OUR COMMITMENT TO DIVERSITY

Interesting Fact:

Military Leadership - Diego De Almagro

• Born in 1475, Almagro was known as el viejo the conquistador for his exploits in South Africa.

• Almagro was closely connected with Francisco Pizarro as they were joint captains for the Spanish army.

• Almagro was attributed with the achievements of conquering Peru and discovering Chile.

• For his exploits in Peru, King Charles I of Spain awarded Almagro with the royal title of Don.

Interesting Fact:

All Male - Cesar Chavez

• Cesar Chavez was an American labor leader and civil rights activist who became famous for his efforts to end abuse in agriculture.

• Chavez founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) which later merged with the Agriculture Workers Organization Committee to form the United Farm Workers labor union.

• The slogan which President Obama used in his presidential campaign(Yes We Can) was inspired by Cesar Chavez.

At least 70 buildings around the world are named after Cesar Chavez.

Interesting Fact:
Catholic - St. Rose of Lima

• St. Rose of Lima sought to imitate the suffering of christ. 

• She was a member of the Third Order of Dominic on Lima, Peru. 

• She also became known for her efforts to take care of the poverty stricken. 

• St. Rose of Lima took the name Rose at her confirmation in 1586 because of a vision a servant had of her face turning into roses. 

• Her symbol is a crown of roses upon her head along with her right hand holding a cross or crucifix with two roses .

Interesting Fact:
Timothy Hernandez’s (‘77) Time at STA

Dr. Hernandez came to STA in 1973. Due to his love for the Academy, he wanted to share his experience as a Hispanic student at Saint Thomas Academy to the community. 

He went to Nativity for middle school. STA was not initially in the picture but the fathers of some of his friends convinced him and his father to choose STA. His group of friends from traditionally Catholic neighborhoods allowed him to fit in with the other cadets.

Dr. Hernandez’s mother was Norwegian and German and his father was Mexican. In the post-Vietnam era there was racial tension nationally although he did not experience much racism while at Saint Thomas Academy. In part this was due to the fact that he was encouraged to acclimate to the majority rather than celebrate his Hispanic culture. There were racist jokes and comments at times that required brushing them aside and developing a “thick skin”.

His favorite memory was not a single moment, rather it was his classmates and the mentorship he received from his teachers that he remembers most fondly. He talked about how he would spend hours after school talking with his history teacher, whose room he cleaned as part of his financial aid package. The bonds he made with the teachers were so deep that he said that if anything truly horrible happened to him in terms of race, he felt comfortable enough to tell them.

STA has been important to him and his family because of their passion for education. He said that STA prepared him academically for college and that his AP biology teacher was one of his greatest influencers for his choice of medicine. 

His advice to the students and community:
“It is incumbent on all of us who are part of the community of color to educate the majority culture about our heritage. This is difficult in high school because we want to be like our peers. This is one small way that we can make a difference”

Currently, Dr. Hernandez lives in Minnesota and is the Chief Executive Officer of Entira Family Clinics and a football coach for STA. 

(Interviewed by Chihuu Nguyen ‘24)

Interesting Fact:
In 1940, a 23-year-old Guillermo González Camarena patented a chromoscopic adapter with which black and white cameras of the day could capture color.

- It was the first patent in the world for color TV. NASA used the mechanism as recently as 1979 to transmit images from Jupiter.

- González Camarena built by hand all the equipment used for Mexico’s and Latin America’s first television station, XE1-GC.

- He also championed tele-education for medical school, as well as the use of TVs for transmitting educational shows to Mexicans in remote, school-less locations.

- A similar program was used last year when millions of Mexican students switched to remote learning. While very few households have tech devices or internet connections, over 93% have a TV.

Interesting Fact:
Ynéz Mexía: a flourishing botanist. Ynéz Mexía was the first Mexican American female botanist and went on many expeditions over her 13-year career, collecting and preserving around 145,000 plant specimens. She collected so many specimens that modern botanists are still working their way through her samples, which contribute to important research collections around the world. It is estimated that Mexía discovered around 500 new species, but we won’t know for sure until her mammoth collection has been carefully studied.

Mexía was born in 1870, most likely in Washington DC (USA), but moved back to Mexico after finishing school. It wasn’t until 1921, at the age of 51, that Mexía began her scientific career after moving to San Francisco (CA, USA). Here, she joined various environmental groups including the Sierra Club and Save the Redwood League, which inspired her to study botany at the University of California, Berkley (CA, USA).

This was during a period when scientific research was focused on gathering, collecting and classifying as many species as possible. Mexía’s first botanical expedition took place in 1925, sponsored by Stanford University (CA, USA), to Sinaloa (Mexico). She kept detailed observations and collected 500 plant specimens on this trip – Charles Darwin collected a similar amount during his Beagle voyage – including around 50 previously unknown species. One of these species is the flowering plant called Mimosa mexiae, which was named after her. It was also on this trip that Mexía realized she was more productive embarking on these expeditions on her own or with local guides.

