Asian-Americans are Americans of Asian descent. The phrase Asian-American was coined by Yuji Ichioka and Emma Gee in 1968 during the founding of the Asian American Political Alliance ,[ 1] [ 2] and started to be used by the U.S. census in 1980.[ 3]
Firsts by Asian-Americans in various fields have historically marked footholds, often leading to more widespread cultural change. The shorthand phrase for them is "breaking the color barrier".[ 4] One commonly cited example is that of Wataru Misaka , who became the first person of color,[ 5] and the first Asian-American, to be a National Basketball Association player (in 1947.)[ 6] [ 7]
Arts and entertainment [ edit ]
Film (aside from the Academy Awards)[ edit ]
Literature (aside from the Pulitzer and Nobel Prizes)[ edit ]
Business and commerce [ edit ]
1937: Ella Kam Oon Chun becomes the first Asian-American woman reporter on The Honolulu Advertiser. [ 40]
1943: Ah Jook Ku becomes the first Asian-American reporter for the Associated Press .[ 41]
1970: Al Young becomes the first Asian American U.S. mainland sportswriter at a metro daily newspaper The Bridgeport (CT) Post-Telegram.[ 42]
1993: Connie Chung becomes the first Asian-American to anchor one of America's major network newscasts (CBS Evening News).[ 43]
Judiciary and politics [ edit ]
Official portrait of Vice President Kamala Harris , 2021
Rabbi Angela Warnick Buchdahl
Science and technology [ edit ]
Aerospace and aviation [ edit ]
1985: Ellison Onizuka becomes the first Asian-American in space, as an astronaut on the space shuttle Discovery.[ 78] [ 79]
Asian American point guard Wataru Misaka broke basketball's color barrier as the first non-white player to play in the NBA in 1947.
1994: Tiger Woods becomes the first Asian-American to win the United States Amateur Championship . (Woods' mixed ancestry – ¼ Chinese, ¼ Thai, ¼ African-American, ⅛ white, and ⅛ Native American – also made him the first African-American to achieve this feat. He was also the first of only five golfers of primarily non-European descent to win a men's major, with the others being Vijay Singh (an Indian Fijian), Michael Campbell (a Māori from New Zealand), Y.E. Yang (South Korean), and Collin Morikawa (Japanese American).)
1948: Victoria Manalo Draves wins gold in platform and springboard diving in the 1948 Olympics, becoming the first Asian-American to win a gold medal in the Summer Olympics.[ 99]
1989: Michael Chang becomes the first Asian-American winner of a Grand Slam tennis tournament in men's singles, winning the French Open. To this day, he remains the only male player of Asian descent, regardless of nationality, to win a men's singles Grand Slam event.
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