USF Chinese American & Children Literature Analysis

Copyright © 2020. Immedium. All rights reserved.Amara, Phil, and Oliver Chin. Awesome Asian Americans : 20 Stars who made America amazing, Immedium, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central,
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“I’ve been telling publishers that we need
more books like this.”
– Sarah Park Dahlen, PhD
St. Catherine University
The fantastic feats of adventurous
Asian Americans leap off the page with
spectacular comic book art. It’s about
time—rebel girls, rad women, little leaders,
and great guys are Asian American too!
Learn about twenty trailblazers who
have contributed in unique ways to the
United States. These ten women and ten
men came from diverse backgrounds to
become the finest in their fields. Plus
sixty incredible illustrations bring these
fascinating and colorful portraits to life.
$17.95 USA
Phil Amara and Oliver Chin co-wrote The Asian Hall
of Fame series (The Discovery of Ramen, Fireworks &
Gunpowder, and Anime & Manga).
Phil was an editor at Dark Horse Comics. He wrote the
picture book The Treehouse Heroes and graphic novel
The Nevermen. A food writer, Phil is an elementary
school teacher in Boston, Massachusetts.
Oliver wrote Tales from the Chinese Zodiac, Julie Black
Belt, graphic novel 9 of 1: A Window to the World, and
The Tao of Yao: Insights from Basketball’s Brightest Big
Man. He lives in San Francisco, California.
Juan Calle illustrated The Asian Hall of Fame series,
That Girl on TV Could Be Me!, and The Year of the
Rooster. He created the Spanish bilingual children’s
book Good Dream, Bad Dream. In Bogota, Colombia,
he leads the art studio Liberum Donum. Visit him at
www.liberumdonum.com.
Immigrants and their children continue
to enrich our nation’s culture. Discover
important chapters of American history
and the marvelous accomplishments
of these groundbreaking pioneers.
“VERDICT: Highly recommended
for its broad appeal and adaptability
as a read-aloud or independent read.”
– School Library Journal
Copyright © 2020. Immedium. All rights reserved.
“Leticia’s true life quest
for excellence in TV News
is charmingly told and
That G rl on TV
The Journey of a
Latina News Anchor
Could Be Me!
¡Yo Podría Ser Esa Chica en la Tele!
El Camino de una Noticiera Latina
illustrated and will be
the example that shows
you the way.”
– Lois Hart & Dave Walker,
first CNN TV anchors
www.immedium.com
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By Leticia Ordaz
Illustrated by Juan Calle
Printed in Malaysia
“This is the book I wish I had when I was young. Who knew
that as an Asian American I could one day be a social
media phenomenon, a CEO, an astronomer, a Broadway
star or an activist? Awesome Asian Americans is engaging
and entertaining, but it’s not a fluffy read. The authors
frame these extraordinary lives in the social contexts of
their times, making their stories our story.”
– Renee Tajima-Peña, Filmmaker
UCLA Professor of Asian American Studies
Copyright © 2020. Immedium. All rights reserved.
“The young ones are our only hope! To get there, they’ll
need books like this one to learn about trailblazers who
look like them. The 20 who are profiled here came from all
walks of life to make an impact on our culture as artists,
athletes, scientists, activists, and more. These stories can
inspire the next generation to go even further than any of
us imagined.”
–Theodore S. Gonzalves
author of The Day the Dancers Stayed:
Performing in the Filipino American Diaspora
“I enjoyed reading about these diverse celebrities and
accomplished individuals. It is very important in this
critical period of time for all Americans, especially
young people, to recognize who Asian Americans are,
and how they struggle and contribute mightily to the
rich fabric of America.”
– Stewart Kwoh, Founder
Asian Americans Advancing Justice
“The true personal stories of path-breaking heroes and
“I thoroughly appreciated your book, a great mix of
heroines will inspire children to imagine how they can
meet challenges, rise against inequalities, and change the
Asian Americans from different fields and countries,
with many types of stories that should inspire young
readers. I learned a lot!”
world. Once again Phil Amara and Oliver Chin create a
children’s book that helps youth see new possibilities to
follow whatever path they choose. Juan Calle’s illustrations
are keepsake rewards for each amazing person.”
– Milton Chen
Senior Fellow and Executive Director Emeritus
George Lucas Educational Foundation
– Bea and Harvey Dong
Eastwind Books of Berkeley, California
US $17.95
www.immedium.com
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Copyright © 2020. Immedium. All rights reserved.
Amara, Phil, and Oliver Chin. Awesome Asian Americans : 20 Stars who made America amazing, Immedium, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central,
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Copyright © 2020. Immedium. All rights reserved.
This Book Be longs To
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To Hana. – P.A.
To Lucas and Eli: may you soar high and cast a bright light. – O.C.
To all Asian American comic book artists who inspire us, specially Stan Sakai
and Jim Lee, whose art has been with me for a long time. – J.C.
Immedium, Inc.
P.O. Box 31846
San Francisco, CA 94131
www.immedium.com
Text Copyright ©2020 Phil Amara and Oliver Chin
Illustrations Copyright ©2020 Juan Calle
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Immedium
Special Sales at sales@immedium.com.
First hardcover edition published 2020.
Edited by Lorraine Dong
Book design by Dorothy Mak
Printed in Malaysia
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Copyright © 2020. Immedium. All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Amara, Philip, author. | Chin, Oliver Clyde, 1969- author. | Calle,
Juan, 1977- illustrator.
Title: Awesome Asian Americans : 20 stars who made America amazing / by
Phil Amara & Oliver Chin ; illustrated by Juan Calle.
Description: First hardcover edition. | San Francisco, CA : Immedium, Inc.,
2020. | Includes bibliographical references. | Audience: Ages 9-17 |
Audience: Grades 4-6 | Summary: “This is an illustrated children’s
anthology of noteworthy Asian Americans: 20 groundbreaking men and women
from diverse backgrounds and vocations” – Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020011608 (print) | LCCN 2020011609 (ebook) | ISBN
9781597021500 (hardback) | ISBN 9781597021555 (ebook)
Subjects: | LCSH: Asian Americans–Biography–Juvenile literature. |
Celebrities–United States–Biography–Juvenile literature.
Classification: LCC E184.A75 A47 2020 (print) | LCC E184.A75 (ebook) |
DDC 920.0092/95073–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020011608
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020011609
ISBN: 978-1-59702-150-0
Amara, Phil, and Oliver Chin. Awesome Asian Americans : 20 Stars who made America amazing, Immedium, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central,
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Copyright © 2020. Immedium. All rights reserved.
Immedium, Inc.
San Francisco, CA
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TaBle of conTenTs
Introduction .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. V
1. Tyrus Wong · Artist .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 01
2. Sono Osato · Dancer .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 07
3. Dr. Sammy Lee · Diver & Doctor .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 13
4. Yuri Kochiyama · Activist . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 19
5. Daniel K. Inouye · Soldier & Statesman.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 25
6. Victoria Manalo Draves · Diver .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 31
7. Bruce Lee · Martial Artist & Actor . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 37
8. Dr. Flossie Wong-Staal · Biologist & Virologist .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 43
9. Dr. Steven Chu · Physicist & Teacher .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 49
10. Shahid Khan · Engineer & CEO .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 55
11. Helen Zia · Author & Activist .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 61
12. Dolly Gee · Federal Judge .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 67
13. Dr. Jane Luu · Astronomer . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 73
14. Satya Nadella · Technologist & CEO . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 79
15. Lea Salonga · Singer .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 85
16. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson · Wrestler & Actor .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 91
17. David Chang · Chef & Restaurateur .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 97
Copyright © 2020. Immedium. All rights reserved.
18. Mindy Kaling · Writer, Actress, & Producer .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .103
19. Chrissy Teigen · Model & Entrepreneur .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .109
20. Jeremy Lin · Basketball Player .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .115
Books by Our Awesome Asian Americans .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .121
Acknowledgments .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .122
iv
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inTroducTion
In 2018, the phrase “Asian American” had its fiftieth anniversary. In 1968, students at the
University of California (UC) at Berkeley coined the term when they founded the Asian
American Political Alliance (AAPA). Fueled by the 1960s Civil Rights movement, AAPA
protested for legal, political, and social equality for Asians in America as well. A year later,
San Francisco State University (SFSU) and UC Berkeley, Davis, and Los Angeles (UCLA),
founded the first college-level Asian American Studies programs in the United States.
Out was the label “Oriental.” That term came from the Latin word “oriens” which meant
rising. The sun rose from the “east.” From Europe, the center of the Roman Empire and later
the dominant colonizers of the world, Asia was east. Therefore to Europeans, anyone
coming from the direction of Asia was “oriental.”