Mexía obtained funding and continued going on botanical expeditions traveling to remote locations by any means necessary, collecting plants in North and South America, including Alaska, Mexico, Brazil and Tierra del Fuego. Over her career, Mexía discovered two plant genera, one of which was named in her honor called Mexianthus. Despite this and the many other contributions that Mexía made to the field, she was mostly referred to as a botanical ‘collector’, whilst her male colleagues were recognized as scientists. Now, some also consider Mexía as an early science communicator, as she would tell tales of these expeditions whilst giving lectures all over San Francisco as well as write about her adventures for US-based publications.

Mexía broke through many barriers during her career, making enormous and integral contributions to scientific research. As she once observed: “Many people at the time said that a woman could not travel alone. I don’t think there is any place in the world where a woman can’t venture.”

Interesting Fact:
Helen Rodríguez Trías: Born in 1929 to immigrant parents, Trías faced adversity at a young age. Despite her English fluency and good grades, she wasn't allowed into the more advanced classes at school in New York. Eventually, one of her teachers noticed her academic achievements and had her move up to the advanced courses. This helped propel Trías on a path toward medicine. She studied medicine in San Juan, and after completing her residency (at University Hospital in San Juan), she began teaching at the medical school. While in San Juan, she started the first infant health clinic in Puerto Rico and after three years, infant mortality dropped by 50 percent.

In 1970, Trías returned to New York as head of the pediatrics department at Lincoln Hospital in the South Bronx. There, she was met with other issues. The hospital saw primarily Black and Hispanic patients. It was also in dire need of repair. Because of this, activist groups, like the Young Lords, occupied hospitals and demanded better facilities and treatment for their people. Trías recognized how poverty and inequality led to a decline in health. She brought this experience to the women's health movement of the 1970s.

Interesting Fact:
Born in Argentina in 1927, César Milstein's parents encouraged him and his brothers to make education a priority. After graduating from the University of Buenos Aires with a Ph. D., Milstein accepted a position with the National Institute of Microbiology in Buenos Aires in 1957. Afterward, he earned another Ph.D. from Cambridge University in 1960 and became a member of the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England.

Milstein's primary area of study was with antibodies, and in 1984 — along with Georges Köhler and Niels K. Jerne — he was awarded the Nobel Prize for helping to develop monoclonal antibodies. Monoclonal antibodies can help clone and produce an almost unlimited amount of desired antibodies. They are often used in pregnancy tests, blood cell typing and detecting viruses and bacterial diseases.

Interesting Fact:
Luis Walter Alvarez
Radio Distance and Direction Indicator

US Patent No. 2,480,208
Inducted in 1978
Born June 13, 1911 - Died September 1, 1988
Luis Walter Alvarez invented a radio distance and direction indicator. During World War II, he designed a landing system for aircraft and a radar system for locating planes. Later, he helped develop the hydrogen bubble chamber, used to detect subatomic particles. This research led to the discovery of over 70 elementary particles and resulted in a major revision of nuclear theories.

Born in San Francisco, Alvarez graduated from the University of Chicago with a B.S. in 1932 and a Ph.D. in 1936. He was an assistant physics instructor from 1936 to 1938; an associate professor from 1938 to 1945; associate director of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory from 1954 to 1959; and a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1945. He was a staff member in the radiation laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1940 to 1943; at the metal laboratory at the University of Chicago from 1943 to 1944, and at the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico from 1944 to 1945, at which time he received the patent for the radio distance and direction indicator.

Alvarez was a member of the President's Science Advisory Committee from 1971 to 1972. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1968.

Ildaura Murillo-Rohde, PhD, RN (1920-2010): Changing the face of nursing “The Hispanic whirlwind” — that’s what Ildaura Murillo-Rohde was dubbed for her work as a powerhouse advocate, nurse, therapist, and educator.

Born to a family of health professionals in Panama, Murillo-Rohde studied nursing at the Medical and Surgical Hospital School of Nursing in San Antonio, Texas, where she was dismayed by how few Hispanic nurses were available to serve a large Hispanic population. After graduating in 1948, she went on to pursue several other degrees in education and psychiatric nursing, including a PhD from NYU in 1971.

Over her career, Murillo-Rohde wrote about a broad range of issues from single parenthood to same-sex couples. She also reached several professional heights, including becoming the first Hispanic dean of nursing at NYU.

But one of her greatest achievements was creating the National Association of Hispanic Nurses (NAHN) in 1975. She felt strongly that the country needed an organization to attract Hispanic people to nursing as well as to support their unique concerns and those of the communities they served.

