Alameda Celebrates Asian Pacific American Heritage Month
Mindy Kaling
Indian American actor, writer, producer, and director. She currently produces and stars in “The Mindy Project,” but is also known for her work on “The Office” as a producer, writer and actor, and as the voice for Sadness in Inside Out. She has written two memoirs, her most recent Why Not Me? came out as #1 on the New York Times’ best seller list. In 2012, Mindy was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world.
Dwayne Johnson
Samoan and African American Film Actor and former professional wrestler. Born in Hayward, California in 1972. Famous for his roles in movies including Moana, Jumanji, and the Fast and Furious movie series, Dwayne was the second highest paid actor in Hollywood in 2017.
Lea Salonga
Filipino American Actress and Singer best known for her performance as Eponine in Les Miserables on Broadway and as Mulan and Jasmine in the Disney movies Mulan and Aladdin. Lea won a Tony for Best Actress in a Musical for her starring role in Ms. Saigon on Broadway in 1991.
Gene Luen Yang
Chinese American comic book writer of Avatar the Last Airbender, American Born Chinese, and Boxers and Saints. Born in the Bay Area, his career began when he self-published his own comics while he taught high school computer science in Oakland. Gene earned a MacArthur Genius award in 2016 for “confirming comics’ place as an important creative and imaginative force within literature, art and education.”
Chloe Kim
Korean American gold medalist in the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Snowboard Halfpipe. At 17 year old, Chloe was the first female snowboarder to land back-to-back 1080s (three spins in the air, then another 3 spins on the opposite side). California native, she is also the only athlete in X Games history to earn three gold medals before the age of 16.
Eugene Huu-Chau "Gene" Trinh
Vietnamese American biochemist who flew aboard NASA Space Shuttle mission STS-50 in 1992, becoming the first Vietnamese American astronaut in space. After earning a Ph.D. in applied physics at Yale he began his career as a senior research scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at NASA. As an astronaut, he spent 13 days, 19 hours and 30 minutes in space.
Fred Korematsu
Japanese American civil rights activist who objected to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Fred was born in Oakland and attended Castlemont High School. In 1942, at the age of 23 he refused to go to the government’s internment camps. He appealed his case all the way to the Supreme Court, who ruled against him in 1944. His case was reopened and his conviction cleared in 1983. Fred received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1997. In 2010, California passed the Fred Korematsu Day bill, making January 30 the first day in the U.S. named after an Asian American.
Patsy Mink
Japanese American born in Hawaii in 1927, Patsy was the first woman of color elected to Congress. Patsy was the first Japanese American women to practice law in Hawaii. She began her political career serving on the Hawaii senate in 1956. Without support from the Democratic Party leadership, she ran a grass roots campaign in 1964, and was elected to the U.S. House. She served for 12 years until 1976. She was elected again from 1990 until her death in 2002. She is recognized as a key figure in passing Title IX legislation that brought academic and athletic equity to American educational institutions.