America inherited this Eurocentric perspective and the definition of “Oriental”: foreign,
exotic, other. This racial profile stereotyped a stranger from somewhere else as an
outsider who did not really belong “here.” But what if people with Asian heritage wanted
to control their own identities?
Copyright © 2020. Immedium. All rights reserved.
Asians have been Americans for centuries. In 2020, Asians were the fastest growing group
of American immigrants. It is projected that “minorities” will become the majority of the
US population by 2050.
However, since the global spread of a new coronavirus disease started in November 2019
(COVID-19), anti-Asian racism has spiked in the United States. By May 2020, the Center
for Public Integrity reported that 30% of Americans witnessed someone blaming Asian
people for the pandemic, and that 60% of Asian Americans had seen such behavior. At
the same time, the Washington Post reported Asian American doctors and nurses have
been increasingly harassed by bigots. This has been an unsettling reminder that prejudice
is hard to eliminate.
Coincidentally, May is the month that Americans celebrate the cultures and contributions
of Asians and Pacific Islanders. President George H.W. Bush had issued Presidential
Proclamation 6130 on May 7, 1990 to officially recognize this annual commemoration.
Introduction
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|v
Fittingly a new television documentary series Asian Americans debuted on PBS in May 2020.
Co-produced by the Center of Asian American Media (CAAM), it told the histories of these
communities for a new generation of citizens. CAAM Executive Director Stephen Gong said:
These are American stories: stories of resilience in the face of racism, of
overcoming challenges as refugees from war and strife, of making contributions
in all sectors of society: business, technology, military service, and the arts.
These Asian American experiences and voices provide a vital foundation for
a future fast approaching, in which no single ethnic or racial group defines
America, in which shared principles will define who we are as Americans.
Our book is presented in the same spirit. This collection profiles noteworthy people
in chronological order. The families of these ten men and ten women came from different
places to contribute to the United States and change it for the better. Asian Americans,
Pacific Islanders, and Asians have enriched America’s culture, economy, and creative spirit.
Immigrants and their descendants continue to give of themselves to become part of the
nation’s essential fabric.
Not all are household names. Some have been almost lost to memory, excluded from
public acknowledgement or history textbooks. Trailblazers lay the foundation to smooth
the paths of those who follow. Their sacrifices deserve to be remembered. Their biographies
can inspire readers to imagine ways to improve not only themselves but also society.
On every US coin and dollar bill is stamped another Latin phrase, “e pluribus unum.” This
slogan was used by the 1782 Continental Congress. Placed on the Great Seal, “out of many,
one” describes how thirteen original colonies formed the United States. Today this motto
applies to how every American can find strength by appreciating our fellow citizens’ diverse
backgrounds and accomplishments.
Copyright © 2020. Immedium. All rights reserved.
In this 21st century world, people seem to have an insatiable appetite for imaginary and
idealized heroes, who wield marvelous powers and perform incredible feats. In actuality, many
of our most effective and diligent champions have looked like us and labored in our very midst.
We look forward to learning about your amazing stories and adding them to the ones
that follow.
vi
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Tyrus Wong
ARTIST
Copyright © 2020. Immedium. All rights reserved.
Born: October 25, 1910
Toisan, Guangdong, China
Died: December 30, 2016
Sunland, California
“… [I]f you put down just what is necessary, you will have a great painting.
If you can do a painting with five strokes instead of ten you can make your painting sing.”
On a Southern California beach on the fourth Saturday of the month, a parade of animals would rise
to the sky. Goldfish, dragonflies, owls, and pandas. Butterflies with eight-foot wingspans. A dance of
nine snow cranes. A flock of 25 swallows. A 75-segment centipede, 145 feet long. The creator of more
than two hundred kites was a spry elderly man. Tyrus Wong shaved Japanese bamboo, constructed
the designs, and painted the kite fabric by hand. He preferred this hobby to a past one because “Fishing
you’re looking down. Kite flying, you’re looking up.” Plus, it reminded him of when he was seven years
old and his father made him a kite.
Chapter 1 · Tyrus Wong
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|1
Copyright © 2020. Immedium. All rights reserved.
“WhaT Tyrus Wong
[BamBi ’s] arT direcTion is
sTunning. Thousands of small
BroughT To
jusT aBsoluTely
scale and large
scale skeTches Were very lyrical and had
ThaT poeTry ThaT
2
|
Awesome Asian Americans
WalT
– andreas deja,
The liTTle mermaid, BeauTy
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and The
WanTed.”
animaTor,
BeasT, aladdin
“I love to paint,” Tyrus told Pamela Tom in her 2015 documentary Tyrus which aired on PBS’
American Masters. “Anything else, I’m no good at all.” Waiting decades for his due, Tyrus was
lead artist on Disney’s classic 1942 animated feature Bambi. Although not an animator, he
took Bambi beyond conventional expectations and put his stamp on a whole generation’s
childhood. Big Hero 6 designer Paul Felix said, “Bambi never goes away. We’re constantly
taking a look at it, to the point where we all know almost every single one of those sketches
that Tyrus did … he’s the one who set the template for the film’s visual vocabulary.”
Born in southern China, Wong Geng Yeo and his family were poor. Unable to afford ink or
rice paper, his father instructed him to practice calligraphy with water on old newspapers.
Seeking a better life, nine-year-old Geng Yeo and his father boarded the steamship SS China
in 1920 to try their luck in America. The boy never saw his mother again.
No welcome waited on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. In 1882, the United States passed
the Chinese Exclusion Act. The Wongs did what other Chinese immigrants did to survive:
they pretended to be relatives of people already on the mainland.
Copyright © 2020. Immedium. All rights reserved.
The father assumed the name Look Get. The son became Look Tai Yow. Arriving at Angel
Island Immigration Station off the coast of San Francisco, California, the child was separated
from his parent. “It was like a prison,” the boy remembered. With only one chance to pass the
oral entrance interrogation, he memorized pages of answers about his fake family and passed.
Now considered a “paper son,” he reunited with his father. They moved to Sacramento and
then Los Angeles. Teachers called him “Tyrus.”
After enjoying a summer scholarship at the Otis Art Institute, fourteen-year-old Tyrus refused
to return to junior high. His father borrowed money for the $90 tuition and Tyrus walked
six miles roundtrip every day between Chinatown and school. Afterward, he earned annual
scholarships, but used donated art supplies, and worked as a janitor and cafeteria busboy for
his meals. Tyrus learned Western drawing techniques and admired the paintings from China’s
Song dynasty (960 –1279).
After his father died, Tyrus graduated in 1935 and painted public commissions for the Works
Progress Administration. Working as a waiter at the Chinatown restaurant Dragon’s Den, he
met Ruth Kim, a secretary for Los Angeles’ first Chinese American immigration lawyer Y.C.
Hong. They married in 1937 and soon had a daughter. Tyrus got a $22.50 / week job at Disney
to make short Mickey Mouse animations. He was an in-betweener, an entry-level artist who
filled in images between the main poses (“keyframes”) drawn by veterans.
Chapter 1 · Tyrus Wong
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|3
I didn’t like doing in-betweening. All day you have to look into a lightbox and
flip pages back and forth. It was difficult, and at the end of the day I thought my
eyeballs were going to drop out.
Luckily, pre-production on Bambi had started. Tyrus read Felix Salten’s book, then painted
landscape samples for art director Tom Codrick. Walt Disney approved and Tyrus got the
responsibility of setting the film’s colors and mood. “I tried to keep the thing very, very simple
and create the atmosphere, the feeling of the forest,” he reflected. Although his art was done
behind the scenes, it produced a poetic environment of mystery and emotion that all the
other animators had to emulate.
Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, authors of the 1990 book Walt Disney’s Bambi, wrote:
“His paintings, styling sketches, watercolors, and pastels would give a whole new appearance
to the picture, distinct from any we had previously given or would ever give any film.”
However, as one of only two Asian artists, Tyrus faced some prejudice. When
other artists went on strike, he continued to work. After the strike was over,
he was fired in 1941. When Bambi debuted the next year, Tyrus was only
listed in the credits as one of nine “background” artists.
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Tyrus rebounded as a pre-production illustrator
for Warner Bros. Studios for the next twentyseven years. In a cinematic era before
“previsualization” on computers,
his conceptual illustrations enabled
directors to decide how to film
scenes and how the set could look.
He contributed to the movies Sands
of Iwo Jima (1949), Rebel Without
a Cause (1955), Around the World
in Eighty Days (1956), The Music
Man (1962), Camelot (1967),
The Wild Bunch (1969), and many
others. Meanwhile, the Chinese
Exclusion Act was repealed in 1943
and he became a US citizen in 1946.
4
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Tyrus’ imagination never stopped. At home he would go up to his own studio and work more.