“I saw that I was the only Hispanic nurse who was going to Washington to work with the federal government, review research and education grants, etc.,” Murillo-Rohde later noted. “I looked behind me and thought: ‘Where are my people?’”

For her creation of NAHN and numerous other leadership roles, the American Academy of Nursing named Murillo-Rohde one of their living legends in 1994.

Severo Ochoa, MD (1905-1993): Unraveling RNA

Severo Ochoa’s interest in biology was sparked by his idol, Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist and fellow Spaniard Santiago Ramón y Cajal. Decades later, Ochoa would himself enter the halls of Nobel fame.

Ochoa graduated from the University of Madrid’s medical school in 1929 and then pursued cutting-edge research in several different countries. In 1942, he took a position at the New York University (NYU) College of Medicine, where he remained for more than 30 years.

Ochoa’s resume spans several domains of biochemistry and molecular biology, from photosynthesis to vitamin B’s function in the body. It has been said that in 1931, Ochoa fell in love twice: with his future wife and with the study of enzymes.

Ochoa’s discovery of an enzyme that can synthesize ribonucleic acid was a vital advance in the breaking of the human genetic code. In recognition of his work, in 1959 he became the first Hispanic American to win the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine.

In accepting the prize, Ochoa expressed gratitude for his mentors, students, and adopted country. But mostly he lauded science’s place in elucidating fundamental questions. Though “we may never find the clue to the nature or the meaning of life,” he said, “we may look forward with confidence and anticipation to a much better comprehension of many of its riddles.”

José Celso Barbosa, MD (1857-1921):
An independent Puerto Rican José Celso Barbosa faced discrimination more than once in his lifetime. But the same determination that propelled him past those obstacles allowed him to help countless others.

In 1875, encouraged by his aunt, “Mama Lucia,” Barbosa left Puerto Rico for New York City to further his education. A brush with pneumonia there spurred his interest in medicine, but admissions officials at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons rejected his application.

The letter refusing him read, “At a faculty meeting held last night it was decided not to receive students of color.”

Barbosa was undeterred. In 1880, he graduated with honors from the University of Michigan as the first Puerto Rican to receive a medical degree in the United States.

Barbosa went on to care for soldiers during the Spanish-American War through the Red Cross and to treat many poor patients across Puerto Rico. Barbosa even articulated a need for employer-based health care insurance, which was a radical idea at the time.

Later in his career, Barbosa founded a party that urged U.S. statehood for the island. For that leadership, Barbosa has been dubbed the “father of the Puerto Rican statehood movement.”

Did you know the color TV was invented by Guillermo Gonzalez Camarena, a Guadalajara, electrical engineer? His was the first color TV patented in the US and Mexico and is still used by NASA today.

Born in Perú, Claudio Castillón Lévano invented the "neonatal artificial bubble", designed to improve the intensive medical care of high-risk newborns.

Victor Ochoa was a Mexican inventor and revolutionary who patented the electric brake in 1907. It uses magnetic attraction to make it easier for trains to slow down. Ochoa is also known for inventing the ochoaplane, an adjustable wrench, and a pen and pencil clip, among other inventions.

Hércules Florence, a French-Brazilian inventor, is considered one of the pioneers of photography, developing a photograph some three years before Louis Daguerre.

Dr. Domingo Liotta was born in Argentina, the son of Italian immigrants. In 1969, he created the first artificial heart to be successfully transplanted into a human being. His creation is on display at the Smithsonian Museum.

Carlos Juan Finlay, MD (1833-1915): Solving the yellow fever mystery Yellow fever is a horrible disease, causing such terrifying symptoms as bleeding from the mouth, vomiting, and organ failure. By the late 1800s, intermittent outbreaks had taken some 150,000 lives in the United States, and in Cuba, where Carlos

Finlay was born, it was a near-constant terror.

Finlay's dogged efforts would help change that.

After graduating from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1855, Finlay was drawn to numerous topics, but he found none so compelling as exploring the cause of yellow fever.

At the time, experts thought they knew the culprit: filth in the air or on clothing. Finlay, on the other hand, noticed intriguing correlations between yellow fever epidemics and increases in the mosquito population.

In 1881, he presented his mosquitos-as-vectors theory to scientific conferences in Havana and Washington, D.C. — and was met with ridicule. In 1898, the United States wrested Cuba from Spain in the Spanish-American War, but its troops suffered more deaths from infectious diseases than from combat. Desperate, the U.S. Army turned to Finlay for help and was able to greatly reduce outbreaks by applying some of his ideas about mosquito control, such as destroying larvae in stagnant water.

Finlay’s insights enabled the completion of the Panama Canal, which had been disrupted repeatedly by outbreaks. William Gorgas, MD, who headed public health efforts there and would later serve as U.S. surgeon general, expressed great admiration for Finlay’s thinking. In fact, he called it “the best piece of logical reasoning that can be found in medicine anywhere."

