kang
International Disability Rights Pioneer
Jan. 16, 1944 - Feb. 23, 2012
Appointed to NCD by President Bush in 2002, the U.S. Senate confirmed Dr. Kang's nomination twice. During his six-year tenure at the Council, Dr. Kang worked on issues ranging from the inclusion of people with disabilities in emergency planning to cultural differences and attitudes in empowering people with disabilities.
Once denied the opportunity to take the college entrance exam in his native South Korea, Dr. Kang -- who lost his eyesight at the age of 14 -- challenged the system and placed 10th among hundreds of applicants to South Korea's prestigious Yonsei University. He eventually graduated Yonsei with highest honors.
With support of a Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholarship and additional scholarships from the University of Pittsburgh, Kang became the first blind Korean to earn a Ph.D. in 1976.
Determined to help people with disabilities everywhere, Dr. Kang became an internationally recognized disability rights advocate, author, and speaker. His autobiography "A Light in My Heart" was translated into seven languages, made into a U.S. Library of Congress talking book, and was the basis for television and motion picture movies in South Korea.*
* Statement by the National Council on Disability upon Dr. Young Woo Kang’s death, 2012.
Source: United Nations, photographer Paulo Filgueriras, May 6, 2008. Caption provided by the UN, �“Young Woo Kang, Vice-Chairman of the World Committee on Disability, speaks at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) International Disability Award presentation ceremony.”
Channapha Khamvongsa
Legacies of War, Founder
1973 -
“During the Vietnam War, the U.S. dropped more than 2 million tons of bombs over Laos -- more than the number of bombs dropped on Germany and Japan combined during all of World War II. Sadly, the people in Laos continue to feel the tragic consequences, long after the last bomb fell.
Too many of these bombs did not detonate at the time. The war left most of the land contaminated with active, unexploded ordnance (UXO), in the form of cluster bombs, bullets, grenades, and mines. They've taken the lives of over 20,000 Lao -- often a child playing outside, or a farmer who has no choice but to cultivate on contaminated fields.
As a Lao American, I felt I couldn't help but do something. So I devoted the past 12 years of my life to promoting greater awareness of the aftermath of war and to advocating for the resources needed to address its painful legacy.
When our family left Laos, I never thought I would see my birth country again.
And I never thought that an American president would come to Laos to acknowledge the wounds that we still suffer from a decades-old war while offering resources to build a new legacy of peace.
I am grateful for his leadership and so especially proud today to be American and Lao.”*
Source: “Channapha Khamvongsa: After War, A New Legacy of Peace in Laos,” September 7, 2016. The White House Blog. Accessed April 23, 2022. Excerpts from Channapha Khamvongsa’s letter on the historic America’s first president to visit Loas post-war.
Source: Legacies of War social media account, November 5, 2020. Accessed April 25, 2022.
Grace Kim
Community Activist
(1931 - )
Grace Kim is a community activist and co-founder of Chol Soo Lee Defense Committee. The Chol Soo Lee Defense Committee was formed in the late 1970s in the San Francisco area to help a Korean immigrant named Chol Soo Lee, who was wrongfully convicted of murder. It led to a national coalition of Asian American activists and Korean community groups and is considered one of the earliest pan-Asian American movements for justice.
Ms. Kim was a high school teacher who taught in both Korea and the United States for 35 years. While teaching at the Davis Senior High School in Davis, California, she was instrumental in establishing the Human Relations Committee at every school in the city to address hate incidents and to improve human relations in the wake of the racially motivated stabbing death of a Vietnamese student Thong Hy Huynh on the campus. She helped organize a memorial garden on campus and spearheaded inclusivity training for both students and teachers.*
*Korean Economic Institute (KEI) biography and photograph as part of their Korean American Day Honorees announcement.
Source: Biography and photograph from Korean Economic Institute (KEI) Honorees announcement (Accessed April 13, 2022, https://keia.org/programs/community-outreach/korean-american-day/#1641438894643-2034c269-d7c7).
