May 2, 2023
By Zahara Chowdhury
Staff Writer
Yesterday marked the beginning of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, which commemorates Asian Americans’ achievements in the United States. In honor of this month, here are five impactful Asian figures:
1. Born in India, Kalpana Chawla (1962-2003) developed an early interest in aviation. Despite receiving backlash from her professors, she pursued aeronautical engineering and immigrated to the United States for higher education. She was chosen as a NASA astronaut candidate in 1994 and completed her first space mission on Nov. 19, 1997, becoming the first South Asian woman in space. On Jan. 16, 2003, Chawla began a 16-day mission on Space Shuttle Columbia, which disintegrated during re-entry on Feb. 1, 2003, killing her and her six other crewmembers.
2. Vietnamese poet Ocean Vuong (1988-present) was raised in Connecticut, receiving his bachelor’s degree in 19th-century American literature from Brooklyn College and master’s degree in poetry from New York University. He has authored a novel and several poetry collections, including “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” and “Time is a Mother.” Vuong often explores desire and loss in his poetry, with much of it relating to queer identity and the immigrant experience.
3. Dedicating her life to social justice, Japanese activist Yuri Kochiyama (1921-2014) was born and raised in California. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, her hospitalized father was detained and died shortly after, and the Kochiyama family was sent to Rohwer incarceration camp in Arkansas, where they stayed for two years. These experiences familiarized her with governmental abuse and incentivized her to fight for human rights. Kochiyama also befriended civil rights leader Malcolm X, leading her to join the Organization for Afro-American Unity to work toward racial justice.
4. In Iranian author Marjane Satrapi’s (1969-present) debut graphic memoir “Persepolis,” she recounts her childhood during Iran’s Islamic Revolution of 1979. Born and raised in Iran, her parents sent her to Austria to attend school and moved to France by the mid-1990s where she published the first two parts of the “Persepolis” series. The novels were originally written in French, offering an alternative outlook on her home country’s history for the Western world. Satrapi continues to push boundaries with her work by breaking stereotypes about her heritage.
5. Regarded as one of Bollywood’s most notable actors, Aamir Khan (1965-present) is known for his perfectionism. After releasing several films in the early stages of his career, Khan started acting in just one or two films a year, which was unusual for mainstream Hindi actors but ensured his brand of consistent performances. Besides acting, he has supported various humanitarian causes and was appointed national brand ambassador of UNICEF to promote child nutrition in 2011.