He collaborated with Ruth to sell his hand-painted silk scarves to boutiques. He decorated
ceramic dinnerware that were sold in department stores nationwide. Playing records of
Christmas carols (in June!) to help him imagine an elf or angel, he designed holiday cards,
one of which sold more than one million copies.
His daughters Kim, Tai-Ling, and Kay remember their dad fondly. “He clearly knew he wanted
to bring a Chinese brush feel to much of his work,” said Tai-Ling. “It’s possible he knew he had
a unique style that was different from work done by others.”
“By observing his surroundings, he could capture a feeling, solitude, peace, excitement, or joy,”
recounted Kim. “We’d often see him making small sketching movements with his drawing
hand, transferring something he was looking at into a sketch in his mind.”
Then at an age when other retirees planned their vacations, Tyrus started making kites. His
daughters witnessed his inventive passion, “Our Dad was always creating art. Growing up, we
benefited from his rich imagination and creativity — from his design of our family’s home and
garden to the handmade holiday gifts he created for us even when he was in his 90s.”
Tyrus was invited back to work at Disney on its 1998 animated movie Mulan. He declined.
Mouse life was behind him. However, in 2001, Disney inducted him into their “Legends”
hall of fame. Walt’s nephew Roy E. Disney said of Tyrus, “He only worked at the studio for
three years and during that time, devoted himself to just one movie, Bambi. But what
a film it was.”
Copyright © 2020. Immedium. All rights reserved.
Tyrus’ art exhibited in Los Angeles at the Chinese American Museum, Craft and Folk Art
Museum, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and New York’s Museum of
Chinese in America. In 2005, the animation industry’s Annie Awards recognized him for
lifetime achievement.
In 2013, the Walt Disney Family Museum (San Francisco, California) honored him with a
lifetime retrospective. It exhibited more than 265 of his pieces, along with a companion book
Water to Paper, Paint to Sky. The gallery was within sight of Angel Island, where young Tyrus
had been detained for three weeks. Tyrus told John Canemaker (in the 1996 book, Before the
Animation Begins) that Bambi was “a minor, very small part” of his life. Tai-Ling also points
out that as good as Wong was, his children did not think of their father’s work as masterpieces,
“I doubt if he saw them that way.”
Chapter 1 · Tyrus Wong
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|5
But generations of professional creators certainly have. “Tyrus was an inspiration, as an artist
and a human being,” said Pixar’s Up and Inside Out director Pete Docter. “I met him when he
was 99, and at that time he’d been retired for longer than I’d been alive …. He’d been so prolific
and innovative in his artwork, in spite of the obstacles life threw at him. What an example
to artists everywhere.”
Copyright © 2020. Immedium. All rights reserved.
In 2016, Tyrus passed away at the age of 106. By then his legacy was appreciated. He expanded
the artistic horizons of not just Disney films but all animated movies to come. He charmed
a dream world onto a canvas, whether it was ink to paper or a kite in the wind, a creature
soaring in the blue heaven above.
SOURCES
Canemaker, John. Before the Animation Begins: The Art and Lives of Disney Inspirational Sketch Artists. Hyperion, 1996.
Tom, Pamela, director. Tyrus. New Moon Pictures, 2015.
www.chsa.org/2013/11/water-to-paper-paint-to-sky-the-art-of-tyrus-wong-at-the-walt-disney-family-museum/
www.juxtapoz.com/news/tyrus-wong-water-to-paper-paint-to-sky-disney-family-museum-sf/
www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-tyrus-wong-kite-man-20161230-story.html
6
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sono osaTo
DANCER
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Born: August 29, 1919
Omaha, Nebraska
Died: December 26, 2018
New York, New York
“Wherever I looked onstage, there were those with whom I had shared
so much – youth, energy, ambition. But above all there was the work, devotion
to the hard, precious work that aims always towards perfection.”
On December 28, 1944, Sono Osato readied to dance as Ivy Smith in New York Broadway’s debut of the
musical comedy On the Town. World War II raged in Europe. Fighting in the Pacific would continue until
the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan in August 1945. In the play,
three US sailors had 24-hour shore leave in Manhattan to pursue romance. How would the audience
react when a Navy man falls in love with Ivy, played by a Japanese American of mixed heritage?
Chapter 2 · Sono Osato
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|7
Three years earlier, Sono performed ballet before and after the news of Japan’s attack on
Hawai‘i’s Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Although it would take almost two months
for the United States to strike back at sea, the government was ready to retaliate at home
immediately. The next night in Chicago, the FBI arrested Sono’s father Shoji as an “enemy
alien.” Quickly the United States forced more than 110,000 Japanese residents to abandon
their homes and businesses, and imprisoned them. On December 14, 1945, anticipating
a Supreme Court ruling the next day, the US War Department ended its three-year
internment of Japanese Americans.
Born in Akita, Japan, Shoji Osato came to America at the age of nineteen. After surviving the
1906 San Francisco earthquake, he moved to Omaha, Nebraska. Working at a newspaper, he
photographed Francis Fitzgerald in 1917, and they fell in love. However, Nebraska outlawed
marriages between Asians and whites, so the two wed in the neighboring state of Iowa.
Returning home, Francis was ostracized by her Irish-French Canadian family. Sono was born
in 1919 and her sister Teru followed a year later. When visiting Shoji’s family in Japan in 1923,
the family survived the great Kanto earthquake.
After Sono’s brother Tim arrived in 1925, the family moved to Chicago,
Illinois. Growing up poor, the kids wore donated clothes. Then
in 1927, their mother took the children to France. In Monte
Carlo, Sono’s life changed when she saw her first ballet
performed by Ballets Russes, a troupe that had fled
the 1917 Russian Revolution. Sono remembered,
“As we left the theater, I told my mother I wanted
to be a dancer.”
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In 1929, the Great Depression forced the family
to return to Chicago, where Sono enrolled in
her first ballet class. In 1934, she auditioned
for Colonel Wassily Grigorievitch de Basil who
accepted her into Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo.
At age fourteen, Sono was the first American, first
Japanese, and youngest member ever. On her first
day, she rehearsed Swan Lake. Luckily, the company
spoke French, in which Sono was fluent.
8
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While her parents became caretakers of Chicago’s Japanese Tea Garden and Phoenix Pavilion,
Sono traveled the world. She began a five-year relationship with Roman Jasinsky, a Polish
dancer ten years her senior. No medical birth control existed when she became pregnant.
Sono wanted to continue her career. Therefore her mother arranged for Sono to have an
abortion, which was illegal at the time.
In 1940, the New York Times praised Sono’s “exotic beauty” in her role as the Siren in
George Balanchine’s ballet The Prodigal Son. Famed artist Isamu Noguchi (who also was
of mixed Japanese heritage) sculpted her likeness. She modeled fashions in the women’s
magazines Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue.
But beneath the glamour, Sono knew her profession demanded grit:
Unlike a musician, a dancer cannot trade in his instrument for another. Our
bodies are all that we have, and we continue to move them beyond their
natural limits, exposing them to perpetual hazards. If you want to dance, you
learn to bear the pain.
In 1941, wanting a higher salary and more prominent roles, Sono joined New York’s Ballet
Theater (BT; now American Ballet Theater (ABT)). Then she met Moroccan-born architect
Victor Elmaleh and fell in love “on the spot.” However, his parents were Sephardic Jews
who were against their union.
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After Pearl Harbor, Sono’s brother Tim enlisted in the US Army’s 442nd Regimental Combat
Team. At BT’s request, Sono reluctantly agreed to use her mother’s maiden name as her stage
name. Nonetheless, the United States restricted Japanese from leaving America and denied
Sono a passport for BT’s tour of Mexico. Since California was now an “exclusion zone” where
Japanese were no longer allowed, the government banned her from performing there too.
Sono recalled,
In shock, I asked myself, “What does this mean? I am an American.” It had
never occurred to me that the government would ever doubt my loyalty to my
country, or deprive me of my work. This did both.
In 1943, Sono married Victor, who had been discharged from the Army, and professionally
struck out on her own. Hired by choreographer Agnes de Mille as the “Premiere Dancer”
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|9
“…[a]ny
sTrong endeavor ThaT
gives you a sense of joy is The greaTesT
Thing in life….” -sono osaTo
in One Touch of Venus, Sono “stopped the show on opening night and has all but stolen it
ever since,” wrote New York’s PM. The show swept the inaugural Donaldson Awards and she
won Best Female Dancer.
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Next, Sono joined On the Town, created by two 26-year-old Jewish American wunderkinds:
composer Leonard Bernstein, and director and choreographer Jerome Robbins (the duo
would reunite on West Side Story). It was one of the first Broadway productions to feature
an integrated cast. The show included African American dancers and the first African
American conductor.
