Indian-born American astronaut Kalpana Chawla
Credit: NASA

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month. All month long, Behind the Headlines will feature AAPI pioneers in a variety of areas.

Kalpana Chawla was an Indian-born American astronaut. In 1997, she became the first Indian-born woman to travel in space. Chawla served on two missions aboard the United States space shuttle Columbia as a mission specialist and robotic arm operator.

Chawla was born on March 17, 1962, in Karnal, northern India. Karnal was part of the state of Punjab at that time. Today, it is part of the state of Haryana. She graduated from the Punjab Engineering College in 1982. That same year, she immigrated to the United States. In 1984, she earned a master’s degree from the University of Texas in Austin. She married Jean-Pierre Harrison, an aviation teacher and author, in 1983. She received her doctorate in aerospace engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1988. She then went to work at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). In 1994, she was selected for training as an astronaut candidate.

In 1997, Chawla flew her first mission on the shuttle Columbia. She was the second person of Indian descent to travel in space, following Indian-born cosmonaut Rakesh Sharma, who traveled on a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft in 1984. Chawla’s duties involved conducting experiments in microgravity, sometimes called zero gravity or weightlessness, and launching a satellite using the shuttle’s robotic arm. Her second mission was on the same shuttle in 2003. However, on Feb. 1, 2003, as the Columbia was returning to Earth after the 16-day mission, the spacecraft broke apart high over Texas. Chawla and six other crew members were killed.

Chawla received many honors for her work in space. They included the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, the NASA Space Flight Medal, and the NASA Distinguished Service Medal. In addition, an asteroid that orbits the sun between Mars and Jupiter is named the 51826 Kalpanachawla in her honor.

American actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
Credit: © Featureflash Photo Agency/Shutterstock

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month. All month long, Behind the Headlines will feature AAPI pioneers in a variety of areas.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has been many things: a professional football player, a professional wrestler, a skyscraper-investigating FBI agent, a shape-shifting demi-god, and even the tooth fairy. By excelling in a variety of roles—both in real life and in film—Johnson has inspired many people throughout the world.

Dwayne Douglas Johnson was born on May 2, 1972, in Hayward, California. His father was the Canadian professional wrestler Rocky Johnson, and his grandfather was the Samoan wrestler Peter Maivia. The family moved frequently as Dwayne was growing up, because of his father’s career. Dwayne played football for the University of Miami and graduated in 1995 with a bachelor’s degree. He briefly played for the Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League before leaving to pursue a career in wrestling.

Beginning in 1996, Johnson gained fame wrestling under the name Rocky Maivia in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF; now known as World Wrestling Entertainment Inc.). Soon after, he began using the nickname “The Rock.” He became one of the most famous wrestlers in the organization. Johnson’s matches served as main attractions at such large wrestling events as WrestleMania and SummerSlam. Johnson co-wrote the memoir The Rock Says… (2000) with Joe Layden.

Johnson began his motion picture acting career with a minor role in the adventure film The Mummy Returns (2001) and a starring role in the related fantasy film The Scorpion King (2002). He has starred in many other action films, including The Rundown (2003), Walking Tall (2004), Doom (2005), and Skyscraper (2018). Johnson has appeared in several of the automotive action films in the “Fast & Furious” series, beginning with Fast Five (2011). His other notable movies include the disaster film San Andreas (2015); the family comedies The Game Plan (2007) and Tooth Fairy (2010); and the adventure comedies Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) and Jumanji: The Next Level (2019). The muscular Johnson often plays brawny characters that can be by turns intimidating and likable. Johnson has provided his voice for video games and animations. For example, he voiced the character Maui in the animated movie Moana (2016).

New Zealand Filmmaker Taika Waititi
Credit: © Xavier Collin, Image Press Agency/Alamy Images

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month. All month long, Behind the Headlines will celebrate the accomplishments and heritage of Asians and Pacific Islanders.

