Although the Gold Rush triggered the first great wave of Asian immigrants to the United States in the 1840s, their presence in America predates the country itself. For example, in 1763, facing a life of hard labor and imprisonment during the Spanish galleon trade, a group of Filipinos jumped from the ship near New Orleans and established the colony of Saint-Malo, forming the one of the earliest documented Asian-American communities in North America.
While Americans with ancestral ties to Asia have made countless significant contributions throughout the country’s history, most have never made it into textbooks. From atomic science to labor rights to YouTube, here are a few examples of some of the major breakthroughs made by Asian Americans.
Atomic science
Professor Chien-Shiung Wu (right), pictured with associates Dr YK Lee and LW Mo, conducting experiments, March 21, 1963.
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In the 1940s and 1950s, Chinese physicist Chien-Shiung Wu, Ph.D., was instrumental in the developing field of atomic science. This included the Manhattan Project: the code name for atomic weapons research during World War II. Specifically, it improved the existing technology for the detection of radiation and the enrichment of uranium in large quantities.
After the war, Wu’s research focused on beta decay, which occurs when the core of one element transforms into another element. In 1956, theoretical physicists Tsung Dao Lee, Ph.D. and Chen Ning Yang, Ph.D. asked Wu to design an experiment that would prove their theory on beta decay. Wu did just that, but did not receive the 1957 Nobel Prize with Lee and Yang – one of the many examples of his neglected work. One of the earliest advocates for women in STEM, Wu spoke at a symposium at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1964, telling the audience, “I wonder if the tiny atoms and nuclei, or the mathematical symbols, or the DNA molecules have a preference for male or female processing. ”
Rights of agricultural workers
Julio Hernandez, UFW officer (left) and Larry Itliong, UFW director (center) pictured with Cesar Chavez (right) during his Huelga Day March in San Francisco, 1966.
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Born in the Philippines, Larry Itliong immigrated to the United States in 1929 at the age of 15 and immediately began working as a laborer on the American West Coast, as well as in Alaska. In 1930 he joined the striking lettuce pickers in Washington, and spent the following decades working as a union organizer and eventually as a union leader, including forming the Philippino Farm Labor Union in 1956.
In 1965 Itliong and some of his union colleagues organized the Delano Grape Strike: a strike of 1,500 Filipino grape pickers demanding higher wages and improved working conditions. As the movement gathered momentum, Delores Huerta and Cesar Chavez of the National Association of Agricultural Workers joined Itliong and the Philippine Agricultural Workers Union. Eventually, the two groups came together to form the United Farm Workers, and the strike ended in 1970 – but not before making great strides for farm workers, regardless of ethnicity.
“We got salary increases, a medical plan for farm workers, we set up five clinics, a daycare and a school,” Huerta said in an interview.
Civil rights
Although her activism was influenced by the two years she spent in internment camps during World War II, the civil rights work of Japanese American Yuri Kochiyama has extended to causes that have an impact on black, Latin American and Indigenous peoples, as well as communities of Asian origin. After World War II, Kochiyama and her husband – whom she had met at the Jerome Relocation Center in Arkansas – moved to New York City, where they held weekly open houses for civil rights activists in their apartment. “Our house felt like it was the 24/7 movement,” her eldest daughter, Audee Kochiyama-Holman told NPR in a 2014 interview.
Kochiyama befriended and collaborated with Malcolm X in the 1960s, and continued to work with black civil rights activists after his death. Then, in the 1980s, she, along with her husband, campaigned for official government reparations and apologies for Japanese Americans interned during World War II. Their work became a reality in 1988, when President Ronald Reagan enacted the Civil Liberties Act.