Chinese American actress Anna May Wong may have been the last Asian American featured
on Broadway back in 1931’s On the Spot. Now Sono embodied the alluring Ivy Smith, winner
of the monthly title of Miss Turnstiles (based on the New York transit system’s beauty contest).
Having performed for audiences the world over, as in 1938 in Berlin, Germany where Nazis
attended, Sono knew how to focus and suppress her stage fright. She reflected:
10
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It was amazing to me that, at the height of a world war…
a Broadway musical should feature, and have audiences
unquestioningly accept, a half-Japanese as an All-American
Girl. I could never have been accepted as Ivy Smith in films,
or later, on television. Only the power of illusion created between performers
and audiences across the footlights can transcend political preference,
moral attitudes, and racial prejudice.
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The dancer received rave reviews, caricatures by New York Times cartoonist Al Hirschfeld,
and a feature in Life magazine. After numerous appeals, her father Shoji was granted parole
to see her dance.
Sono wanted to start a family, especially after her sister Teru died from childbirth in 1946.
Sono had two sons, Niko in 1947 and Antonio in 1950. In the 1947 film The Kissing Bandit,
she acted as a Mexican love interest of crooner Frank Sinatra. Soon Sinatra would star
in the 1949 movie version of On the Town. Featuring an all-white cast, it was a box office
success and Academy Award winner.
Sono performed in a few more plays (including one written by a young Mel Brooks).
But as she became more outspoken politically, her career suffered due to Hollywood’s anticommunist “blacklist” in the 1950s. Her husband joined the New York office of his family’s
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| 11
import-export business, founded World Wide Group in 1954 to distribute German cars
(and some of the first Volkswagons), and then to develop billions of dollars in real estate.
After the couple’s passing, their Hamptons beachfront estate on Long Island, New York
(a 7,200 square foot home on four acres) sold for $26 million in 2019.
In 1980, Sono wrote her autobiography, Distant Dances. Later, she endowed a scholarship
at Career Transition for Dancers to help performers find new vocations after they stopped
dancing. In the 2015 revival of On the Town, ABT’s first African American principal dancer
Misty Copeland reprised Sono’s role.
Then on January 9, 2016, Chicago’s Thodos Dance debuted its ballet Sono’s Journey to
commemorate the dancer’s career. Sono attended the premiere. Artistic Director Melissa
Thodos remarked:
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I wanted to tell Osato’s inspirational story in the very medium she worked in.
What fascinated me was the way her life and career had so many important
parallels with our time. It’s about diversity, and how this artist continued to
grow and thrive while overcoming prejudice and professional limitations.
SOURCES
Oja, Carol J. Bernstein Meets Broadway: Collaborative Art in a Time of War. Oxford UP, 2014. Broadway Legacies.
http://blogs.wfmt.com/offmic/2016/01/08/sono-osato-96-reflects-on-dancing-with-the-ballet-russe-de-monte-carlo/
http://dancelines.com.au/chameleon-dancer-sono-osato-survived-racism-prejudice-broadway-star/
www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/sono-osato-japanese-american-ballet-dancer-prejudice/
www.neh.gov/humanities/2015/januaryfebruary/feature/the-original-miss-turnstiles
www.nytimes.com/2018/12/26/obituaries/sono-osato-dead.html
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dr. sammy lee
DIVER & DOCTOR
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Born: August 1, 1920
Fresno, California
Died: December 2, 2016
Newport Beach, California
“[Prejudice] inspired me to perform. I was angered,
but I was going to prove that in America I could do anything.”
It was August 5, 1948, and Sammy Lee was thirty-three feet high in the air . . . right where he wanted to be.
From the surrounding stands, eyes gazed upward at him. His toes perched on the edge of a concrete cliff,
he peered down at the Empire Pool below. Its glassy sheen sparkled in the light, but it was empty
and waiting. After he jumped, Sammy had to enter its surface as straight as a railroad spike . . . at thirty
miles per hour. If not, the water would hit him as hard as the concrete beneath his feet.
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| 13
“Through
[my
his mulTiTude of achievemenTs and aWards,
faTher] Treasured his family mosT.
‘The
he
ofTen sTaTed,
medals fade BuT my Wife, daughTer, son,
and grandchildren Become more
golden and precious during
The lasT TWo -minuTe
drill of my game.’”
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– sammy lee, jr.
14
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It is not a natural impulse for a person to leap off a three-story building. However, Sammy
had trained his whole life for this moment. This was his last “highboard” dive in the finals
of the ten-meter platform event of the 1948 London Summer Olympics.
Earlier that week Sammy had won the diving bronze medal in the three-meter springboard
and his teammate Bruce Harlan got the gold. But Sammy still had a promise to keep.
Sammy’s parents were contractually obligated to marry each other, even before they were
born. They immigrated from Korea, where they had lost two sons. In central California, they
had two daughters. Once Samuel Rhee was born, his family moved south to open a grocery
store. In 1932, Los Angeles hosted the Olympic Games. Seeing all the countries’ colorful flags,
Sammy recalled:
Boy, I’ll never forget the chill that just went up and down my spine. I said,
“Gee, Papa, someday I’m gonna be an Olympic champ.”
He chuckled and said, “What in?”
I said, “I don’t know Papa, but I’ll find it.”
In junior high school, Sammy was hooked on diving with somersaults. He practiced at the
Los Angeles Swim Stadium downtown at Exposition Park and also at Pasadena’s Brookside
Park pool. He remembered, “non-Whites could use the pool at Brookside only one day
a week, on Wednesday.” After “International Day” ended, the pool director pretended to
drain and refill it for whites to use the next day.
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At the age of fifteen, Sammy was hurt by racism again. A girl invited him to her party, but
her parents made him leave because he was not white. Sammy recalled:
So I went home and when Papa saw me crying in the backyard, he asked,
“Why are you home so early?”
I shouted, “Papa, why was I born a Korean and not white?”
My father taught me a lesson I never forgot. He said, “Don’t feel sorry for yourself.
Feel lucky! You are born free to follow your dreams. You are an American, and
if you are not proud of the color of your skin and your Korean heritage, then
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| 15
how can your classmates respect you if you do not respect yourself? Show
the world by being the best — the best you can be — and how proud you are
of being an American of Korean ancestry!”
Soon Sammy won city championships. Inspired by a Korean marathoner who won gold at the
1936 Olympics in Berlin, Sammy practiced by jumping into a sand pit that he dug at his coach
Jim Ryan’s house. As a 5’2” junior, he was captain of the football team. Even though his high
school’s vice principal told him a non-white should not try to become student body president,
Sammy ran and won. He was also named outstanding athlete and co-valedictorian of his class.
But he could not attend even his own prom because the Pasadena Civic Auditorium would
not admit “colored” people.
The 1940 and 1944 Olympics were cancelled due to World War II. At Occidental College,
Sammy was the American Athletic Union (AAU) national champion in platform and threemeter springboard diving in 1942. His father told him, “You got to study as hard as you
dive. And you got to become a doctor.” Sammy replied, “I’ll do that. I’ll do both.” In 1943, his
father died and Sammy enrolled at University of Southern California’s (USC) medical school.
Decades later, Sammy said his greatest success was becoming a surgeon.
Sammy won the AAU platform again in 1946 as he joined the US Army to pay for his
doctorate. In 1947, he graduated as a doctor, lieutenant, and Olympian headed to England.
At Wembly Stadium for his final dive in 1948, Sammy chose his favorite, the forward 3½
somersault. From the tower, he had have two seconds to rotate his body 3½ times in the air.
He recalled the moment:
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The whistle blows and there is dead silence and all you can hear is the trickle of
the water from the ten-meter tower. Drip . . . drip. It sounds like a gong. And
that time is just like when you think you’re gonna die, your whole life goes by.
Wow, I’ve waited sixteen years for this moment, and now it’s here.
Sammy took a deep breath, soared through the air, and sliced through the water. One
of the seven judges gave him a perfect score of 10. On August 5, he edged out Bruce Harlan
and became the first Asian American man to win an Olympic gold medal. Earlier, Sammy
had counseled his teammate Victoria Manalo Draves. On August 3, she became the first
Asian American to win an Olympic gold medal, and on the 6th, she became the first
American woman to sweep the springboard and platform diving events.
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In 1950, Sammy married Rosalind Wong
and they would have two children,
Pamela and Sammy Jr. Then the Korean
War began. Now a major in the US
Army Medical Corps, Sammy asked
his commanding officer whether he
should train for the next Olympics.
General Leonard Heaton replied,
“Hey Sam, we have many physicians
who can repair and treat the wounded,
but we’ve only got one guy who can
win the Olympic gold medal.”
So, in 1952 in Helsinki, Finland, on
his thirty-second birthday, Sammy
became the first male diver to
successfully defend his Olympic title,
and the oldest to win a gold medal
in diving. The following year he became
the first Asian American to win the
James E. Sullivan Award as USA’s top
amateur athlete.