José Celso Barbosa, MD (1857-1921):
An independent Puerto Rican José Celso Barbosa faced discrimination more than once in his lifetime. But the same determination that propelled him past those obstacles allowed him to help countless others.

In 1875, encouraged by his aunt, “Mama Lucia,” Barbosa left Puerto Rico for New York City to further his education. A brush with pneumonia there spurred his interest in medicine, but admissions officials at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons rejected his application.

The letter refusing him read, “At a faculty meeting held last night it was decided not to receive students of color.”

Barbosa was undeterred. In 1880, he graduated with honors from the University of Michigan as the first Puerto Rican to receive a medical degree in the United States.

Barbosa went on to care for soldiers during the Spanish-American War through the Red Cross and to treat many poor patients across Puerto Rico. Barbosa even articulated a need for employer-based health care insurance, which was a radical idea at the time.

Later in his career, Barbosa founded a party that urged U.S. statehood for the island. For that leadership, Barbosa has been dubbed the “father of the Puerto Rican statehood movement.”

Interesting Fact:
In 1907 both Charles Curtis of Kansas and Robert Owen of Oklahoma were senators of Native American descent. Curtis was the great-great grandson of White Plume, a Kansa-Kaw chief who had offered assistance to the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1804. A Republican Party devotee, and proud of his Kaw ancestry, Curtis often quipped that he was "one-eighth Kaw Indian and 100% Republican." Owen was a member of the Cherokee Nation. He taught orphaned Cherokee children and represented the Five Civilized Tribes as a federal Indian agent before entering politics as a Progressive Democrat. In 1993 Ben Nighthorse Campbell of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, became the third senator of Native American descent. Campbell grew up in California and moved to Colorado in 1978. He represented Colorado in the House of Representatives for six years before his election to the U.S. Senate in 1992. While in the Senate, Campbell was the first American Indian to chair the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. In 2023 Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, an enrolled member of Cherokee Nation, became the fourth senator of Native American descent.

Interesting Fact:
North American Indians have medicinal purposes for more than 2,500 plant species – and that is just what’s currently known between existing practices. But, for hundreds of years many Native cultures had a common skin application that involved mixing ground plants with water to create products that protected skin from the sun. Sunflower oil, wallflower and sap from aloe plants have all been recorded for their use in protecting the skin from the sun. There are also noted instances of using animal fat and oils from fish as sunscreen.

Interesting Fact:
New York became the first state to declare an “American Indian Day,” efforts have been underway to acknowledge the many contributions and achievements of Native peoples. In 1976, as part of the nation’s bicentennial commemoration, S.J. Res. 209 authorized President Gerald Ford to proclaim October 10-16, 1976, as “Native American Awareness Week.” In 1986 Congress passed S.J. Res. 390, requesting that the president designate November 23–30, 1986, as “American Indian Week.” Congress continued this practice in subsequent years, declaring one week during the autumn months as “Native American Indian Heritage Week.”

Interesting Fact:
Fred Begay | Nuclear physicist (Navajo Nation)

Fred Begay was born in Towaoc, Colorado on the Ute Mountain Indian Reservation. He was the first Navajo to receive a PhD in physics. Begay spent a majority of his career working in nuclear fusion research and development. His experience included work on NASA’s high-energy gamma ray project and teaching fellowships at Stanford University, the University of Maryland, and a tenure of nearly 30 years with the Los Alamos National Laboratory laser programs. Individuals like Begay carved a path for people from disadvantaged communities and showed what’s possible for Native Americans in STEM.

Interesting Fact:
Did you know that Cable Supsension Bridges are an invention of the Inca of South America? The Inca's figured out how to weave mountain grasses and other vegetation into cables, sometimes as thick as a person’s body, and then used them to build super-strong suspension bridges that spanned across gorges. Some of the structures spanned longer distances than anything European engineers of the time could construct with stone, though modern steel suspension bridges eventually achieved far greater scale. The last of the ancient Inca-style grass cable suspension bridges still spans a gorge in Peru’s Canas Province.

Interesting Fact:
Native American healers pioneered pain relief. In what is now Virginia, natives used jimson weed (scientific name Datura stramonium) as a topical analgesic, grinding the root to make a plaster that they applied to external injuries such as cuts and bruises, according to Keoke and Porterfield’s book.

Healers also had patients ingest the plant as an anesthetic as they set broken bones. Another native remedy for pain and inflammation was tea brewed from the bark of the American black willow (Salix nigra), which contains the chemical salicin. Once it gets into the body, salicin produces salicylic acid, the active ingredient in modern aspirin tablets. Native Americans also used capsaicin, a chemical found in hot peppers, for topical pain relief, according to De Gennaro.

