Asian Pacific American 'Firsts'

CIVICS & GOVERNMENT

1956 – South Asian American Dalip Singh Saund – first Asian Pacific American to be elected to the U.S. Congress; forged a measure through Congress that allowed Indians to become U.S. citizens.

1959 – Chinese American Hiram Fong – first American of Asian descent to be elcted to the U.S. Senate when he was chosen as Hawaii’s first senator.

1962 – Benjamin Menor – first Filipino to serve in the U.S. legislature (Hawaii State Senate)

1965 – Hawaiian and Japanese American Patsy Takemoto Mink – first Asian Pacific American woman elected to the U.S. Congress.

1971 – Korean American Herbert Choy – first Asian Pacific American appointed to be a judge in a federal court (U.S. Ninth Circuit Court); first lawyer of Korean descent to practice law in the U.S.

1974 – Japanese American George R. Ariyoshi – first American of Japanese descent to become governor of any state (Hawaii).

1979 – Filipina American Dolores Sibonga becomes the first Filipina and minority woman to serve on the Seattle City Council, in 1973 she was the first Filipina American lawyer admitted to the Washington State Bar Association.

1985 – Filipino American Irene Natividad – first Asian Pacific American woman to head a national women’s organization (National Women’s Political Caucus).

1987 – South Asian American Joy Cherian – first Asian Pacific American appointed to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

1989 – Chinese American Julia Chang Bloch – first Asian Pacific American ambassador in the history of the U.S. diplomatic core.

1990 – Indian American Shirin R. Tahir-Kheli – first Asian Pacific American and Muslim ambassador to represent the U.S. at the United Nations; first Muslim senior government official appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate.

1990 – Daniel K. Akaka – first native Hawaiian to serve the U.S. Congress; 1993 worked to get a congressional joint resolution that formally apologized to Hawaiians for the 1893 overthrow of the islands’ native government.

1993 – Filipina American Velma Veloria – first Asian Pacific American woman in the Washington State legislature.

1995 – Filipina American Sumi Sevilla Haru – first Asian Pacific American to head an international union (AFL-CIO)

1996 – Chinese American Gary Locke – first Asian Pacific American governor on the U.S. mainland; 1993, first Asian American to head a county (King County, Washington) government in the U.S. mainland.

1999 – Korean American Paull Shin – first Asian Pacific American senator in Washington State.

1999 – David Wu is the first Chinese American elected to U.S. Congress.

2000 – Japanese American Norman Yoshio Mineta – first Asian Pacific American member of the U.S. presidential cabinet.

2000 – President Clinton appoints Norm Mineta Secretary of Commerce, making him the first Asian Pacific American to hold an executive-level cabinet position.

2000 – Chinese American Bill Lann Lee – first Asian Pacific American to head the U.S. Justice Department’s civil Rights Division.

2001 – Elaine Chao is the first Asian Pacific American Woman to serve in a presidential cabinet as the Secretary of Labor.

2007 – Indian American Bobby Jindal – is elected as the Governor of Louisiana, the first Indian American Governor in U.S. history.

2008 – Cindy Ryu is elected Mayor of Shoreline, WA, becomes the first female Korean American mayor in the United States.

SCIENCES

1888 – Philip Jaisohn – first Korean to become an American citizen; 1892 first Korean American to receive an American medical degree.

1901 – Japanese Ameican and chemist Jokichi Takamine – isolated epinephrine (adrenaline), the first of the gland hormanes to be discovered in pure form, from the suprarenal gland; this discovery advanced medicine and surgery in fundamental ways.

1944 – Chinese American An Wang – invented the magnetic core memory, which revolutionized computing and served as the standard method for memory retrieval and storage until the invention of the microchip in the 1960s.

1984 – Chinese American Flossie Wong-Staal – first to clone an AIDS virus and work out its anatomy.

1984 – Taiwanese American Dr. David D. Ho – reported for the first time the “healthy carrier state” of HIV infection, which identified otherwise healthy individuals who tested positive for the virus but did not show any physical signs of the disease.

1985 – Japanese American and astronaut Ellison Onizuka – first Asian American in space.

1992 – Filipina American Dr. Lillian Gonzalez-Pardo – first Asian Pacific American woman to serve as president of the American Medical Woman’s Association.