With the AAU’s 1953 James E. Sullivan Award.
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In 1954, Sammy toured Asia as US cultural ambassador on a goodwill tour, where he met
his father’s friend, the first president of South Korea, Syngman Rhee. Major Sammy Lee
departed from the Army in the following year. But he still was not allowed to buy a house
in Orange County, California. The real estate agent explained, “I’m sorry, Doctor, but I have
to eat, and I’d lose my job for selling to a non-white.”
After President Dwight Eisenhower invited Sammy to the White House, the story got
picked up by reporters such as Edward R. Morrow. In 1956, Sammy was praised by
Groucho Marx on his hit TV show You Bet Your Life. Joining an outpouring of support,
television host Ed Sullivan suggested, “You can buy the house right next door to me.”
Fortunately, Sammy had good neighbors. “When we moved to Southern California,
we probably saw Sammy and his family every other weekend,” said Draves’ son David.
“Sammy was a family friend for all my life.”
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| 17
Sammy became a prolific coach. Pupils included Pat McCormick (winner of four gold medals
in 1952 and 1956) and Bob Webster (the second man to win back-to-back Olympic platform
golds in 1960 and 1964). Sammy coached the US diving team in the 1960 Olympics, and
the Japanese and Korean teams in 1964. In the 1970s, he tutored Greg Louganis who earned
a silver medal on the tower in the 1976 Olympics and later won four golds. Sammy did not
charge his athletes for coaching because “my coaches never charged me.”
In 1968, Sammy was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame. In 1984, he
carried the torch and flag at the Olympics in Los Angeles. Six years afterward, he retired as
an ophthalmologist and entered the US Olympic Hall of Fame. Sammy was an honored guest
at London’s 2012 Olympics and the next year his name graced a new USC diving tower
and a Los Angeles public elementary school.
Sammy Lee died in 2016. His patients remembered him as a caring physician. Others
remembered him as a giant in the world of sports. At Sammy’s memorial, Webster reminisced:
Some people come into our lives, leave a footprint on our souls, and we’re
never the same. Sammy was that person for me. He took a so-so high school
diver under his wing and made an Olympic champion. He gave me the greatest
gift and that was to believe in myself.
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Louganis said, “At a time of intolerance, being Korean, he broke down racial barriers, setting
an example of what it meant to be an Olympian.”
SOURCES
“An Olympian’s Oral History.” Interview by Dr. Margaret Costa, 1999. LA84 Foundation. www.la84.org
Sammy Lee Memorial. www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gBZZVYNTWw
https://swimoregon.org/off-the-block-dr-sammy-lee-olympic-diver/
www.kcet.org/shows/lost-la/sammy-lee-a-life-that-shaped-the-currents-of-california-and-us-history
www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2016/12/05/504421352/sammy-lee-climbed-above-racism-dove-into-olympic-history
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yuri kochiyama
ACTIVIST
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Born: May 19, 1921
San Pedro, California
Died: June 1, 2014
Berkeley, California
“Knowledge of history can be used as a weapon to divide
us further or seek truth and learn from past errors and flagrant remisses.
Our ultimate objective in learning about anything is to try to create
and develop a more just society than we have seen.”
On February 21, 1965, Yuri Kochiyama and her oldest son Billy joined the crowd entering the Audubon
Ballroom in Washington Heights, New York City. Everyone had come to hear Malcolm X speak.
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| 19
Three decades earlier, in 1931, the African American association Nation of Islam (NOI) was
founded in Detroit, Michigan. Nearby in the city of Lansing, Malcolm Little was six years
old. White supremacists had burned his family’s house down two years before. Now they
murdered his father who was a Baptist minister. As an adult, Malcolm joined NOI in 1956
and adopted the last name of “X” to reject his “slave” surname. Soon he became NOI’s most
outspoken member, challenging the Civil Rights movement led by Reverend Martin Luther
King, Jr., who advocated integration through non-violent resistance. Instead, Malcolm X
argued that blacks should defend themselves “by any means necessary.”
In 1964, Malcolm X’s growing stature threatened NOI’s leader Elijah Muhammad who
expelled him. Malcolm then visited Mecca, founded a new organization, and stated that
African Americans’ greatest enemy was racism and not whites. Yet, at the Audubon, he knew
his life was in danger. His house in Queens had been firebombed a week earlier. On stage,
he began to address his followers. Then chaos erupted. Three NOI assassins shot him. A
photo published in Life magazine’s March 5 issue showed Malcom X as he laid dying while
Yuri Kochiyama gently cradled his head.
Yuri recalled later, “Malcolm X was the one person [who] changed my life more than
anyone else, because he gave me a different perspective of the struggle in America.”
The path to her “political awakening” had not been easy. She tackled the difficult road
ahead with a deep determination.
Immigrants from Japan, Yuri’s parents settled in seaside San Pedro, California. Her father
Seiichi Nakahara, who operated a fish market, and mother Tsuyako had a son Arthur in 1918.
Mary Yuriko and her twin brother Peter followed in 1921.
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Mary enjoyed her childhood. In high school, she became the first female to earn a varsity
sports letter and be vice president. A local newspaper sports reporter and Presbyterian Sunday
school teacher, she graduated in 1939 and attended Compton Junior College where she
majored in Journalism.
But in 1941, Mary’s world flipped upside down. On December 7, Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor
incited the US government to imprison Japanese Americans. That very morning, Mary, a
fresh college graduate, was home when agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
arrested her father, who had just returned from the hospital for diabetes treatment and ulcer
surgery. He was detained six weeks and denied medical care. The FBI released him without
charges and he died a day later.
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Then the United States interned Mary’s family. The Santa Anita racetrack was converted into
an “assembly center” where they were forced to live in horse stalls. Next, they were transferred
for two years to the swampland of Jerome, Arkansas. These traumas impacted Mary’s life
and her sympathy with African Americans enduring segregation. She recalled,
In each instance there were senseless degradation, brutality, and hatred
wrought by fear and ignorance caused by racism. So I remain passionately
committed to doing whatever I can and saying whatever I must to eliminate
racist assumptions and ideas.
In the concentration camp, Mary met her future husband Bill Kochiyama. A New Yorker,
he had been interned in Topaz, Arizona. He volunteered for the US Army’s 442nd Regimental
Combat Team. Stationed in nearby Mississippi, he accompanied pals to Jerome to visit their
relatives. After World War II ended, the couple married on February 9, 1946, and moved to
Manhattan where they would have four sons and two daughters. Constantly hosting open
houses and guests, their busy home was compared to Grand Central Station.
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In 1960, the couple relocated uptown
to Harlem, where Mary became active
in the local community and Civil Rights
movement. She joined the Harlem Parent
Committee to demand more streetlights
and better school education. She also
joined the Congress of Racial Equality
(CORE), an interracial group that organized
the Freedom Rides to confront segregation
in the American South.
Protesting for more minority construction
jobs, Mary, her eldest son Billy, and others
were arrested in Brooklyn, New York. On
October 16, 1963, Malcolm X encouraged
the group at their hearing in the courthouse.
Overcoming her self-consciousness, Mary
shook his hand and congratulated him for
giving direction to his people.
Yuri and Bill.
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| 21
Immediately, Mary wrote many letters to Malcolm X. Then on June 6, 1964, he visited the
Kochiyamas’ apartment to greet Japanese advocates of nuclear non-proliferation. Later, he
sent her eleven postcards from nine countries as he traveled worldwide. After Malcolm X’s
death, Mary remembered her friend “was very much like the North Star, the most brilliant
of all stars, which charts the course for all who follow.” Dutifully she attended the annual
pilgrimage to his gravesite until 1999, when she had a stroke and moved to California
to be closer to her family.
As black factions became more revolutionary after Malcolm X’s assassination, so did Mary.
In 1968, she was one of the few non-blacks who joined the Republic of New Africa (RNA) that
wanted to create a separate black nation in the southern United States. As an RNA “citizen,”
she discarded her western name “Mary.”
Called “Sister Yuri” by fellow radicals, Yuri provided their support network. Her clearinghouse
of information, phone numbers, and referrals was a database before personal computers and
the Internet. But the FBI’s counter intelligence program (COINTELPRO) targeted groups like
the militant Black Panther Party as domestic threats and covertly campaigned to “expose,
disrupt, misdirect, discredit, and otherwise neutralize” them. Soon dozens of Yuri’s contacts
nationwide were killed or behind bars.
For “political prisoners,” people who were jailed for anti-establishment political beliefs,
Yuri was the first person to call for help. At the intersection of the Black Power and Asian
American movements, she organized demonstrations for black liberation and marches against
the Vietnam War. She wrote thousands of letters at her kitchen table, which overflowed with
so much paper that her family had no space to eat.
