Talk:Asian Americans/notable

In Politics
In recent decades, many Asian Americans have entered politics, and succeeded in getting elected into national political offices. In 1957, Dalip Singh Saund became the first Asian immigrant elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1959, he was followed by Daniel Inouye, who was subsequently elected to the Senate in 1962. As of 2006, he is the Senate's third-most senior member. In 1959, another Hawaii politician, Hiram Fong, was the first Asian American elected to the Senate.

George Ariyoshi became the first Asian American governor in 1974; twenty years later, in 1994, another Asian American, Benjamin Cayetano, was elected governor of the same state, (Hawaii). They were followed in Washington by Gary Locke, who became the first Asian American governor on the mainland United States in 1996.

Norman Mineta served as the United States Secretary of Transportation from 2001 to 2006, and Elaine Chao is serving as the United States Secretary of Labor. Daniel Akaka is currently the junior U.S. Senator for Hawaii. Mike Honda currently serves as U.S. Congressman for California's Fifteenth Congressional District and is the highest-ranking Asian American member of the Democratic National Committee. Van Tran is a Republican member of the California State Assembly. Shien Biau Woo became the first Asia American state wide officer in the Northeast, when elected Lt. Governor of Delaware in 1984. More recently, Bobby Jindal became the first Indian American congressman from Louisiana. In 2001, John Liu became the first Asian American elected to the New York City Council (representing Flushing, Queens). In Texas, Dr. Martha Wong was the first Asian American elected to the Houston City Council (representing District C) and also was the first Asian American woman elected to the Texas State Legislature. Also in 2002, Upendra J. Chivukula became the first Asian American elected to the New Jersey General Assembly. In Texas during the 2004 election, Hubert Vo, a Vietnamese immigrant, became the first Vietnamese American elected to the Texas Legislature. Also in 2004, Jimmy Meng became the first Asian American elected to the New York State Assembly and is the only Asian American in either house of the legislature.

In Education
Asian Americans are extremely well represented in the education sector, especially in the college level with the highest average college graduates at around 52% and the whole Asian people constitutes around 20% of Ivy League colleges. Compared to their population size of 4% of the American population, they attend college, graduate, and earn higher grades in average than any other ethnic group in the United States.

In Business
Asian Americans are major contributors to the American economy. An Wang founded Wang Laboratories in June 1951. Jen-Hsun Huang co-founded the Nvidia corporation in 1993. Jerry Yang co-founded Yahoo! Inc. in 1994. Andrea Jung serves as Chairman and CEO of Avon Products. Vinod Khosla was a founding CEO of Sun Microsystems and is a successful general partner of the venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers. Sabeer Bhatia co-founded Hotmail which was acquired by Microsoft. In general Asian Americans are well represented in the professional sector relative to their population base and tend to earn higher wages, especially in technology and business.

In Sports
Wataru Misaka broke the NBA color barrier in the 1947-48 season, when he played for the New York Knicks. Misaka also played a key role in Utah's NCAA and NIT basketball championships in 1944 and 1947.

Asian Americans first made an impact in Olympic sports in the late 1940s and in the 1950s. Korean American Sammy Lee became the first Asian American to earn an Olympic Gold Medal, when he won in platform diving in both 1948 and 1952. Filipino American Victoria Draves won gold medals in the 1948 platform and springboard events. Harold Sakata won a weightlifting silver medal in the 1948 Olympics, while Japanese Americans Tommy Kono (weightlifting), Yoshinobu Oyakawa (100-meter backstroke), and Ford Konno (1500-meter freestyle) each won gold and set Olympic records in the 1952 Olympics. Konno won another gold and silver swimming medal at the same Olympics and added a silver medal in 1956, while Kono set another Olympic weightlifting record in 1956. Also at the 1952 Olympics, Evelyn Kawamoto won two bronze medals in swimming.

Eric Sato won gold (1988) and bronze (1992) medals in volleyball, while his sister Liane Sato won bronze in the same sport in 1992. Amy Chow won gold and silver medals in gymnastics during the 1996 Olympics. Apolo Anton Ohno won five Olympic medals in short-track speed skating (two gold) in 2002 and 2006, as well as a world cup championship. Korean born Toby Dawson won a 2006 Olympic bronze medal in Men’s Freestyle Skiing. Bryan Clay, who is Japanese American, won the silver medal in the 2004 decathlon and was the sport's 2005 world champion.

In figure skating, Tiffany Chin won the US Championship in 1985. Kristi Yamaguchi won three national championships (one individual, two in pairs), two world titles, and the 1992 Olympic Gold medal, while Michelle Kwan has won nine national championships and five world titles, as well as two Olympic medals (silver in 1998, bronze in 2002).