1992 – Astonaut Eugene Huu-Chau Trinh – first Vietnamese American to be on NASA’s microgravity laboratory space shuttle mission, NASA’s first long-duration flight.

1993 – South Asian American Arati Prabhakar – first Asian Pacific American director of the national institute of Standards and Technology when appointed by President Clinton.

1997 – Kalpana Chawla joins the crew of the space shuttle Columbia and becomes the first South Asian American woman in space.

EDUCATION

1967 – Japanese American Ron Takaki – Joined the faculty of the University of California, Los Angelese (UCLA) to teach the schools first African American history course; helped found UCLA’s centers for African American, Asian American, Chicano, and Native American studies.

1989 – Japanese American Alan Sugiyama – first Asian Pacific American elected to the Seattle Public School Board, governing the largest school district in Washington State.

1990 – Chinese American Chang-Lin Tien – first Asian Pacific American to head a major university when named the Chancellor of University of California Berkeley.

2000 – Japanese American Aki Kurose – first Asian Pacific American woman to have a Seattle Public School in Washington named in her honor.

2001 – Japanese American Stephen H. Sumida of the University of Washington – first Asian American to become President-elect of the American Studies Association, a major organization that promotes the study of cultures, past and present.

2004 – Nobel Prize winner Dr. Stephen Chu is appointed as head of the prestigious Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, becoming the first Asian American to head a U.S. National Laboratory.

 2008 – Japanese American John Okamoto is the first APA to head the Washington Education Association (WEA), Washington State’s largest public employee union.

JOURNALISM

1972 – Huynh Cong Ut – first Vietnamese American to win the Pulitzer Prize for photography, the World Press Award, and gained recognition from the Overseas Press Club, the National Press Club, and Sigma Delta Chi, for his picture during the Vietnam War of a nine-year-old Vietnamese girl running down a dirt road-her naked body seared by napalm (incendiary chemical) accidentally dropped on her home in Tran Bang, Vietnam.

1974 – Japanese American Ken Kashiwahara and Connie Chung – first Asian Pacific American on the air in network news; 1993, Chung – first Asian American to be a nightly news anchor at a major network, CBS Evening News.

1981 – The Asian American Journalists Association was formed and has grown nationwide with over 2,000 members in 20 chapters.

1989 – Filipino American Emil Guillermo – first Asian Pacific American to anchor a national radio program in the nation; 1989-1991 hosted National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.”

1989 – Chinese American author Amy Tan won The National Book Award for The Joy Luck Club, her work has been translated into 20 languages.

 2007 – Northwest Asian Weekly and Seattle Chinese Post celebrate their 25th Anniversaries.

 NOBEL PRIZE WINNERS

1957 – Chinese Americans Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen Ning Ynag – received the Nobel Prize for their work in particle physics.

1968 – Indian American and biochemist Har Gobind Khorana – shared the Nobel Prize for physiology/medicine for deciphering the genetic code and its role in the control of protein synthesis.

1973 –  Japanese American Dr. Leo Esaki received the Nobel Prize in physics for his pioneering work on electron tunneling in solids.

1976 – Chinese American Samuel C.C. Ting – shared the Nobel Prize for physics for discovering the existence of a new particle called j/psi.

1983 – Indian/Pakistani American and astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar – shared the Nobel Prize for physics for his groundbreaking work that led to the discovery of black holes.

1986 – Taiwanese American Yuan T. Lee – shared the Nobel Prize for chemistry for his work in the nature of chemical reactions.

1998 – Chinese American Dr. Daniel Chee Tsui shared the Nobel Prize for his contributions to the discovery of the fractional quantum Hall effect.

ARTS

1921 – Chinese Amreican Anna May Wong – first Asian Pacific American movie star with the movie Bits of Life.

1957, 1963 – Chinese American James Wong Howe – first Asian Pacific American to win two Academy Awards in cinematography.

1965 – Japanese American Mako – founded East West Players, the first Asian Pacific American theatre in the U.S.

1973 – Japanese American Seiji Ozawa – first person of Asian ancestry and youngest person to serve as director and conductor of Boston Symphony Orchestra, one of America’s major orchestras.

1978-1981 – Japanese American Toshiko Akiyoshi – first woman in jazz history to be awarded the Best Arranger and Best Big Jazz Band by Down Beat Reader’s Poll; received award for four consecutive years.

