THE 80 MOST INSPIRING ASIAN AMERICANS OF ALL TIME

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Nos. 71-80

THE 80 MOST INSPIRING ASIAN AMERICANS OF ALL TIME

71. Morgan Chu
Morgan Chu      Morgan Chu is America's most admired Asian big-firm lawyer. His success is entirely of the blue-chip variety. At 55 he's already a top powerhouse at one of California's most admired and profitable law firms. At a time when most legal behemoths were reeling from the tech slump, Irell & Manella partner Chu was routinely commanding annual draws well into the seven figures.

     Some would consider Chu's tendencies and life philosophy as embodying anything but those of a big firm lawyer. His educational path would be a horror story to parents with conventional ambitions for their kids. He began at UCLA with a BA in poli sci in 1971, followed by a masters in an interdisciplinary major called urban educational policy planning in 1972, then a PhD in law and social policy in 1973. A year later he managed to get an obscure degree called an MsL, masters in studies in law, from Yale. Why not just go to law school? Eventually Chu arrived at that conclusion, getting a J.D. from Harvard. That was his 5th degree in 5 years!

     After joining Irell & Manella, Chu made 1978 when he won a jury verdict in the very first trial ever on a software patent. At the time he began working on that case Chu had been with the first just one year and had neither patent nor trial experience. After that historic verdict, he became the firm's patent tiral lawyer. That put him in a position to win some of the biggest patent verdicts on record, including a $500-million verdict for City of Hope in 2002 on a patent suit against biotech giant Genentech. Soon after, he won a $120 million verdict against Microsoft representing little-known Stac Electronics. Those kinds of verdicts won Chu not only newspaper headlines but the acclaim of his peers: he has been named one of the top 10 trial lawyers in the U.S. as well as patent litagator of the year.

     Not bad for a guy who had to work his way through that long and winding college career. "For a year or two I hashed at a sorority house -- so that was a lot of my meals," Chu recalls, "and worked in dormitories -- switchboard and the mail -- and usually had three or so part-time jobs at the same time. So I had more than enough to live on." He met wife Helen as a UCLA student while they were volunteering as ESL teachers to immigrant Chinese children. Chu maintains that his hobbies are "running long distance slowly, butchering golf courses, falling down ski slopes and swallowing water while swimming, and traveling."
72. Indra Nooyi
Indra Nooyi      Indra Nooyi completed her climb to the top of Pepsico in August of 2006 when she was promoted from CFO to replace the retiring CEO. Her achievement is all the more remarkable because she didn't come to the U.S. until the age of 23. Her impact on Pepsi's fortunes made her Fortune's 11th most powerful woman in business for 2005. Since joining Pepsi in 1994 Nooyi led its 1998 acquisition of Tropicana frozen orange juice business and helped work out its spinoff of Taco Bell, KFC and Pizza Hut as Tricon Global Restaurants in 1997. In August 2001 PepsiCo acquired Quaker Oats. It is now the world's second largest beverage company after Coca-Cola and fourth largest food and beverage company with 142,000 employees around the world.

     Nooyi received her B.A. from Madras Christian College, a Management degree from the Indian Institute of Management in Calcutta and a Yale MBA. She began her career as a management consultant with Boston Consulting Group (BCG). She moved to Motorola, then Asea Brown Boveri, rising steadily up the ranks to senior management. Nooyi is a Successor Fellow at Yale Corporation and serves on the board of directors of Motorola, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. She lives in Greenwich, Connecticut with husband Rajkishan and two daughters.
73. John Okada
John Okada      John Okada's No-No Boy is recognized as both the first Japanese American novel and one of the most intensely felt and authentic novels of the Asian American experience. When it was first released in 1957 (Charles Tuttle) Okada's one and only published novel received virtually no attention from the Japanese American community. It was exactly the wrong story at the wrong time for people trying to put the troubling internment years behind them and fit into a socially rigid America. It wasn't until several years after Okada died, discouraged and unknown, of a heart attack in 1971 (another Pig year) that No-No Boy was discovered by Asian Americans.

