May is Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month

May is Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month in the United States. 

May was chosen to commemorate the immigration of the first Japanese to America on May 7, 1843, and to mark the anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869. The majority of the workers who laid the tracks were Chinese immigrants.

The first Asian American and Chinese-American to be elected to the US Senate was Hiram Leong Fong from the state of Hawaii. He served from 1959 to 1977.

Charlie Chan is a fictional character created by Earl Derr Biggers. In the year 1919 while visiting Hawaii Biggers planned a detective story to be called The House Without a Key. He was inspired to add a Chinese American police officer to the plot after reading in the newspaper about Chang Apana and Lee Fook, two detectives in the Honolulu police force. Biggers particularly disliked the "yellow peril" stereotypes he found common in California, explicitly conceiving the Charlie Chan character as an alternative.

Anna May Wong is considered to be the first Chinese American movie star and the first Asian American actress to gain international recognition. Born Wong Liu Tsong in 1905 in Los Angeles, California Wong’s long and varied career spanned silent film sound film television radio and stage theater.

Clare Elizabeth Chan Lee was the first Chinese American woman to register to vote in the United States. She registered to vote on November 8, 1911 in California following the passage of Proposition 4 in California – nine years before the passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. She was married to Dr. Charles Goodall Lee, the first Chinese American dentist in U.S. history.

Taylor Gun-Jin Wang is a Chinese born American scientist. Wong has the distinction of being the first person of Chinese ancestry to voyage in to space. He was a payload specialist on the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1985.

Yung Wing was the first Chinese student to graduate from an American university. He graduated from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut in 1854. Yung Wing was naturalized as an American citizen on October 30, 1852. At Yale’s commencement in 1876, he received an honorary Doctor of Laws. 

Learn more on the web at http://asianpacificheritage.gov