Interesting Fact:
Mary G. Ross, Mathematician and Engineer, Cherokee (1908-2008) Mary Golda Ross is considered the first known Native American engineer and is the first female engineer to work for Lockheed. Her great grandfather John Ross was one of the longest serving chiefs of the Cherokee Nation. She received a Master’s degree in mathematics and was hired by Lockheed in 1942. The company sent her to study aeronautical engineering at UCLA. In her time, men dominated the corporate world; nevertheless, she worked her way up in Lockheed, most notably helping to develop plans for the P-38 Lightning Fighter plan and eventually went to work for NASA. Since NASA’s early spaceflight expertise relied on technology being used by the military and since Ross was an expert in this field of knowledge, she contributed greatly to their program. Although much of Ross’s work on testing top secret rocket and missile systems at NASA remains classified, it is known that she made important contributions to the Apollo Program and helped write NASA’s Planetary Flight Handbook, which is the agency’s guide to space travel.

Interesting Fact:
Did you know that in 1853 a Scottish doctor named Alexander Wood was credited for the creation of the first hypodermic syringe, but a much earlier tool existed. Before colonization, Indigenous peoples had created a method using a sharpened hollowed-out bird bone connected to an animal bladder that could hold and inject fluids into the body. These earliest syringes were used to do everything from inject medicine to irrigate wounds. There are also cases in which these tools were even used to clean ears and serve as enemas.

Interesting Fact:
Did you know that Minnesota is derived from Mnisota, which is the native name of the Minnesota River in the Dakota Sioux language. The name literally means, "cloudy water."

Interesting Fact:
It wasn’t until 1924 when all Native Americans were granted citizenship, after Congress enacted the Indian Citizenship Act.

Interesting Fact:
In World War I and World War II, Native Americans played a significant role as code talkers, leading to extremely successful communication operations. Navajo Native Verna Volker shared with Parade, “We’re very proud of our Navajo code talkers in World War II. They used the language to send these messages that, at the time, the Japanese couldn’t interpret. So they recruited these Navajo young men to make this code in the Navajo language—they always call it ‘the unbreakable code.’ And [the men] never got recognized when they got back for what they did—it was years later.” Their instrumental impact remained classified until 2002, when Congress acknowledged and celebrated the efforts of these brave soldiers, saying that at  “… a time when Indians were discouraged from practicing their native culture, a few brave men used their cultural heritage, their language, to help change the course of history.”

Interesting Fact:
The sport of hockey originated with the Saux, Foxes, and Assiniboine people, who were among the Native American tribes who played a game called “shinny,” where a ball was hit down a field (and in the winter, over ice) using a curved stick.

Interesting Fact:
Did you know that Popcorn dates back to 6,700 years ago and was discovered in Peru? American Indians first domesticated the strain of maize which produces popcorn thousands of years ago!

Interesting Fact:


College Prep: Cheyney University of Pennsylvania

• Cheyney University of Pennsylvania was the first ever historically black university.

• Established on February 25, 1837.

• It originated as a school for children by Quakers.

• Notable Alumni is civil rights activist, Bayard Rustin.

Interesting Fact:Military: Doris ‘Dorie’ Miller

Doris Miller, who went by “Dorie,” was one of the first heroes of World War II and was awarded the Navy Cross for actions during the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. His face was even used on a recruitment poster.

Miller was presented with the Navy Cross by Adm. Chester Nimitz, commander of the Pacific Fleet, in a ceremony on the aircraft carrier Enterprise. Miller’s bravery was cited as follows:

While at the side of his Captain on the bridge, Miller, despite enemy strafing and bombing and in the face of a serious fire, assisted in moving his Captain, who had been mortally wounded, to a place of greater safety, and later manned and operated a machine gun directed at enemy Japanese attacking aircraft until ordered to leave the bridge.

Miller was killed in action two years later when his ship, the USS Liscome Bay, a Casablanca-class escort carrier, took a Japanese torpedo.

Interesting Fact:


Military: Colin Powell

• The first Black Secretary of State under the second Bush Administration

• Created the Powell doctrine which eased American intervention unless a direct threat to national security was seen

• “There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work and learning from failure.”

• Secretary of State, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Vietnam Veteran

Interesting Fact:
The following is part of a quote from a sermon given in 1890 by Archbishop John Ireland at Saint Augustine Catholic Church, Washington D.C.

• "It makes me ashamed as a man, as a citizen, as a Christian, to see the prejudice that is acted against the colored citizens of America because of his colour. As to the substance, the colored man is equal to the white man; he has a like intellect, the same blood courses in their veins; they are both equally the children of a common Father, who is in heaven."

It is essential to recognize that Saint Thomas Academy has always been rooted in equal opportunity for all God's children and was important to our founder, Archbishop John Ireland.

