May brings flowers. It’s also a time of celebration. In the United States, May is AAPI Month. (AAPI stands for Asian American and Pacific Islander.) In Canada, it’s Asian Heritage Month.
Groups pick themes for the U.S. month. In 2024, one theme is “Advancing Leaders Through .” The theme honors AAPI leaders with “ and creativity.”
Read on to meet three AAPI groundbreakers!
Daniel Inouye
Daniel Inouye lived a long life. He was born in 1924 in Hawaii to a Japanese family. In 1941, there was an attack in Hawaii. Pilots attacked a base. This attack brought the United States into World War II. Inouye joined the army. He later got the Medal of Honor. That’s the highest military honor.
Inouye wasn’t done. In 1954, Inouye joined Hawaii’s government. Hawaii became a state in 1959. Inouye became Hawaii’s first member of the House of Representatives. In 1962, Inouye got elected to the Senate. He was a Senator until he died in 2012. Inouye never lost an election.
Lisa Su
Do you want to think big? Sometimes you have to start small. Lisa Su knows this. She was born in Taiwan in 1969. She moved to the United States when she was 3. Su got interested in computers as a kid.
Su later became an expert in semiconductors. Those tiny computer chips are in cell phones and other devices. Su got a job at IBM. She made a breakthrough in the 1990s. She figured out how to use copper instead of aluminum in semiconductors. These chips ran faster.
In 2012, Su moved to a new company: AMD. Two years later, Su became its leader. Today, AMD is a leader in building computer chips.
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
“The Rock” is famous in wrestling and movies. But Dwayne Johnson had to work to make “The Rock” a household name. Johnson was born in 1972. His mother had Samoan heritage. Johnson played football growing up. He struggled with injuries, so he needed to make a switch. He became a wrestler. People got to know Johnson for his big personality.
Then, Johnson made another change. He became an actor. Johnson’s movies have made more than $9 billion!
One famous film with Johnson is the 2016 movie Moana. Johnson played the Maui. “This story is my culture,” Johnson later said. “I wear this culture proudly.”
Updated April 30, 2024, 5:01 P.M. (ET)
By Ryan Cramer