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Yuri backed the independence of the territory of Puerto Rico, which chafed under both
Spanish and American colonialism. In 1954, four Puerto Rican nationalists shot and injured
five US congressmen. Demanding the Puerto Ricans’ release from prison, Yuri participated
with twenty-nine compatriots in 1977 to take over the Statue of Liberty for one day. Following
the publicity over the protestors’ arrests, President Jimmy Carter pardoned the remaining
nationalist prisoners in 1979.
Meanwhile, the Kochiyamas galvanized Japanese Americans to petition the US government
to redress their World War II internment and provide reparations for the injury caused.
In 1981, Yuri was the keynote speaker at the first Day of Remembrance to commemorate
22
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“she
liked To Talk aBouT The movemenTs
and The people, BuT To geT her To Talk
aBouT her role Was alWays very difficulT,
Because
yuri
is so oTher -focused
and so genuinely humBle.”
–diane fujino,
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professor of
asian american sTudies,
uc sanTa BarBara
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| 23
February 19, 1942, when President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. Eventually
in 1988, the US government passed the Civil Liberties Act, which offered a formal apology and
$20,000 each to the surviving internees.
Enduring the deaths of her son Billy (1975), daughter Aichi (1989), and husband Bill (1993),
Yuri persisted in speaking out at schools and wrote her memoir Passing It On in 2004.
Fellow activist Angela Davis praised her compatriot who “fashioned an extraordinary life
of commitment to peace, equality, and social justice. In this book, she passes on a legacy
of humility and resolve, vitality and resistance, and, perhaps most important of all, hope
for the future.”
Though criticized for controversial, and sometimes contradictory, stances for praising
foreign enemies, such as Mao Zedong and Ho Chi Minh, Yuri continued the struggle against
oppression. The 2010 documentary Mountains That Take Wing recorded Yuri’s conversations
with Davis in 1996 and 2008, as they shared their common struggles to change a dominant
status quo.
When Yuri died, Malcolm X’s oldest daughter Attallah Shabazz commented:
From the very moment I met Yuri Kochiyama in my childhood, it was apparent
why she and my Father found such kinship with one another. They were “soulsiblings,” sharing a spiritual and mission defined principle …. I was blessed to
have grown up with her as an Aunt and example of human tenacity.
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Yuri wrote, “The legacy I would like to leave is that people try to build bridges and not walls.”
SOURCES
Fujino, Diane C. Heartbeat of Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama. U of Minnesota P, 2005. Critical American Studies.
Saunders, Patricia, and Rea Tajiri, directors. Yuri Kochiyama. Women Make Movies, 1994. Videorecording.

The Source Remembers Yuri Kochiyama, Activist and Friend of Malcolm X

www.discovernikkei.org/en/nikkeialbum/albums/472/
www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-yuri-kochiyama-20140604-story.html
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daniel k. inouye
SOLDIER & STATESMAN
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Born: September 7, 1924
Honolulu, Hawai‘i
Died: December 17, 2012
Bethesda, Maryland
“So my fellow Americans, let us reject violence as a means of protest, and
let us reject those who preach violence. But let us not tempt those
who would hide the evil face of racism behind the mask of law and order.”
In 1972, Republican Richard Nixon was re-elected as US President. Earlier that year, burglars were caught
breaking into the Democratic National Committee’s office at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, DC.
Were the two events related? The Senate established the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign
Activities to investigate. One of the committee’s seven senators, Daniel Inouye, made his opening
statement as public hearings were broadcast live on television nationwide in the summer of 1973:
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| 25
At stake is the very integrity of the election process. Unless we can safeguard
that process from broad manipulation, deception, and other illegal or unethical
activities, one of the most precious rights — the right to vote — will be left
without meaning. Democracy will have been subverted.
Protecting America was personal to Inouye. His grandparents emigrated to the territory of
Hawai‘i to labor on sugar plantations. Born in Honolulu, Inouye wanted to become a surgeon.
He was a high school Red Cross volunteer in 1941, when Japan bombed nearby Pearl Harbor,
which catapulted America into World War II. In its mania to contain “enemy aliens,” the United
States discharged Japanese Americans from the military and President Franklin Roosevelt
authorized the internment of 110,000 Japanese on the mainland.
In 1943, to counter claims of racism, the US Army asked 4,000 Japanese Americans to volunteer.
A pre-med freshman at the University of Hawai‘i, Inouye enlisted. His father responded:
“[America] has been good to us. And now … it is you who must try to return the
goodness of this country …. You are my first son and you are very precious to
your mother and to me, but you must do what must be done. If it is necessary,
you must be ready to . . . to . . . . ” Unable to give voice to the dread words,
his voice trailed off.
“I know, Papa, I understand.”
“Do not bring dishonor on our name,” he whispered urgently.
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The 442nd Regimental Combat Team was a segregated group of Nisei (American born
Japanese) with white officers. The 442nd’s motto was “Go for Broke” and it became the most
decorated unit of its size and length of service in American history. However, the price was
high: its casualty rate was more than 90%. On April 21, 1945, Lieutenant Inouye led an attack
near San Terenzo, Italy and destroyed three German machine gun nests with his Thompson
submachine gun and hand grenades. He was wounded three times and his right arm was
amputated without anesthesia. On May 9, the Nazis surrendered and the war in Europe
was over.
Awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart medals, Captain Inouye recuperated for two
years at the Percy Jones Army Hospital in Battle Creek, Michigan. Inouye befriended another
seriously injured soldier, Bob Dole, who shared how he planned to go home to Kansas,
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run for office, and make it to Congress.
Finally on his way home, Inouye
traveled through Oakland, California.
There, a barber refused to give him a
haircut, claiming, “We don’t cut Jap
hair.” Inouye recalled, “I was so
tempted to strike him. But then I
thought if I had done that, all the work
that we had done would be for nil.”
Back in Hawai‘i, Inouye married
Margaret Awamura in 1949. He
graduated from college a year later.
His dream of becoming a doctor
was dashed, so he earned a law degree
in 1952, and became a Democratic
With Bob Dole at Percy Jones Army Hospital.
representative and then a senator in
the Territorial Congress. “The time had come for us to step forward,” Inouye said of his
fellow veterans who became politically active. “We had fought for that right with all the
furious patriotism in our bodies and now we didn’t want to go back to the plantation ….
We wanted to take our full place in society.”
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In 1959, Hawai‘i became America’s fiftieth state and Inouye became the first Japanese
American congressman and then senator in 1962. Two years later, he and his wife had a son
Daniel Ken Junior. Dole remembered, “Shortly after taking office, he called me and said, ‘Bob
I’m here. Where are you?’” The Republican Dole entered the House of Representatives in
1960 and joined the Senate in 1968.
1n 1967, Inouye published his autobiography Journey to Washington. A year later in
Chicago, he became the first person of color to give a keynote address at the Democratic
National Convention. President Lyndon Johnson advised the Democratic presidential
nominee, Vice President Hubert Humphrey (both of whom wrote forewords for Inouye’s
book) to pick Inouye as his running mate. Johnson thought Inouye’s experience would
counter mounting public criticism of the Democratic Party’s handling of the Vietnam War,
“He answers Vietnam with that empty sleeve. He answers your problems with Nixon with
that empty sleeve.” Humphrey demurred and lost the election.
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| 27
In the 1973 Watergate hearings, Inouye became known for his cross-examinations of
witnesses. The lawyer for Nixon’s former domestic affairs adviser and Chief of Staff sneered,
“What I mind is that little Jap.” Colleagues and constituents rushed to Inouye’s defense.
The next day, Chairman Sam Ervin, Democratic Senator from North Carolina, declared:
I do not know a finer American. He showed his devotion to our country by
fighting under its flag, not only for the liberty of our country, but for the liberty
of the free world in the Second World War …. And he has proved himself in the
latter days as one of the most dedicated Americans this country has ever known.
When reporters discovered that Nixon had authorized the burglary
and tried to cover it up, Nixon resigned on August 8, 1974, rather
than face impeachment.
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Inouye chaired another Senate Select Committee in 1987,
this time investigating the Iran-Contra scandal. President
Ronald Reagan’s administration illegally sold weapons
to Iran to fund the Contras’ guerilla rebellion against
Nicaragua’s communist government. The White
House denied this and then tried to cover up
its involvement, as participants withheld
evidence and lied to Congress.
Inouye stated,
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Vigilance abroad does not require us to abandon our ideals or the rule of
law at home. On the contrary, without our principles and without our ideals,
we have little that is special or worthy to defend.
In 2000, President Bill Clinton awarded the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military
award, to Inouye and twenty-one other Asian Americans for their service in World War II.
Clinton said, “Rarely has a nation been so well-served by a people it has so ill-treated.”