Yuri Kochiyama
Activist
May 19, 1921 - June 1, 2014
Mary Yuriko Nakahara was born in 1921 in San Pedro, California. She and her family spent two years in an internment camp in Jerome, Arkansas during World War II, and the similarities she saw between the treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II and African Americans in the Jim Crow South inspired her to dedicate her life to activism on behalf of marginalized communities. In the early 1960s, Yuri and her husband Bill Kochiyama, a decorated veteran of the all-Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team of the U.S. Army, enrolled in the Harlem “freedom schools” to learn about black history and culture. Soon after, Yuri began participating in sit-ins and inviting Freedom Riders to speak at weekly open houses in the family’s apartment. She was a strong voice in the campaign for reparations and a formal government apology for Japanese American internees through the Civil Liberties Act, which President Ronald Reagan signed into law in 1988.
Yuri leaves behind a legacy of courage and strength, and her lifelong passion for justice and dedication to civil rights continue to inspire young AAPI advocates today. I am moved by her leadership and her unwavering commitment to building coalitions to improve the quality of life and opportunities for all Americans, regardless of background.*
Kiran Ahuja, White House Blog, June 6, 2014.
Source:
* Biography written by Kiran Ahuja, ”Honoring the Legacy of Yuri Kochiyama,” White House Blog, on June 6, 2014. Accessed on April 12, 2022, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2014/06/06/honoring-legacy-yuri-kochiyama
Source: Photographs are from the ”Remembering Yuri Kochiyama” page on social media (managed by family), Accessed on April 22, 2022,
https://www.facebook.com/RememberingYuriKochiyama/about_details.
Fred Korematsu
Civil Rights Activist
Jan. 30, 1919 – Mar. 30 – 2005
Fred Korematsu was a national civil rights hero. In 1942, at the age of 23, he refused to go to the government’s incarceration camps for Japanese Americans. After he was arrested and convicted of defying the government’s order, he appealed his case all the way to the Supreme Court. In 1944, the Supreme Court ruled against him, arguing that the incarceration was justified due to military necessity.
In 1983. . . . A pro-bono legal team that included the Asian Law Caucus re-opened Korematsu’s 40-year-old case on the basis of government misconduct. On November 10, 1983, Korematsu’s conviction was overturned in a federal court in San Francisco. It was a pivotal moment in civil rights history. Korematsu remained an activist throughout his life. In 1998, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, from President Bill Clinton. In 2010, the state of California passed the Fred Korematsu Day bill, making January 30 the first day in the U.S. named after an Asian American. Korematsu’s growing legacy continues to inspire people of all backgrounds and demonstrates the importance of speaking up to fight injustice.*
*This biography is courtesy of the Fred Korematsu Institute, and a teacher toolkit is available here.
Source Portrait: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of the Fred T. Korematsu Family,
https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.2010.117
Dr. Mabel (Ping-Hua) Lee
Suffragist, Community Organizer
1897 - 1966
Dr. Mabel Lee was born in Guangzhou (Canton), China in 1896 and later immigrated to the U.S. As a teenager in New York City, she marched in suffrage parades, wrote essays promoting women’s rights, and encouraged other Chinese women in her community to become involved with the movement. Even after the passage of the 19th Amendment, Lee herself was unable to vote due to the Chinese Exclusion Act.
In 1921, Mabel became the first Chinese woman to receive a doctorate from Columbia University; her degree was in economics. Following her father’s death in 1924, Mabel dedicated her life to supporting her community as director of the First Chinese Baptist Church and established the Chinese Christian Center. She died in 1966.*
*Source: Jade Ryerson, “The Places of Dr. Mabel Ping-Hua Lee,” National Park Service. Accessed on April 11, 2022, https://www.nps.gov/articles/the-places-of-mabel-ping-hua-lee.htm
Bain News Service, Publisher. Dr. Mabel P. Lee. , ca. 1920. [Between and Ca. 1925] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2014715831/.