Interesting Fact:
Nine months before Rosa Parks, there was a young woman named Claudette Colvin. On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to relinquish her seat on a public bus. Parks' protest sparked the Montgomery bus protests and galvanized the Civil Rights Movement. Yet she was not the first African American individual in Montgomery to stand up against injustice in such a manner. On March 2, 1955, fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin was riding home on a city bus after a long day at school. A white passenger boarded, and the bus driver ordered Claudette to give up her seat. Claudette refused. As she later told Newsweek "I felt like Sojourner Truth was pushing down on one shoulder and Harriet Tubman was pushing down on the other. I was glued to my seat."

Colvin was arrested for her civil disobedience and briefly put in jail. The NAACP and other civil rights groups considered rallying around Colvin's case in their campaign against Alabama's segregation laws before focusing efforts on Rosa Parks' protest nine months later. Nevertheless, Colvin was one of four plaintiffs in the landmark Browder v. Gayle case of 1956, which ruled that the segregation laws of Montgomery and Alabama state were unconstitutional.

Interesting Fact:
DID YOU KNOW…an African-American invented the three-way traffic signal?

We can thank Garrett Morgan for our safe roads today. He was a Black man who was granted a patent in 1923 for a traffic control device which included a third warning signal (“yellow”).

Prior devices simply had stop and go signals. He invented this device after witnessing a serious accident at an intersection near his home. He later sold the rights to this device to General Electric for the reported amount of $40,000. He also became the first African American to own a car in Cleveland, Ohio.

Interesting Fact:
AN AFRICAN AMERICAN HELPED MAKE A GAMING SYSTEM LINE X-BOX POSSIBLE

Jerry Lawson was a Black man and an engineer during the 1970’s, a time when there were very few people who looked like him in that field. Despite not graduating from college, his creativity and technology skills helped him invent the interchangeable video game cartridge.

Prior to this, games were hard-wired into the gaming console and could not be changed. This invention single-handedly changed the video game industry and made the video game systems we have today possible.

Interesting Fact:
THE FIRST BOOK OF POETRY WAS PUBLISHED BY AN AFRICAN-AMERICAN WOMAN IN 1773

Captured and sold into slavery as just a girl, Phillis Wheatley rose above her station to become the first published African American female author.

Despite living most of her life as a slave, she learned to read and write and studied the classic works. She was recognized as a gifted writer and published her first poem when she was only 12 years old.

Interesting Fact:
THERE WAS A BLACK WALL STREET IN TULSA

Tulsa, Oklahoma was the home of one of the most affluent African American communities in the early 1900’s. The area was dubbed Black Wall Street because it was filled with African American doctors, lawyers, and entrepreneurs, even though Jim Crow was still the law of the land.

With 15,000 residents, 600 black-owned businesses were thriving, but they also drew a dangerous amount of envy from area Whites. On June 1, 1921, Black Wall Street was destroyed by bombs and fire, killing nearly 300 people. The neighborhood never recovered.

Interesting Fact:
Did you know that Edward T. Welburn was the first African-American designer to join GM (General Motors) in 1972. He was later named the Director of GM's Advance Design in 1998. He and his team are responsible for the designs that changed Cadillac and Buick as we know it today! He rose to be the VP of GM Design North America on October 1, 2003 until his retirement on July 1, 2016.

Interesting Fact:
John Chavis was the first known black person to receive their college degree from Washington and Lee University in 1799. Additional facts: He was born a free person, he enlisted in the Continental Army in 1778, originally enrolled in the College of New Jersey (now known as Princeton University) in 1792, then transferred to Washington and Lee and received his degree in ministry with honors. Mr. Chavis became the first black preacher licensed by the Presbyterian Church in the U.S in 1800 and ministered to a black and white congregation. He contined to serve as a minister until 1832 when he was forced to leave the profession after North Carolina passed a series of laws barring blacks from certain professions. To learn more about John Chavis, click here.

Interesting Fact:
Did you know that the modern development of crop rotation was perfected by George Washington Carver? Carver already had great successes in the laboratory and the community. He taught poor farmers that they could feed hogs acorns instead of commercial feed and enrich croplands with swamp muck instead of fertilizers. His idea of crop rotation proved to be most valuable. Through his work on soil chemistry, Carver learned that years of growing cotton had depleted the nutrients from soil, resulting in low yields. But by growing nitrogen-fixing plants like peanuts, soybeans and sweet potatoes, the soil could be restored, allowing yield to increase dramatically when the land was reverted to cotton use a few years later. To further help farmers, he invented the Jessup wagon, a kind of mobile (horse-drawn) classroom and laboratory used to demonstrate soil chemistry. Click here to learn more about this pioneer!