Taika Waititi is a New Zealand filmmaker known for his comedies. In 2020, he became the first person of Māori ancestry to win an Academy Award for best adapted screenplay. He won for the motion picture Jojo Rabbit (2019), based on the novel Caging Skies (2008) by Christine Leunens. He was also the first Indigenous (native) writer to be nominated for an Academy Award for a screenplay. Jojo Rabbit tells the story of a German boy whose mother is hiding a Jewish girl in their home during World War II (1939-1945). The boy struggles with his beliefs in Nazism and anti-Semitism (prejudice against Jews). He confronts these ideas in part in the form of his imaginary friend, a buffoonish Adolf Hitler, played by Waititi in the film.

Taika Cohen was born on Aug. 16, 1975, in Raukokore, on the North Island of New Zealand. For his professional career, he later adopted the surname of his father, the Māori artist Taika Waititi, who also went by Tiger. Taika means tiger in the Māori language. The young Taika grew up in Wellington with his mother, the educator Robin Cohen. He graduated from Victoria University of Wellington in 1997 with a degree in theater and arts. At the school, he formed a comedy duo called The Humourbeasts with the comic musician Jemaine Clement. Waititi later directed and wrote a few episodes of the television series “The Flight of the Conchords” (2007-2009) in which Clement co-starred with Bret McKenzie.

Waititi made his screen acting debut in the motion picture Scarfies (1999). He showed his first short film, John & Pogo (2002), at the New Zealand International Film Festival. His next short film, Two Cars, One Night (2003), was nominated for an Academy Award. Waititi’s first feature-length film was Eagle vs. Shark (2007). Both Eagle vs. Shark and his second feature film, Boy (2010), premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Boy is a comedy-drama about the reunion of a Māori son with his father, played by Waititi. Waititi wrote and directed Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016). It surpassed Boy as the highest-grossing New Zealand-made film of all time.

Waititi and Clement co-wrote, co-directed, and starred in the short film What We Do in the Shadows: Interviews with Some Vampires (2005). It was expanded into a mockumentary (satirical documentary) film What We Do in the Shadows (2014), followed by a television series of the same name starting in 2019.

Waititi directed the Marvel Studios film Thor: Ragnarok (2017) and its sequel Thor: Love and Thunder (2022), which he also cowrote. He provided the voice for the rocklike warrior Korg in these and other Marvel Studios productions. Waititi has also worked on projects set in the “Star Wars” universe. Starting in 2022, he produced the comedy series “Our Flag Means Death.” The show follows Stede Bonnet, an aristocrat turned pirate who sailed with the famous Blackbeard, played by Waititi.

Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) in Marvel Studios’ Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
Credit: © Walt Disney Studios

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month. All month long, Behind the Headlines will feature AAPI pioneers in a variety of areas.

Marvel’s newest superhero and first-ever Asian lead has actually been around for a while. Shang-Chi is a comic-book superhero who is a Chinese master of martial arts. He was created for the American publisher Marvel Comics. Shang-Chi was featured in the motion picture Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings released in September 2021.

Shang-Chi was trained as a child to serve his father’s secret criminal organization. He developed superior skills in hand-to-hand combat and mastered various weapons. Shang-Chi also has advanced instincts and wisdom. In addition, Shang-Chi possesses 10 rings with supernatural powers. The rings are worn on the fingers in the comics, but they appear as iron bracelets in the film.

Shang-Chi was created by the American writer Steve Englehart and artist Jim Starlin. He first appeared in the 1973 comic Special Marvel Edition #15. From 1974 to 1983, he was the lead character of Marvel’s “Master of Kung Fu” series. Shang-Chi also appeared in such Marvel comic-book series as “Heroes for Hire,” “Agents of Atlas,” “Avengers,” and “X-Men.”

In the original comics, Shang-Chi is raised in an ancient fortress in China as part of a secret society. After being assigned to assassinate an enemy of his father, Shang-Chi meets a British secret agent named Smith. Smith reveals the criminal nature of the secret society. Shang-Chi’s father is Fu Manchu, a crime lord also known as the Master of Kung Fu. Shang-Chi agrees to work with Smith and British intelligence to stop his father’s criminal organization.

In Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, the character is played by the Chinese-born Canadian actor Simu Liu. The character’s origin story is largely rewritten, in part to correct harmful stereotypes present in the original comics. The creators and cast consisted largely of artists of Asian descent. The film was directed by the Japanese-American Destin Daniel Cretton from a screenplay by the Chinese-American writer Dave Callaham.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings follows Shang-Chi and his friend Katy in San Franciso, California. They are running from villains sent by his father, Xu Wenwu, who is armed with immortality granted by the fabled 10 rings. The characters travel to Macau, China, where Shang-Chi’s sister, Xialing, runs a successful underground fighting club. Xialing joins them to travel to the magical world of Ta Lo, the home of the sibling’s late mother and her warrior people. There, they confront otherworldly forces and Xu Wenwu’s secret society.

Vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris
Credit: California Attorney General’s Office

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month. All month long, Behind the Headlines will feature AAPI pioneers in a variety of areas.

In January 2021, Kamala Harris became the first woman to serve as vice president of the United States. She is also the first person of African American and South Asian ancestry to serve in the position. Harris and Joe Biden, the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, defeated their Republican opponents, President Donald J. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, in the 2020 election. Before becoming vice president, Harris represented California in the U.S. Senate since 2017. She had earlier served as California’s attorney general —the state’s chief law officer. Prior to serving as attorney general, Harris was the district attorney of San Francisco, California.

Kamala Devi Harris was born in Oakland, California, on Oct. 20, 1964. Her mother was a physician and cancer specialist who was born in India. Her father, who was born in Jamaica, became an economics professor. In 1986, Harris received a bachelor’s degree in political science and economics from Howard University. In 1989, she earned a law degree from the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. Harris married Doug Emhoff, an entertainment lawyer, in 2014.

From 1990 to 1998, Harris served as deputy district attorney for Alameda County, California. In 1998, she became the managing attorney of the Career Criminal Unit of the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office. In 2000, she was named to lead the San Francisco City Attorney’s Division on Families and Children.

In 2003, Harris won the election as San Francisco district attorney. She was reelected in 2007 and served through 2010. Her victory in the 2010 campaign for state attorney general marked the first time that a woman and—because of her mixed ethnicity—a person of African American and South Asian ancestry won the post. Harris took office in 2011. As attorney general, she gained attention for her work to combat transnational gangs and investigate banks that engaged in mortgage fraud. She was reelected in 2014 and served until 2017.

In January 2015, Barbara Boxer, long-time U.S. senator from California, announced that she would not seek reelection in 2016. Shortly afterward, Harris announced that she would campaign for the open Senate seat. In June 2016, Harris finished first in California’s open primary for the U.S. Senate seat. She defeated U.S. Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, a fellow Democrat, in the November election. As a U.S. senator, Harris served on a number of committees, including the Judiciary Committee and the Select Committee on Intelligence.

In January 2019, Harris began a campaign for her party’s 2020 nomination for president. She dropped out of the race in December 2019, while trailing her competitors in fundraising and in support in public opinion polls. Harris’s memoir, The Truths We Hold: An American Journey, was published in 2019.

In August 2020, Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, named Harris his vice presidential running mate. Issues in the campaign included the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and tensions between Black communities and police. Days after the November 3 election, major news outlets called the election for Biden and Harris, though election results had yet to be certified. Trump and Pence refused to concede, however, and challenged several state results via lawsuit. On November 23, following a string of legal defeats, the Trump administration authorized the start of the formal transition to a Biden administration. The Electoral College confirmed Biden’s victory on December 14. Harris resigned her Senate seat in January 2021, days before she and Biden took office.

Chloé Zhao
Credit: © Chris Pizzello, Reuters/Alamy Images

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month. All month long, Behind the Headlines will feature AAPI pioneers in a variety of areas.

In April, the Chinese filmmaker Chloé Zhao became the first Asian woman to win an Academy Award for best director, for the motion picture Nomadland (2020). The film tells the story of a widow who travels across the United States in a van after losing everything in an economic recession. Zhao was only the second woman to win the Oscar for best director, after the American director Kathryn Bigelow won it in 2010. In addition to directing, Zhao also has written and produced many of her films.

Frances McDormand as Fern in the film “Nomadland” (2020).
Credit: © Searchlight Pictures

Chloé Zhao was born Zhao Ting on March 31, 1982, in Beijing, China. She attended boarding school in London, England. She finished high school in the United States. She then attended Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. In 2005, she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science. Zhao later studied at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Zhao won several awards for her short film Daughters (2010). It tells the story of a young woman in rural China forced into an arranged marriage. Zhao’s first feature-length film was Songs My Brothers Taught Me. It explores the relationship between a Lakota Sioux brother and sister. Zhao’s other movies include The Rider (2017).