In 2006, Inouye’s wife Margaret died and two years later, he married Irene Hirano. In 2010,
Inouye became the Senate’s most senior member and president pro tempore, the highestranking Asian American politician in US history. President Barack Obama awarded the
Congressional Gold Medal to him and other veterans of the 442nd.
Inouye died in 2012, ending a fifty-year career in the US Senate. Visiting Inouye’s casket, which
laid in state at the US Capitol Rotunda, Dole stood up from his wheelchair to salute his friend.
Giving the eulogy at Inouye’s funeral, President Obama recalled when he was eleven years old
and watched the Watergate hearings:
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Now, here I was, a young boy with a white mom,
a black father, raised in Indonesia and Hawai‘i.
And I was beginning to sense how fitting into
the world might not be as simple as it might
seem. And so to see this man, this senator,
this powerful, accomplished person who
wasn’t out of central casting when it came
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| 29
to what you’d think a senator might look like at the time, and the way he
commanded the respect of an entire nation, I think it hinted to me what might
be possible in my own life.
This was a man who as a teenager stepped up to serve his country even after his
fellow Japanese Americans were declared enemy aliens; a man who believed
in America even when its government didn’t necessarily believe in him. That
meant something to me. It gave me a powerful sense — one that I couldn’t put
into words — a powerful sense of hope.
A year later, President Obama posthumously awarded Inouye the Presidential Medal
of Freedom.
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Hawai‘i would remember their most reliable congressional booster. Never losing an election,
Inouye steered a steady supply of federal funding to the isles: “I’m not embarrassed or
ashamed by what they call earmarks.” Dutifully, Hawai‘i renamed a highway, a solar telescope
on Maui, and the Honolulu airport after him. In 2019, the US Navy followed suit, as his widow
christened a new destroyer in honor of her husband, a stalwart defender of his country.
SOURCES
Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Inouye commemorative ed., 21 Dec. 2012.
http://cgm.smithsonianapa.org/stories/dan-inouye.html
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov
www.nps.gov/articles/inouyeww2.htm
www.nytimes.com/1973/08/02/archives/haldemans-lawyer-terms-inouye-that-little-jap.html
www.pbs.org/thewar/detail_5281.htm
www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/investigations/Watergate.htm
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vicToria
manalo draves
DIVER
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Born: December 31, 1924
San Francisco, California
Died: April 11, 2010
Palm Springs, California
“You never know what a wonderful experience it is to concentrate on something, to set
your goals and to work hard for them and then to eventually attain the ultimate ….The discipline
that you learn for yourself, believing in yourself, and meeting other fine people …. ”
In 1948, countries were rebuilding from World War II and London hosted the Olympics. The first
since 1936, these summer games did not invite Japan and Germany. But it was Victoria Manalo Draves’
first international competition. Standing 5’1”, this 23-year-old became the first American woman diver
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| 31
“[vicki]
had a Winning spiriT,
she had The skills, she had
The consisTency, and
she Was one heck
of a compeTiTor.”
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– paTricia mccormick,
four -Time olympic
gold medalisT
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to win gold medals in two events simultaneously. She was the first Asian American to win a
medal (three-meter springboard), just two days before her friend Sammy Lee would win gold
in ten-meter platform, and the first Filipino/a to win a gold medal.
However, these breakthroughs were not easily gained. People often judge others by their
appearance, not their character. Vicki grew up facing discrimination and limited opportunities.
Her father Teofilo Manalo was from Orion, Bataan, on the Philippines’ largest island. Her
English mother Gertrude Taylor came to San Francisco, California after her younger sister
married a Filipino.
When Teofilo and Gertrude wed, California already had prohibited whites from marrying
blacks or “Mongols” (Asians). Afterward, in 1932, the state legislature added “members of the
Malay race” (Filipinos) as off limits. Gertrude worked as a maid. A cook and musician, Teofilo
served an army colonel at the Presidio military base. The couple had a daughter Frances, a son
Sonny who died as an infant, and then fraternal twin girls, Consuelo and Victoria.
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As a child, Vicki wanted to learn ballet, but her family was poor. Overcoming her fear of the
water, she started swimming when she was nine, paying a nickel to enter the Mission District’s
baths. Later she would take the trolley to the beach’s saltwater Fleishhacker Pool (once
America’s largest pool), where a lifeguard told her about the posh Fairmont Hotel on Nob Hill.
The hotel’s Swimming and Diving Club hosted the waterworld greats of the time, like national
diving champion Helen Crlenkovich, coached by Phil Patterson.
“I didn’t start diving until I was sixteen,” reflected Vicki. She wanted to improve and inquired
at the Fairmont about practicing. However, Patterson told Gertrude her daughter could swim
only if Vicki hid her Filipino roots and used her mother’s maiden name, Taylor. In hindsight,
Vicki concluded: “Instead of including me in the club, which everyone else belonged to, he
formed a ‘special’ club just for me — the Patterson School of Swimming and Diving. I think
he was a prejudiced man. It wasn’t special for me. It was his way of separating me from
the others.”
Vicki then trained at North Beach’s Crystal Bath Plunge, under the guidance of Charlie Sava
and Jimmy McHugh. She graduated from high school but withdrew from San Francisco State
Junior College when World War II began. Embarking on the amateur diving circuit in 1944,
Vicki left her hometown for the first time. In Shakamak State Park, Indiana, she won third
place in an AAU contest.
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| 33
Then Vicki commuted across the bay to Oakland’s Athens Athletic Club to train under
Lyle Draves. He coached Zoe Ann Olsen who became the youngest three-meter springboard
national champion, and would win a record thirteen AAU springboard diving titles. The Iowa
native taught Vicki platform diving. In the oral history Tales of Gold, Vicki recalled:
All this time, I had been diving on just sheer guts and whatever natural ability
I had. Nobody had explained to me how to walk on the board, where to place
my arms, how to lift up into a dive and the reasons behind all this. Lyle started
me over completely, making me begin with very simple dives. I just wish
I had had his coaching from the beginning. I think I would have been a far
different diver.
Working as a secretary for the Army Port Surgeon’s office, Vicki met fellow diver Sammy Lee.
They would swim at the oceanfront Sutro baths (once the world’s largest indoor swimming
facility). In the meantime, she recounted, “I was not aware that [Lyle] had entered me in some
competitions, but I was not able to dive because of racial prejudice.” For example, after the
war ended, the Fairmont Hotel admitted Lyle’s other athletes to its meet but would not
allow Vicki to enter.
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After Teofilo’s death, Vicki joined
Lyle in Southern California. They
married in 1946 and Sammy
gave Vicki away at the wedding.
Immediately, Lyle guided Vicki
to three straight national
championships on platform and
the 1948 springboard title. Next,
she contended at the Olympic trials
in Detroit, Michigan. There she won
the platform and came in second
on springboard (Olson took first
and Patty Eisener third). Soon she
set sail with the Olympic team
while Lyle paid his own passage
to meet her in England.
Vicki and Lyle.
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In London, Vicki insisted that the Olympics announcer introduce her as “Victoria Manalo
Draves.” At Wembley Stadium’s indoor pool, contestants had eight dives on the springboard.
On August 3, before her last attempt, she trailed Olsen in the standings. Shaking nervously,
she confided her fear of failure to Sammy, who gave her a pep talk. Then she nailed her back
1½ layout. The American women swept the three-meter competition (Olson silver, Eisener
bronze). Three days later, after six dives from the platform, Vicki won that contest too (Eisener
earned silver). Afterward, Vicki enjoyed a dinner with her mother’s siblings.
Life magazine named Vicki a top 1948 US Olympian, along with seventeen-year-old Bob
Mathias, the gold medal decathlete. Calling her the “Olympics’ prettiest champion,” Life
gushed, “Had there been a beauty contest at last year’s Olympic Games, the raven-haired
girl shown here would have won it….”
Turning professional, Vicki toured the United States and Europe in aquacades (water shows)
with Lyle and other famous swimmers such as Buster Crabbe (two-time Olympic medalist;
1936 Flash Gordon actor), Johnny Weissmuller (five-time Olympic gold medalist; 1932 Tarzan
actor), and Esther Williams (three-time AAU swimming champion; actress). Hollywood came
calling, too, but Vicki turned down stereotypical film roles as a pretty South Seas native.
A highlight of her travels was diving for the Philippines President Elpidio Querino at the
Malacañang Palace. Vicki recognized how sports had opened doors for her:
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Fortunately, through my diving, I was able to meet all my relatives on both
my mom’s and dad’s side. In 1949, I was invited to the Philippines, and I spent
a wonderful month there. I was not from a family of means, but fortunately
athletic clubs sponsored me, and that gave me a chance. I just can’t express
how much diving did for me.