Portrait of Mabel Ping-Hua Lee (1896–1966). New-York Endowment Tribune, April 13, 1912. Collections of the Library of Congress (https://www.loc.gov/exhibitions/women-fight-for-the-vote/about-this-exhibition/more-to-the-movement/mabel-ping-hua-lee/).
Queen Lili’uokalani
Hawaiian Independence
Sept. 2, 1838- Nov. 11, 1917
Lydia Liliʻu Loloku Waiania Kamakaʻeha (1838–1917), better known as Queen Liliʻuokalani, was the Hawaiian Kingdom’s only reigning queen and last monarch before the overthrow of the sovereign state. Queen Liliʻuokalani presided over the Hawaiian Kingdom during a time of great economic growth. By 1890, 21 international treaties and more than 80 embassies around the world recognized the Hawaiian archipelago. Additionally, Hawaiʻi and its multiethnic society enjoyed universal suffrage in 1840 (a full 120 years before the United States), universal health care, state neutrality (1855), and a 95 percent literacy rate, the second highest in the world. Deceit and treachery also marked the queen’s tenure: on January 17, 1893, the queen was forcefully removed in a coup de main supported by American troops and warships under the direction of John L. Stevens, U.S. minister to the Hawaiian Kingdom. The United States argued that it needed Hawaiian ports to fight the Spanish-American War deeper in the Pacific, which the Hawaiian Kingdom’s neutral status prevented. Despite years of unsuccessful appeals to international states and the United States government, Liliʻuokalani was confined at home in Honolulu until her death in 1917. While not an American woman, Queen Liliʻuokalani marks a significant voice in the framework of American imperialism. A force to be reckoned with, she protected her country, citizens, and role as sovereign until her passing.
—Written by Kālewa Correa, Curator of Hawaiʻi and the Pacific, Asian Pacific American Center for the Smithsonian’s “Discover Her Story” activism theme. Accessed on April 22, 2022, https://womenshistory.si.edu/herstory/object/queen-Liliuokalani.
Source:National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.80.320
Flora Arca Mata
First Filipino Teacher in CA
(Dec. 19, 1917 – Sept. 11, 2013)
Flora Arca Mata was born on December 19, 1917 in Honolulu, Hawaii. She was the second youngest of six siblings and the first Filipino American woman to graduate from UCLA, where she received her teaching credential. After graduating college, she married Vidal Mata and both set off to start a career in education.
Mrs. Mata accompanied her husband to find work as teachers in the Philippines. At that time, work for minorities was difficult to find so they taught overseas. Soon after World War II, Mr. and Mrs. Mata returned to the United States where she was hired by Stockton Unified. She was placed as a Kindergarten teacher because, as stated by Mata, “they seemed to think there would be less prejudice with little ones than with older students.”
Being hired by Stockton Unified, Flora Arca Mata became the first Filipino teacher in California. She taught for thirty-two years and retired in 1978.
In 2020, a new school in the district that she served under for many years, continued her legacy by naming the school after her. The Flora Arca Mata School of Stockton Unified is the third school in the nation to be named after a Filipino, the first to be named after a Filipino American Woman.*
*Source, Flora Arca Mata Elementary School biography.
Source: Little Manilla Rising’s social media campaign to name new Stockton, CA school after Flora Arca Mata. Quote referenced by Elizabeth Roberts for The Record, “Pioneering Filipina’s namesake school opens today,” September 13, 2020.
“To be the first is not important, it’s what you do after that’s important.”
Patsy Takemoto Mink
Representative of Hawaii
(Dec. 6, 1927– Sept. 28, 2002)
Patsy Takemoto Mink was a distinguished, dedicated, and innovative legislator who served as a member of the territorial House of Representative of Hawaii, State Senator of Hawaii, and for over two decades as the representative of Hawaii’s 2nd Congressional District.
Compassionate, articulate, and focused, Patsy Mink riveted audiences and moved governmental bodies in ways that changed history. Mink was a legislative trailblazer who overcame gender and racial discrimination to become one of the most influential public servants of her generation.