United States Senator Tammy Duckworth
Credit: U.S. Congress

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month. All month long, Behind the Headlines will feature AAPI pioneers in a variety of areas.

Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat from Illinois, was elected to the United States Senate in 2016. As a senator, she has been a champion for civil rights, environmental justice, and veterans’ affairs.

Ladda Tammy Duckworth was born in Bangkok, Thailand, on March 12, 1968, to a Thai mother and an American father. Her father had been serving in Southeast Asia in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War (1957-1975). When Tammy Duckworth was a child, the family moved around the region while her father worked with the United Nations and private corporations. She became fluent in Thai, Indonesian, and English. The family later moved to Hawaii, where Duckworth finished high school. She earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Hawaii (also spelled University of Hawai‘i) in 1989.

Duckworth joined the Army Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) in 1990 while working on a master’s degree in international affairs at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. She completed her degree in 1992. That year, she also got her commission as a reserve officer and trained as an army helicopter pilot. In 1996, while studying for a doctorate in political science at Northern Illinois University, she transferred to the Illinois National Guard. She later completed a doctorate in human services at Capella University, an online-based school.

In 2004, while Duckworth was still a student at Northern Illinois, her National Guard regiment was sent to Iraq. On November 12, her helicopter was shot down by a rocket-propelled grenade. She lost both legs and some of the use of her right arm. In December, she was awarded a Purple Heart for her injuries. The Purple Heart is a medal given to soldiers of the U.S. armed forces who are wounded or killed in combat. Following a lengthy recovery, Duckworth began working for better medical care for veterans. In 2006, she ran unsuccessfully for an Illinois seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich then named her director of the Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs. In 2009, President Barack Obama appointed her assistant secretary of Veterans Affairs.

In 2012, Duckworth was elected to the U.S. House, representing a district in the Chicago suburbs. She was reelected in 2014. Also in 2014, she retired from the Army Reserves, having achieved the rank of lieutenant colonel. In 2016, Duckworth defeated incumbent Republican Senator Mark Kirk to win a seat in the U.S. Senate.

Duckworth married Bryan Bowlsbey, an officer in the Army National Guard, in 1993. In 2018, she became the first sitting U.S. senator to give birth when she delivered a daughter, Maile Pearl. The couple’s first child, Abigail, was born in 2014, while Duckworth was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Duckworth’s memoir, Every Day is a Gift, was published in 2021.

Yo-Yo Ma is a world-famous cello player known for his performances as a soloist with symphony orchestras and in chamber music groups.
Credit: © Fulya Atalay, Shutterstock

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month. All month long, Behind the Headlines will feature AAPI pioneers in a variety of areas.

Long before such teenage stars as JoJo Siwa and Olivia Rodrigo, there was a teenage cello-playing star named Yo-Yo Ma. Nearly 50 years later, Ma continues to be one of the world’s greatest and most popular cello players.

He has won praise for the warmth and sensitivity of his performances. Ma performs equally well playing solo cello, as part of chamber groups, and as a soloist with orchestras. He plays a broad repertoire that includes music from the 1600′s as well as the works of modern composers. In his live performances and recordings, he has united the Western classical music tradition with the music of non-Western cultures.

Cellist Yo-Yo Ma performs for people waiting in line at a COVID-19 vaccination site at Berkshire Community College in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, on March 13, 2021.
Credit: © Berkshire Community College

Ma was born in Paris on Oct. 5, 1955, to Chinese-born parents. He moved to the United States with his family at the age of 7. He studied with the famous cellist Leonard Rose from 1964 to 1971. Ma gained his first major exposure at the age of 15 when conductor Leonard Bernstein presented him on a television program.

After studying at Harvard University from 1972 to 1976, Ma began his career as a soloist. Since then, he has appeared with the world’s major symphony orchestras and played chamber music with many distinguished musicians.