Interesting Fact:
Have you seen the movie Hidden Figures? Did you know the movie was based on Katherine Johnson's mathematical calculations of orbital mechanics. Johnson was called upon to do the work that she would become most known for (Obrital Mechanics). The complexity of the orbital flight had required the construction of a worldwide communications network, linking tracking stations around the world to IBM computers in Washington, Cape Canaveral in Florida, and Bermuda. The computers had been programmed with the orbital equations that would control the trajectory of the capsule in Glenn’s Friendship 7 mission from liftoff to splashdown, but the astronauts were wary of putting their lives in the care of the electronic calculating machines, which were prone to hiccups and blackouts. As a part of the preflight checklist, Glenn asked engineers to “get the girl”—Johnson—to run the same numbers through the same equations that had been programmed into the computer, but by hand, on her desktop mechanical calculating machine. “If she says they’re good,’” Katherine Johnson remembers the astronaut saying, “then I’m ready to go.” Glenn’s flight was a success, and marked a turning point in the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union in space. Here you will find her full story.

Interesting Fact:

Margaret “Maggie” Gee
Maggie Gee was one of the first Chinese American women to join the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) during WWII. She flew military aircraft to transport cargo and personnel contributing to the war effort and breaking racial and gender barriers.

Interesting Fact:

Dr. Ming Wang
Dr. Wang was a young student going to MIT when he first came to the US. He graduated and went to med school at Harvard. He then dedicated his life to helping the blind see again and is currently based in Nashville, Tennessee where he started the Wang Foundation for Sight Restoration.

Interesting Fact:
Yuri Kochiyama was Japanese American activist who was known for her involvement in the Civil Rights, Anti-war, and Asian American Movements. 

“Remember that consciousness is power” - Yuri Kochiyama

Interesting Fact:

Patsy Mink was the first Asian American Woman to be elected into the United States Congress. She represented Hawaii in the House of Representatives for a total of 24 years.

Interesting Fact:
Although liquid crystal display (LCD) has long been used in televisions and computer monitors, a thinner, lighter and overall superior display technology is steadily dethroning it. Physical chemist Ching Wan Tang PhD and chemist Steven Van Slyke were working at the Eastman Kodak Company together when they invented the organic light-emitting diode (OLED) in 1987. It produces a more vibrant display than LCD because it generates all colors, provides higher contrast and does not require a backlight. Major companies like Apple, Samsung, Sony and LG now use this technology to make smartphones, TVs, tablets and smartwatches even smaller, thinner and lighter, with the global demand for smartphones driving the demand for OLEDs. By 2022, they are expected to be produced at a rate 25 times greater than the previous decade.

Dr. Tang is named on 84 patents and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2018 for his co-invention of the OLED. Since 2013, he has been teaching at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology as the IAS Bank of East Asia Professor.

Interesting Fact:
Did you know? 1854: People v. Hall determines that Chinese people cannot testify against white defendants.

With hate crimes against Asian Americans skyrocketing during the pandemic, many choose the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act as a historic marker for how they are treated in the U.S. Rather, it is the notorious 1854 California Supreme Court case of People v Hall. George Hall had been convicted of murder through the testimony of three Chinese eyewitnesses. On appeal, the court disqualified the testimony. California banned specific groups (“Negros, blacks, Indians, and mullatoes”) from testifying against whites, but “Chinese” was not included. This judge became legislator by interpreting, through his convoluted logic, that the Chinese were “Indian” and/or “Black.” The opinion spewed vile racism citing the eminent threat that if Chinese people can testify against whites, they would become full equal citizens. This marks the beginning of how discrimination against Asians became the norm.

Hall got away with murder.

Interesting Fact:
In the 1940s and 1950s, Chinese-born physicist Chien-Shiung Wu, Ph.D., was instrumental in the developing field of atomic science. This included the Manhattan Project: the code name for research into atomic weapons during World War II. Specifically, she improved existing technology for the detection of radiation and the enrichment of uranium in large quantities. Following the war, Wu’s research focused on beta decay, which occurs when the nucleus of one element changes into another element. In 1956, theoretical physicists Tsung Dao Lee, Ph.D. and Chen Ning Yang, Ph.D. asked Wu to devise an experiment that would prove their theory on beta decay. Wu did exactly that, but did not receive the 1957 Nobel Prize along with Lee and Yang—one of many examples of her work being overlooked. An early advocate for women in STEM, Wu spoke at a symposium at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1964, famously telling the audience, "I wonder whether the tiny atoms and nuclei, or the mathematical symbols, or the DNA molecules have any preference for either masculine or feminine treatment.” To learn more about Professor Chien-Shiung Wu, click here.