Mink began her political career in 1956, when she was elected to Hawaii’s House of Representatives. In 1964, she made history when she was elected to the United States House of Representatives, becoming the first woman of color elected to the national legislature and the first Asian-American woman in congress.
For over four decades, Mink championed the rights of immigrants, minorities, women, and children, and worked to eradicate the kind of discrimination she had faced in her life. Known for her integrity, determination, tenacity, and honesty, she is recognized as the major mover of Title IX, the legislation that brought academic and athletic equity to American educational institutions. She was a strong environmental advocate and worked tirelessly on energy policy issues of regional, national, and global impact. She was the recipient of numerous awards and honorary degrees.*
*National Women’s Hall of Fame induction biography
Congressional portrait of Congresswoman Patsy Takemoto Mink. Hawaii, ca. 1994. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2022638134/.
Sakharam Ganesh Pandit
Equal Rights
(Nov.1, 1875 – Aug. 7, 1959)
Sakharam Ganesh Pandit was born in 1875 in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. At 30, Pandit arrived by ship in New York and made his way to Chicago. There he began his career as a lecturer on Hindu philosophy and other subjects….In 1911, Pandit, now director of the School of Applied Philosophy and Oriental Psychology, filed a declaration to become a naturalized citizen, the first Indian to do so in the US. He continued to file petitions which were rejected. In 1917, he became the first native of India to be admitted to the bar in the United States…
He later represented Bhagat Singh Thind- a fellow Indian migrant and U.S. Army sergeant who was filing for citizenship… The [Supreme] Court proceeded to rule that Indians were ineligible for United States citizenship and proceeded to revoke the citizenship of all Indians who had applied and received it. Despite losing the case, Pandit successfully fought against a subsequent attempt to remove his own citizenship [1914], and in 1926, United States v. Pandit ruled in Pandit’s favor and the US government would later drop other denaturalization cases against Indian Americans.*
* Biography composed by the OCA-Asian Pacific American Advocates for 2021’s AAPI Heritage Month, entitled, “Untold Histories.” See also, Paul R. Spitzzeri “Pathfinder to Citizenship: A Portrait of Sakharam Ganesh Pandit and Lillian Striger Pandit, 28 December 1925,” The Homestead Blog, Homestead Museum, December 28, 2019. Accessed April 22, 2022.
Sources: (1) Photograph, Biography composed by the OCA-Asian Pacific American Advocates for 2021’s AAPI Heritage Month, entitled, “Untold Histories.”; (2) Newspaper clipping as part of The Homestead Blog and historic collection, caption reads: “the legal newspaper, the San Francisco Recorder, in its edition of 8 June 1914, included a very detailed reprinting of the decision of Judge Morrison granting Pandit citizenship.”
Dalip Singh Saund
Congressman, Judge
(Sept. 20, 1899 – April 22, 1973)
Saund arrived in the United States in 1920 to study agriculture and food canning at the University of California - Berkeley. He hoped to return home to his family in India within two or three years with the knowledge to start his own mango canning business. While at the University, Saund stayed within the Indian community and lived in a clubhouse run by a Sikh temple group in Stockton. By the end of his academic career in 1924, Saund had decided to stay and make his life in America. During his extended time at the University of California Saund also developed a passion for American style political debate and public speaking. Saund joined many local clubs and spoke passionately about India’s struggle for independence and the political climate of the United States.�
Despite being an official American citizen for less than a year, in 1949 Saund was elected Judge of Justice Court, Westmoreland Judicial District, count of Imperial, California. Saund was re-elected in 1952 and served until 1957 when he resigned. A local Imperial Valley resident reflected that "[Saund] was a typical Hindu at the time, with his turban on, and he dressed with his robe.... Later on, when he was in the Lions Club and getting into politics he said he was going to be the first Hindu congressman in the United States. He had a purpose…” Saund became the first Asian American to be elected to the United States Congress in 1956.*
*Written by Kim Coulter for the South Asian American Digital Archive, September 20, 2013. “Today in History: Dalip Singh Saund born September 20, 1899.” Accessed on April 22, 2022, https://www.saada.org/current/20130920-3178.