In 2009, Ma became a creative consultant with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of the country’s highest civilian honors, in 2011. That year, Ma also became a Kennedy Center Honoree.

Indian-born American astronaut Kalpana Chawla
Credit: NASA

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month. All month long, Behind the Headlines will feature AAPI pioneers in a variety of areas.

In 1997, the American astronaut Kalpana Chawla (1962-2003) became the first Indian-born woman to travel into space. Chawla served on two missions aboard the United States space shuttle Columbia as a mission specialist and robotic arm operator.

Chawla was born on March 17, 1962, in Karnal, northern India. Karnal was part of the state of Punjab at that time. Today, it is part of the state of Haryana. She graduated from the Punjab Engineering College in 1982. That same year, she immigrated to the United States. In 1984, she earned a master’s degree from the University of Texas in Austin. She married Jean-Pierre Harrison, an aviation teacher and author, in 1983. She received her doctorate in aerospace engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1988. She then went to work at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). In 1994, she was selected for training as an astronaut candidate.

In 1997, Chawla flew her first mission on the shuttle Columbia. She was the second person of Indian descent to travel in space, following the Indian-born cosmonaut Rakesh Sharma, who traveled on a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft in 1984. Chawla’s duties involved conducting experiments in microgravity, sometimes called zero gravity or weightlessness, and launching a satellite using the shuttle’s robotic arm. Her second mission was on the same shuttle in 2003. However, on Feb. 1, 2003, as the Columbia was returning to Earth after the 16-day mission, the spacecraft broke apart high over Texas. Chawla and six other crew members were killed.

Chawla received many honors for her work in space. They include the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, the NASA Space Flight Medal, and the NASA Distinguished Service Medal. In addition, an asteroid that orbits the sun between Mars and Jupiter is named the 51826 Kalpanachawla in her honor.

May 4, 2017

As part of May’s celebration of Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month (APAHM), World Book today features the Purple Heart Battalion, the nickname given to a Japanese American unit in the United States Army during World War II (1939-1945). The unit was officially the 100th Battalion of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. It earned its nickname because of the many casualties (people killed and wounded) it suffered in combat. American soldiers wounded or killed in combat are recognized with a medal called the Purple Heart.

Japanese Americans served in the 100th Battalion of the U.S. Army’s 442nd Regimental Combat Team, seen here advancing towards Bruyères, France, in October 1944. The unit is remembered as the Purple Heart Battalion. Credit: U.S. Army Photo/US National Archives

On Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, brought the United States into World War II. The attack also stirred hostility against Japanese Americans. After the attack, the U.S. government moved many Japanese Americans to camps in the western United States. Early in 1943, however, the government approved the formation of a Japanese American combat unit—the 442nd Regiment.

Japanese Americans arrive at an internment camp in Manzanar, California, in March 1942. Despite this denial of their civil rights, many Japanese Americans volunteered for military service during World War II. Credit: AP/Wide World Photos

In September 1943, the 442nd’s 100th Battalion entered combat against the German Army in Italy. In early 1944, the unit fought in the bloody battles at Monte Cassino and Anzio in Italy. Later that year, the 442nd suffered terrible casualties freeing the French towns of Biffontaine and Bruyères from German occupation. The unit then took many casualties rescuing the 1st Battalion of the 141st U.S. Infantry Regiment, a “lost battalion” trapped behind enemy lines. The 442nd saw continued action until Germany surrendered in May 1945.

The Purple Heart medal, seen here, is given to U.S. soldiers wounded or killed in combat. Credit: © Gary Blakeley, Shutterstock

Of the roughly 14,000 soldiers who served in the 442nd, the U.S. military awarded 9,486 of them Purple Hearts. Twenty-one of them received Medals of Honor. The Medal of Honor is the highest individual military decoration awarded by the U.S. government. The 442nd also received seven Presidential Unit Citations, the highest award for valor given to a military unit as a whole.

The 442nd continues today as an infantry unit in the U.S. Army Reserve. Monuments honoring the 442nd stand in Biffontaine and Bruyères, France, and in the Los Angeles, California, neighborhood of Little Tokyo. In 2010, the unit received the Congressional Gold Medal. The Congressional Gold Medal is the highest civilian decoration awarded by the U.S. Congress.