Interesting Fact:
Throughout her 30-year career, Filipino American physician and pediatric immunologist Katherine Luzuriaga, M.D., has made significant contributions to our understanding of persistent viral infections in children. In addition to developing one of the early diagnostic tests for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection in children, Luzuriaga also conducted clinical research into antiretroviral therapies (ART) labelled for use in children. In 2014, Luzuriaga and her colleague Deborah Persaud, M.D., were credited with being behind the first well-documented case of an HIV-infected child being functionally cured of the infection (meaning that the toddler showed no signs of the disease or detectable levels of virus—that is, without detectable levels of virus and no signs of disease, even without taking ART). “Despite the fact that research has given us the tools to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV, many infants are unfortunately still born infected. With this case, it appears we may have not only a positive outcome for the particular child, but also a promising lead for additional research toward curing other children,” NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. said in a 2014 news release from the National Institutes of Health. Want to learn more about Katherine Luzuriaga M.D.?Click here.

Interesting Fact:
Did you know that there are more than 300,000 living Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander American veterans. The Library of Congress's Veteran's History Project honors those veterans who have shared their stories. Please click here to leare more!

Intersting Fact:
Born in the Philippines, Larry Itliong immigrated to the United States in 1929 at the age of 15 and immediately began working as a laborer, up and down America’s West Coast, as well as in Alaska. By 1930, he joined striking lettuce pickers in Washington, and spent the next several decades working as a labor organizer and eventually, a union leader—including forming the Filipino Farm Labor Union in 1956.

In 1965, Itliong and some of his union colleagues organized the Delano Grape Strike: a walkout of 1,500 Filipino grape-pickers demanding higher wages and improved working conditions. As the movement gained momentum, Delores Huerta and Cesar Chavez from National Farm Workers Association joined Itliong and the Filipino Farm Labor Union. Eventually, the two groups combined to form the United Farm Workers, and the strike ended in 1970—but not before making major strides for agricultural workers, regardless of ethnicity.

"We got wage increases, a medical plan for farm workers, we set up five clinics, a day care center and a school," Huerta said in an interview.

Interesting Fact:
Dr. David Ho, a TaiwaneseAmerican physician: He developed foundational research for the modern “cocktail” antiretroviral therapy, of which Dr. Ho was an early champion. Click here to learn more about Dr. David Ho.

Interesting Fact:
Did you know Asian Americans have designed some of the most iconic buildings in our nation. One notable architect is Chinese American I.M Pei, who is known as one of the greatest architects to date. Some buildings that he designed that you may well know include the John F.Kennedy Memorial Library and The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Museum. Although being one of the greatest architects it hasn’t always been easy, being one of largely known Asian American architects he has faced a lot of backlash. For instance Peri, who designed the Pyramid at the Louvre in Paris, had initially faced backlash for being selected over French firms. Instead of backing out he designed and had created one of the most iconic buildings in one of the most iconic cities, Las Vegas.

I.M Peri although he is one of the most influential architects that is Asian American he is not the only one. Many notable architects in the AAPI Community include Minor Yamasaki who designed the World Trade Center, and Eugen Choy, Gilbert Leonge, Gin Wong, and Helen Liu Fong who helped create the cityscape of Los Angeles. The next time you visit any of these monumental buildings, keep in mind the people who designed it.

Interesting Fact:
Modern navigators often use instruments like compasses, radar equipment, and Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers to navigate the seas. However, early Polynesian voyagers found their way across oceans by understanding natural cues from the sun, moon, stars, clouds and waves. Around the 14th century, this traditional art of wayfinding to go on long-distance ocean voyages gradually died out. Native Hawaiian master navigator Nainoa Thompson became the first to practice it again when he combined traditional wayfinding principles and modern science to develop the star compass, a conceptual direction system, in 1980.

The star compass is a visual representation of how navigators view the horizon around them to find their way. Unlike a physical compass, Thompson’s invention is a mental construct for navigation that splits the visual horizon into 32 houses where a certain celestial body is located. This allows navigators to orient themselves by identifying the position of the stars as they rise and set, without the need for any navigational instruments.

In 1992, Thompson began training new Hawaiian navigators to preserve tradition and pass on the knowledge to future generations.

Interesting Fact:
In the early 1990s, connecting a device like a keyboard, mouse, or printer to a computer required a time consuming and laborious installation process. Computer architect Ajay Bhatt saw the need to simplify this approach. He began visualizing a technology that would allow devices to connect to computers more easily, similar to the way plugs fit in electrical wall outlets. Companies like Microsoft and Apple were hesitant to break the existing compatibility functions of computers, but Intel — the company Bhatt was working for at the time — backed his idea and helped him develop it. This invention would later change the entire computer industry.

In 1994, Bhatt and his team created Universal Series Bus (USB) technology, allowing users to connect different components to computers without extra hassle. The USB hub serves as a “translator” for various devices, making it easier for computers to understand different commands. Intel made the technology open and royalty-free, and Bhatt believed they had every right to do so — even though it meant that he didn’t get rich off of his invention. “I don’t do these things for money,” he said.