1984 – Haing Ngor – the first Asian American to win an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in the Killing Fields in 1984

1988 – Chinese American Bradley Darryl Wong – first Asian Pacific American actor to receive awards from Actor’s Equity, Theatre World, Outer Critics, and Drama Desk; won a Tony Award as best featured actor for his performance in M Butterfly.

1994 – Korean American and comedian Margaret Cho – first Asian Pacific American to star in her own television show, All-American Girl, a sitcom about a Korean American family.

2002 – the first Asian American film acquisition from the famed Sundance Film Festival for Better Luck Tomorrow directed by Justin Lin.

2005 – Chinese American Director Ang Lee – first Asian American to win an Academy Award for Best Director for his film Brokeback Mountain.

MILITARY

1863 – Chinese American William Ah Hang – one of the first Asian Pacific Americans to enlist in the U.S. Navy during the Civil War.

1942 – U.S. War Department authorizes the first Filipino infantry battalion from among Filipino Americans.

1942 – Filipino Army Sgt. Jose Calugas – earns a Medal of Honor for heroism in the Philippines during World War II, among the first Filipinos to do so for services in World War II.

1943 – Korean American Colonel Young Oak Kim – first Asian Pacific American to command a combat battalion; to date, the most highly decorated Asian American Soldier.

World War II – 442nd Regimental Combat Team – made up of Japanese Americans who came out of the mainland concentration campus, was the most decorated unit of its size with seven Presidential Distinguished Unit Citations, 18,000 individual decorations, including a Congressional Medal of Honor, 47 distinguished Service Crosses, 350 Silver Stars, 810 Bronze Stars, and more than 3,600 Purple Hearts.

1984 – Major General John Liu Fugh – first Chinese American to attain general officer status in the U.S. Army.

1993 – Major General John R. D’Araujo, Jr. – the first Filipino American to hold the rank of major general and the position of director of the Army National Guard Bureau.

2002 – Lieutenant General Edward Soriano was the highest ranking Filipino American in the U.S. Army, and the first APA commanding general of I Corps and Fort Lewis in Washington State until his retirement in 2004.

1999-2003 General Eric Shinseki – served as the 34th Chief of Staff of the Army and the first Asian American in U.S. history to be a four-star general and the first to lead one of the four U.S. military services.

SPORTS

1912, 1920, 1924 – Hawaiian American Duke Kahanamoku – dominated swimming events in three Olympia games, winning three gold and two silver medals; singularly popularized surfing world-wide during the 1920’s.

1947 – University of Utah player, Wat Misaka becomes the first player of Asian descent drafted into the National Basketball Association (NBA).

1948 – Filipina American diver Victoria Manalo Draves – first woman to win Olympia gold medals in both the ten-meter platform and three-meter springboard events.

1948, 1952 – Korean American diver Dr. Sammy Lee – first male athlete to win two Olympic gold medals in the platform diving event.

1984 – Samoan American Greg Efthimios Louganis – first diver to break the 700-point mark; first man in 56 years to win Olympia springboard and platform diving titles at the same Olympics.

1987 – Samoan and Hawaiian American Salevaa Atisanoe “Konishiki” – first non-Japanese Sumo wrestler to reach the rank of ozeki (champion)

1989 – Chinese American Michael Chang – at age 17, is the youngest male tennis player in the wold to win the Grand Slam tournament and the first American man in 34 years to win the French Open.

1990 – Japense American Tomia “Tommy” T. Kono – a three-time Olympia medalist, two of them gold, in weight-lifting, is inducted, (along with Sammy Lee), into the U.S. Olympia Hall of Fame.

1992 – Korean American Eugene Y. Chung – first Asian Pacific American drafted in the first round and the third Asian American to play in the National Football League.

1992 – Japanese American Kristi Yamaguchi – becomes the first Asian Pacific American woman to win a gold medal in singles figure skating.

 1997 – Thai and African American golfer Tiger Woods wins the Master’s Golf Tournament, beginning his rise as the current No. 1 player in the world.  He has since won three Master’s titles, four PGA titles, two U.S. Open titles, three British Open titles, and a total of 64 individual titles.

 2002-2004 – Seattle area native Apolo Anton Ohno wins two Winter Olympia Gold Medals in speed skating.