Later, the couple settled down in Southern California and taught their four sons (David, Jeffery,
Dale, and Kim) the sport. Their aquatics program trained Pat McCormick, Paula Jean Myers,
and Sue Gossick, who helped the US diving team medal at every Olympics from 1948 to 1972.
In 1969, Vicki was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame.
In October of 2006, San Francisco named a two-acre park after Vicki. “I thought after all
these years they would have forgotten about me,” Vicki said. “I am so overwhelmed that my
accomplishments from so long ago are still remembered.”
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| 35
Vicki once played as a child in the park, known then as Columbia Square. It held sad memories
for local Filipinos. In 1521, explorer Ferdinand Magellan claimed the Philippines as a colony
for Spain. To end the Spanish American War in 1898, Spain sold the Philippines to the United
States for $20 million. But Filipinos continued their fight for independence. The 1899 Philippine
American War caused more than 200,000 Filipino deaths in three years and the US Army
displayed spoils from looted churches at the square.
Since then, Filipinos have become the largest Asian ethnic population in California, and the
second largest in America. As park supporters battled with developers to defend the plot,
nearby Bessie Carmichael Elementary school (named after Vicki’s elementary school principal)
was rebuilt. It provided San Francisco’s only Filipino bilingual program and enrolled the highest
percentage of Filipino students in the city.
Long retired, an older Vicki recounted her love of diving, “That’s when you feel like you’re
flying.” Even though she felt the sting of racism, she still had a “patriotic feeling, doing
something for your country” when she competed.
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This real life aquawoman is a model for anyone fighting upstream. Her park plaque aptly
states that Vicki Manalo Draves was “an inspiration for all athletes.” In practice, she dove
one hundred times a day. Her name left little to chance. Manalo means triumph in the Filipino
dialect Tagalog, and Victoria is the Roman Goddess of Victory.
SOURCES
“An Olympian’s Oral History.” Interview by Dr. Margaret Costa, 1999. LA84 Foundation. www.la84.org
Victoria Manalo Draves Interview. www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMOtX_UCcRs
www.nytimes.com/2010/04/30/sports/olympics/30draves.html
www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/SOUTH-OF-MARKET-City-to-name-park-after-1948-2631043.php
www.sfgate.com/sports/article/VICKI-DRAVES-Pioneer-Olympian-made-quite-a-2868925.php
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Bruce lee
Martial Artist & Actor
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Born: November 27, 1940
San Francisco, California
Died: July 20, 1973
Kowloon, Hong Kong
“True mastery transcends any particular art. It stems from mastery of oneself —
the ability, developed through self-discipline, to be calm, fully aware, and completely in tune
with oneself and the surroundings. Then, and only then, can a person know himself.”
A 1973 movie The Game of Death presaged video games: 5’7” Billy Lo, clad in a yellow tracksuit, fights
his way up a pagoda to steal a treasure. But to reach this prize, he must defeat bosses of increasing
difficulty. The “5th Floor Guardian” is the 7’2” giant “Mantis,” played by the 1971 Most Valuable Player
(MVP) in the National Basketball Association (NBA), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
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| 37
The film’s star was its creator who constantly battled prejudice. Shockingly, he died before
completing the story, right when he was to become the most famous martial artist ever.
When the man is even bigger than the myth, that is Bruce Lee.
In 1939, the Cantonese Opera Company invited Lee Hoi-Chuen, a renowned Hong Kong
actor, on their American tour. His wife Grace (from a wealthy family and whose mother was
English) accompanied as wardrobe manager. The next year, Lee Jun Fan, the fourth of their
five children, was born in San Francisco’s Chinese Hospital. A nurse suggested his English
name — “Bruce.” According to the Chinese zodiac, he was born in the auspicious year of the
golden dragon (and in the dragon’s morning hour). At three months old, he was cast in his
first film, Golden Gate Girl.
The family returned to Kowloon, Hong Kong, and to a continent at war. After bombing
Pearl Harbor, Japan invaded its Asian neighbors. When World War II ended, the Lees
continued their cinematic careers. Nicknamed “Little Dragon,” Bruce appeared in twenty
movies by the age of twenty.
As a teen, Bruce was indifferent at school and prone to street fighting. He sought discipline
in combat from Ip Man, a Wing Chun master. The student grappled with how to relax while
facing an opponent. Taking a boat ride to meditate, Bruce hit the water in frustration. He
then realized water symbolized the essence of kung fu (“time spent at hard training”):
I struck it just now, but it did not suffer hurt. Again I stabbed it with all my
might, yet it was not wounded. I then tried to grasp a handful of it but it
was impossible. This water, the softest substance in the world, could fit itself
into any container. Although it seemed weak, it could penetrate the hardest
substance in the world. That was it! I wanted to be like the nature of water.
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Putting his skills into practice, in 1958, Bruce won championships in high school boxing
and Hong Kong’s cha-cha dance contest. However, rivals still denigrated his mixed heritage.
In 1959, to avoid further trouble, the parents sent their handsome son on a steamship to
San Francisco.
Traveling to Seattle, Washington, Bruce became a restaurant waiter for his father’s friend Ruby
Chow. After earning his high school diploma, he enrolled in the University of Washington and
majored in Philosophy. Dissatisfied with the local martial arts schools, he started his own in
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1963, the Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute, in a parking garage. A new student Linda Emery became
his girlfriend, and he published Chinese Gung Fu: The Philosophical Art of Self-Defense.
In 1964, Bruce dropped out of the University of Washington (with a C – average) to start
a second school in Oakland, California. This angered local Chinese kung fu teachers who
demanded he stop teaching Westerners. However, he overcame their opposition. Soon
his “one-inch punch” and two-finger push-ups at the Long Beach International Karate
Championships got him noticed by a Hollywood scout. Meanwhile, he married Linda and
they had a son Brandon in 1965.
The following year Bruce made it on American television. Playing Kato, the sidekick chauffeur
of the crime-fighter Green Hornet, Bruce showcased just a fraction of his expertise. He moved
so fast that “even when I slowed down, all the camera showed was a blur.” As guests on
Batman, the two battled the Dynamic Duo to a draw. Though only lasting one season, the
program became known as The Kato Show in Hong Kong.
Copyright © 2020. Immedium. All rights reserved.
In Los Angeles, Bruce started a third school in 1967. He taught actors Steve McQueen and
James Coburn, and UCLA basketball center Lew Alcindor (who later changed his name to
Kareem). Hoping to spar with boxer Muhammad Ali,
Bruce formulated his own blend of martial arts,
Jeet Kune Do (“The Way of the Intercepting
Fist”). He said it was not a new style; but
it freely allowed one to use any means
to beat a foe quickly and efficiently. His
school’s logo of the Tao (yin and yang)
read, “using no way as way; having no
limitation as limitation.” Some called this
the beginning of mixed martial arts.
In 1969, daughter Shannon was born
and Bruce hurt his back while weightlifting.
Doctors predicted he would never exercise again.
Bruce spent the next year writing and rehabilitating. In
1971, he played the martial arts instructor in the television
detective show, Longstreet. Displaying the casual racism that
Bruce struggled against, the New York Times wrote:
Chapter 7 · Bruce Lee
Amara, Phil, and Oliver Chin. Awesome Asian Americans : 20 Stars who made America amazing, Immedium, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/sfsu/detail.action?docID=6216984.
Created from sfsu on 2021-06-06 03:23:15.
| 39
“in
every indusTry, in every profession,
america is
made america
ideas are WhaT
ideas
have
looking for.
WhaT she is,
and one good idea Will make a man
WhaT he WanTs To Be.”
Copyright © 2020. Immedium. All rights reserved.
–Bruce lee
40
| awesome asian americans
Amara, Phil, and Oliver Chin. Awesome Asian Americans : 20 Stars who made America amazing, Immedium, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/sfsu/detail.action?docID=6216984.
Created from sfsu on 2021-06-06 03:23:15.
Quiz#2
Directions: Answer the following question based solely on Oliver Chin’s “Awesome
Asian Americans: 20 Stars Who Made America Amazing.” This is also a scaffolding
exercise for the APIA Midterm project to prepare you for pulling out interesting facts
that could be interesting to you or another student. Upload as either a MS Word or
PDF file.
Select 5 biographies from Chin’s book and address the following:
1. Type out of the name of the biography you selected.
2. In 1-2 sentences: In your own words pick one thing/event they did or happened to
them as a kid/youth that impacted them.
3. Include the page number of that event after the sentences.
Grading Rubric:
1% – Biography Name and 1-2 sentences on event
-0.5% – for each missing page number
Reference：
⚫ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4fHq9vkYk8
⚫
You also can read the PDF files of Awesome Asian Americans: 20 Stars Who Made
American Amazing. I will upload to the chat box.