Source: South Asian American Digital Archive, gift from Eric Saund. Accessed on April 22, 2022, https://www.saada.org/item/20100224-110.
Mary Tape
School Desegregation
(1857 – 1934)
A Chinese American family in 1885 won their California Supreme Court case (Tape v. Hurley) arguing that their children were entitled to attend public school as a birthright. While Joseph and Mary Tape were of Chinese descent and born elsewhere, their children were born and raised in San Francisco, California.
The Tapes fully expected their children to enjoy all the rights and privileges of American citizens. Mary Tape's letter to the school board made that sentiment clear:
I see that you are going to make all sorts of excuses to keep my child out of the Public schools. Dear sirs, Will you please to tell me Is it a disgrace to be Born a Chinese. Didn't God make us all! What right have you to bar my children out of the school because she is a Chinese Decend.
The Tapes contested racial discrimination in court and within their community. The Tape’s won their case for racially inclusive schools. However, to bypass the court’s decision, the local school board created a new school to serve predominantly Chinese students, rather than integrating Chinese students within public schools.
Source: Biography written by Tuyen Tran for the CA History-Social Science Project.
Source: National Park Service and caption: Left to right: Joseph, Emily, Mamie, Frank, & Mary Tape, c. 1884–85.Public domain. Accessed April 22, 2022, https://www.nps.gov/people/mary-tape.htm.
“I guess
she is
more of a American then a
good
many
of you
that is
going to prevent
her
being Educated.”
Bhagat Singh Thind
WWI Veteran, Civil Rights
Oct. 3, 1892 – Sept. 15, 1967
Bhagat Singh Thind was born in the Punjab region of India. He migrated to Seattle in 1913 to attend graduate school. When the United States entered World War I in 1917, Bhagat Singh Thind enlisted in the U.S. Army. As part of his Sikh religion, he wore a turban and became the first turbaned soldier in the American military. …Thind applied for citizenship again [after a failed attempt the previous year], this time in Oregon. He argued that he should in fact be considered a white man. At the time, some anthropologists claimed to be able to divide the world’s population into distinct “races.” People from India were sometimes considered part of the “Caucasian race”—and Caucasian was also a synonym for “white.” The judge in Thind’s case decided that this was a strong enough argument. He also took into account Thind’s military service, and granted him citizenship in November of 1920.
However, the Bureau of Naturalization still opposed Thind’s citizenship. They appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and asked the Court to rule on whether people from India counted as “white.” In 1923, the Court unanimously ruled in United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind that the answer was no. The “common man” in the United States would not recognize Thind as white, and therefore he wasn’t. As a result of this decision, dozens of Americans from India lost their citizenship status. The Thind case shows how definitions of race could change over time and be subject to interpretation in ways that had real consequences for people’s lives.
In 1935, Thind became a U.S. citizen for the third and final time after Congress granted legal status to all World War I veterans. It was not until 1940 that all people from India became eligible for naturalization.*
* Written by Ella Wagner, “Bhagat Singh Thind,” National Park Service. Accessed April 20, 2022, https://www.nps.gov/people/bhagat-singh-thind.htm
Source: National Park Service. Accessed April 20, 2022, https://www.nps.gov/people/bhagat-singh-thind.htm, caption: “Bhagat Singh Thind during his Army Service..”
Loung Ung
��Writer, Speaker, Activist �Nov. 19, 1970
Loung Ung is a bestselling author, activist, and co-screenplay writer of First They Killed My Father, the critically acclaimed 2017 Netflix Original Movie based on her memoir…
Born in 1970 to a middle-class family in Phnom Penh, Loung Ung was only five years old when the Khmer Rouge Soldiers stormed into her city and her family was forced out of their home in a mass evacuation to the countryside. Orphaned and separated from her siblings, Loung was trained as a child soldier in a work camp for orphans where she was taught to hurt and hate. By 1978, the Khmer Rouge had killed Ung's parents and two of her siblings. In 1980, she and her older brother escaped by boat to Thailand, where they spent five months in a refugee camp.