“She was not your typical Japanese-American person, especially a nisei [second-generation Japanese-American], “Tim Toyama, Kochiyama’s second cousin, told NPR.” She was definitely ahead of her time, and we caught up with her. “
WATCH: How Japanese Americans were forced into concentration camps during WWII
Psychology of ethnic minorities
Two Chinese-American brothers from Portland, Oregon, Derald W. Sue and Stanley Sue, were influential figures in ethnic minority psychology. “Ethnic Minority Psychology is a subfield of psychology that is concerned with the science and practice of psychology with racial and ethnic minority individuals and groups,” says Sumie Okazaki, Ph.D., professor of applied psychology at New York University and author of the book Korean-American Families in Immigrant America: How Teens and Parents Navigate the Race.
In 1972, the Sue brothers founded the Asian American Psychological Association – a year after they wrote a seminal article on the Chinese-American personality. “Derald W. Sue is best known for his work on multicultural counseling and racial microaggression, and Stanley Sue is best known for his work on cultural competence in psychotherapy with Asian Americans and ethnic minorities,” Okazaki explains.
USB
Ajay Bhatt, chief architect of Intel I / O, co-inventor of USB and PCI Express, pictured at Intel in Hillsboro, Oregon June 25, 2009.
Anthony Pidgeon / Redferns / Getty Images
Although Indian-American computer architect Ajay Bhatt has contributed to the development of a range of computer technologies, the one for which he is best known is the universal serial bus, better known as USB. After emerging on the tech scene in the late 1990s, USB has become one of the most popular ways to transfer data from one device to another. The invention elevated Bhatt to stardom in the computer world.
“I was totally amazed at the impact this had on everyone,” Bhatt told CNN in a 2013 interview. “I mean, my name has become a common name – at least in schools and technical communities. I really get rock star treatment and it’s pretty unusual for me – people asking for your signature, people asking for your picture. “
Youtube
Steve Chen, co-founder of YouTube, Inc., poses for a photo at the Asian Leadership Conference in Seoul, South Korea, March 27, 2013.
SeongJoon Cho / Bloomberg via Getty Images
Two widely publicized but very different events of 2004 – Janet Jackson’s ‘wardrobe malfunction’ at the Super Bowl and the deadly tsunami that ravaged parts of Asia – gave Jawed Karim the idea of a video sharing site. Along with Karim, an American of Bangladeshi and German descent, the main YouTube team included Taiwanese American Steven Chen, as well as Chad Hurley, from Pennsylvania. What started out as a way to watch and share funny cat videos has grown into a much larger platform that captures the attention of billions of people every day.
Functional cure for HIV positive infants
Throughout her 30-year career, Filipino physician and pediatric immunologist Katherine Luzuriaga, MD, has made significant contributions to our understanding of persistent viral infections in children. In addition to developing one of the early diagnostic tests for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection in children, Luzuriaga has also conducted clinical research on antiretroviral therapy (ART) for use in children. children.
In 2014, Luzuriaga and her colleague Deborah Persaud, MD, were responsible for the first well-documented case of an HIV-infected child functionally cured of the infection (meaning the toddler only showed no signs of disease or detectable levels of virus (i.e., no detectable levels of virus and no signs of disease, even without antiretroviral therapy).
“Despite the fact that research has given us the tools to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV, unfortunately many infants are still born infected. With this case, it looks like we may not only have a positive result for the particular child, but also a promising lead for further research aimed at curing other children, ”said NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci. , MD in a 2014 press release from the National Institutes of Health.
Rights of survivors of assault
Amanda Nguyen, CEO and Founder of Rise Up, Inc., speaks at the Makers Conference 2019 in Dana Point, California.
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In 2013, Amanda Nguyen, a student at Harvard University, daughter of Vietnamese refugees, attempted to access information about her rights as a survivor of sexual assault, and found it almost impossible. So when she realized that there was no national legislation establishing consistent rules, rights and protections for those who had experienced sexual violence, she drafted it herself.
The Sexual Assault Survivors’ Rights Act 2016 provides survivors with certain safeguards, including the right to a free rape kit procedure, as well as the obligation to keep the kits for 20 years. Nguyen was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2019, and is the founder and CEO of Rise, a multi-sector coalition that advocates for the rights of survivors and helps people draft and pass their own bills.
