Asian/Pacific Americans are also helping to shape America's future. As entrepreneurs, artists, educators, public servants, scientists, and explorers, they challenge the minds of our next generation, expand commerce and innovation, probe the frontiers of space, and search for cures for the world's diseases. Our children are also inspired by the contributions and sacrifices of dedicated individuals such as inventor An Wang, experimental physicist Chien- Shiung Wu, Challenger astronaut Ellison Onizuka, Columbia astronaut Kalpana Chawla, and sculptor Isamu Noguchi. To read the rest of the proclamation, click here.

Congressman Mike Honda (D-CA) served as honorary guest at the banquet celebrating the unveiling of the historical marker. During the last Congress, Congressman Honda introduced a Joint Resolution posthumously proclaiming soldiers of Asian descent who fought in the Civil War to be honorary citizens of the United States (H. J. Res. 125). There were numerous soldiers of Asian descent that fought bravely in the Union and Confederate forces during the Civil War.

“Many of these honorable soldiers were denied citizenship despite their service to this country due to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the anti-Asian sentiment of the time,” stated Raymond Wong, OCA National President. “The establishment of the Ohio historical marker is a first step in honoring the bravery of these formerly unrecognized veterans of the Civil War.”

2003 
MIKE HONDA - DNC DEPUTY CHAIR
Congressman Honda was appointed by DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe to be the Deputy Chair of the Democratic National Committee.