Dat Nguyen was an All-American linebacker at Texas A&M University and later became the first Vietnamese American in the National Football League. Norm Chow is the currently offensive coordinator for the Tennessee Titans after helping lead USC to several NCAA championships as the offensive coordinator there. And Korean American wide receiver Hines Ward was the MVP of Super Bowl XL while playing for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Natalie Coughlin, a Filipino American swimmer, has brought glory to American sports by attaining a number of medals, including two golds, from the recent 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece.

Hikaru Nakamura became the youngest American ever to earn the titles of National Master (age 10) and International Grandmaster (age 15) in chess. In 2004, at the age of 16, he won the U.S. Chess Championship.

Michael Chang won tennis' French Open in 1987. Famed golfer Tiger Woods happens to be part Thai, Chinese, Black, Native American, and Dutch. Jeanette Lee is a former number one ranked pool player. Korean American Sonya Thomas is one of the world's top competitive eaters.

In Arts and Entertainment
Architect IM Pei shot to international prominence in 1964 following his selection by Jacqueline Kennedy to design the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. Minoru Yamasaki designed the World Trade Center the following year (construction was completed in 1972). In architectural design, Maya Lin designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

Yo-Yo Ma is considered by some as the best cellist in the world. Zubin Mehta also remains a prominent name among modern conductors. Most recently, ImaginAsian Entertainment has made a major contribution by starting the first national 24/7 Asian American television network. Asian American jazz is a musical movement in the United States begun in the 20th century by Asian American jazz musicians. In music, American R&B singer, Amerie, is considered one of the most talented R&B singers of today. She has won numerous awards, and is often referred to in America and elsewhere as “Korean American R&B singer, Amerie”. Rock musician James Iha, formerly the guitarist of The Smashing Pumpkins, is Japanese American. Mike Shinoda and Joseph Hahn are successful Asian Americans in the popular rap rock band Linkin Park. Mike Shinoda is half Japanese half white and Joseph Hahn is of Korean descent. Also, Jin Au-Yeung is credited as being a pioneer in the Asian American hip hop scene.

Asian American involvement in the entertainment industry extends all the way to the first half of the 19th century, with Chang and Eng Bunker (the source for the term "Siamese Twins"), who became naturalized citizens. Nevertheless, significant progress by Asian Americans in the fields of television, cinema, and comedy has only come about slowly. Early Asian American forays into cinema such as those made by Anna May Wong and Bruce Lee encountered a movie-making culture that wanted to typecast them as caricatures. As a result, the San Francisco born Lee achieved world-wide fame only after first abandoning the West and finding success in Hong Kong. George Takei (of Star Trek fame) and Pat Morita (Happy Days) fared somewhat better domestically playing secondary roles on the small screen during the 1960's and 1970's, and Cambodian American Haing Ngor won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1985.

Today, the situation is much improved for Asian American women, as there are a number of famous actresses such as Lucy Liu. Margaret Cho won the American Comedy Award for Best Female Comedian in 1994. Leading role opportunities for Asian American men in the movies and television continue to be rather limited.

Filipino Americans also form also form a large body of Asian Americans who are working in the entertainment Industry. List includes, Apl.de.ap of Black Eyed Peas, Jasmine Trias and Camile Velasco of American Idol, Tia Carrere, Jocelyn Enriquez, Vanessa Anne Hudgens, the actor Rob Schnieder, and Mark Dacascos of the Crying Freeman.

Asians continue to be overlooked in casting, however. For example in the 2006 film Cars, a low rider is cast as a Hispanic, but Tommy Chong was not cast in his signature hippie role, and none of the Asian cars was cast with an Asian American voice. Disney's Mulan featured many non-Asian voices along with a prominent Asians.

In Science and Technology


Chinese Americans Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yang received the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics for their work in particle physics. Their work, which disproved the conservation of parity, was supported by the experimental results of Chien-Shiung Wu, who was known to many scientists as the "First Lady of Physics". Indian-American Har Gobind Khorana shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1968 for his work in genetics and protein synthesis. In 1976, Chinese American Samuel C.C. Ting shared the Nobel Prize with Burton Richter in physics for discovering the existence of a new particle called j/psi. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics. In 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. In 1986, Taiwanese American Yuan T. Lee shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Dudley R. Herschbach and John C. Polanyi for his work in the nature of chemical reactions. In 1994, the mathematician Shiing-Shen Chern won the prestigious Wolf Prize in Mathematics for his work in differential geometry. Stephen Chu shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997 for his research on cooling and trapping atoms using laser light. Daniel Tsui shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1998 for his contributions to the discovery of the fractional Quantum Hall effect. Most of the technology and computer companies are located in the west coast of the U.S. where there are a large concentration of Asian Americans compared to other sections of the U.S.