Her first memoir, the national best-seller First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers (Harper Perennial), details her survival of Cambodia's killing fields, one of the bloodiest episodes of the twentieth century. From 1975 to 1979, some two million Cambodians -- out of a population of just seven million -- died at the hands of the infamous Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge regime. Of her family of nine, five survived. Harrowing, yet hopeful, Loung’s powerful story is an unforgettable account of a family shaken and shattered, yet miraculously sustained by courage and love in the face of unspeakable brutality…Today, she has shared her messages of building resilience, healing from trauma, civic service, activism, and leadership in the U.S. and across the world. She has spoken at numerous schools and universities and organizations.*
Source: *Biography and photograph excerpted from Loung Ug’s website and published biography. Accessed April 25, 2022.
Philip Vera Cruz
Labor Activist�Dec. 25, 1904 – Jun. 12, 1994
Philip Vera Cruz (Dec 25, 1904 – June 12, 1994) was born in Saoag, Ilocos Sur, Philippines. He worked on farms in the Philippines before traveling to the United States in 1926. Vera Cruz worked several odd jobs around the Midwest, but was not active in any union before moving to California in 1943 and becoming a farm worker. He joined the Agricultural Worker Organizing Committee (AWOC) and soon became a leader in farm workers rights. In 1965 he was an active force in the AWOC decision to strike against grape growers in Delano, CA. The strike and boycott soon won the support of Cesar Chavez and the National Farm Workers of America, and led to the eventual merging of the two groups to form the United Farm Workers. Vera Cruz was elected a vice president of the union, a position he held until he left the union in protest of Chavez in 1977, though he continued to be active in his retirement. Cruz also formed the Farm Workers Credit Union and created Agbayani Village, a retirement community for older farm workers.*
*This biography is the introduction of the Philip Vera Cruz Papers Collection from the Walter P. Reuther Library of Wayne State University. Accessed on April 15, 2022, https://reuther.wayne.edu/node/6833.
Sources:
Lee Yick and Wo Lee
Civil Rights (Yick Wo vs. Hopkins)
May 10, 1866
Many Chinese immigrants who came to California during the Gold Rush period opened laundries in San Francisco. They were subjected to numerous laws meant to harass them and drive them from the city. These included laws that imposed fees on laundries that did not use horse-drawn vehicles (most Chinese carried the finished laundries on poles), a “Chinese Police Tax,” and a queue ordinance that required jail inmates to cut off their queues, the long braids that were culturally significant to Chinese men. The Chinese community organized to challenge these laws, by necessity hiring white lawyers. Immigrant Lee Yick operated the Yick Wo laundry for 22 years from the same wooden building and had a certification from fire and health officials that his laundry was safe. In 1883, a superior court judge upheld a city ordinance limiting wooden laundries, aimed at closing down the Chinese laundries. Lee Yick’s attorneys took the case all the way to the US Supreme Court, which ruled in 1886 that the law outlawing wooden laundries was unequally enforced against Chinese laundrymen in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Despite this landmark ruling, this collection of insidious laws had a deeper political impact: The national Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 severely limited Chinese immigration to the United States. That law was the first immigration ban naming a specific ethnic group. Chinese immigrants were not allowed to become US citizens until 1952.*
*Text is from Teaching California’s primary source set, “12AD.5.5a What makes a Law Constitutional? Does that ever Change?Who Decides?” by Elaine Elinson and Beth Slutsky.
Source: Assessed from Teaching California, April 22, 2022, https://www.teachingcalifornia.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/3942-1.jpg. Original source: Chinese laundry house of Yick Wo. "In the Matter of the Application of Wo Lee for a Writ of Habeas Corpus." Government publication. January 22, 1886. Case 3947, Civil and Appellate Case Files, 1863-1911; U.S. Circuit Court for the Ninth Circuit for the Northern District of California, Record Group 21. US National Archives and Records Administration (San Bruno, California).
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