     Ironically, had John Okada modeled his protagonist Ichiro after himself, the novel might have enjoyed a better reception from a community eager to prove itself as a true-blue part of America that had done its part in the War and was embracing the American Dream. Instead, he was drawn into the personal history of an acquaintence named Hajime "Jim" Akutsu who had been interned in Minidioka, Idaho. In 1943 Akutsu had answered "no" and "no" to the infamous Questions 27 and 28 of the loyalty questionnaire administered to male internees in 1943. Question 27 asked whether the respondent was willing to serve in the U.S. armed forces. Question 28 asked whether he was willing to "forswear allegiance" to the Japanese emperor. In response to these offensive questions Akutsu had obeyed his indignant heart and responded in the negative. That had made him a "No-No Boy", marked as disloyal to a nation that had betrayed him. A year later Akutsu was convicted as a draft resister and imprisoned for two years.

     John Okada was born in 1923 in Seattle. He served in the Air Force during World War II, attaining the rank of sergeant. After receiving B.A. degrees from the University of Washington in both English and library science, he earned a masters in English literature from Columbia University. Okada embodied the kind of mainstream credentials to which many in the Japanese American community aspired. By all appearances John Okada was a "Yes-Yes Boy". But his novel captured the inner torment all Japanese Americans endured over their racial identities. Ultimately, No-No Boy looks beyond the Japanese American identity to trace the deep veins of racism that divide Asian from White, White from Black, Black from Asian.

74. Maya Lin
Maya Lin      Despite several other monuments that show admirable devotion to the unity of form and function, Maya Lin's fame is based on a design she submitted as a 21-year-old Yale senior to the national Vietnam Veterans Memorial competition. When Lin's design was picked from among 1,400, many veteran's groups denounced it as a "gash of shame". But once the Monument was completed in 1982, even the harshest critics came to appreciate the subtle but compelling visual logic of the polished walls of black granite from southern India.

     Within the varied architectural landscape of Capitol Mall, Lin's Vietnam Veterans Memorial has come to embody, more compellingly than any other, the national lesson that reconcilation precedes healing. The opposing wings of the walls meet at a 125-degree angle, joining at their deepest point. Together the walls contain the 58,175 names of those who died in the Vietnam War. When it was built, the memorial defied every American cliche about war memorials. Today it has come to define a new aesthetic in the field.

     Lin's other projects have neither drawn similar levels of scrutiny nor attained such prominence. Lin's Civil Rights Memorial (1989) in Montgomery, Alabama, Groundswell (1993) at Ohio State University, and The Wave Field (1995) at the University of Michigan all embody her devotion to honoring the land on which a structure is founded.

     Maya Lin was born on October 5, 1959 in Athens, Ohio barely a year after her parents immigrated from China. Her ceramicist father was the dean of fine arts at Ohio University. Her mother was a poet and a professor of literature at the same school. Maya showed an early gift for academics, with a particular interest in the sciences. As co-valedectorian of her high school she won easy admission to Yale. While taking a class in burial architecture during her senior year, Lin was urged by professor Andrus Burr to enter the Vietnam Veterans Memorial design contest. Lin has always devoted as much energy to art as to her more famous architectural projects. She expressed her feelings on both subjects in a book entitled Boundaries (2000). Her status as an American establishment icon was confirmed in 1994 when a documentary called Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision won the Academy Award.
75. Cung Le
Cung Le      As a world champion who had gone undefeated in 16 matches, Vietnamese American kickboxing master Cung Le had nothing left to prove in the sport of san shou, a form of Chinese kung fu that rewards aggressive strikes and takedowns but does not allow grappling. Having won his last san shou-rules match in a Strikeforce light heavyweight bout against Frank Shamrock protegŽ Brian Ebersole June 4, 2005 at the HP Pavilion by unanimous decision, Le was widely regarded the country's most dominant kickboxing champion. At the age of 32, there would have been no shame in retiring from competition and devoting his energy to building up his fight gear business and captaining the U.S. san shou team in international competition.

     But by then hard-core fighters saw the ultimate proving ground as the international blood sport known as cagefighting or mixed martial arts (MMA). Many muay thai, boxing, wrestling, taekwondo, jiu jitsu, judo and karate champions had been drawn into MMA competition. Unlike other types of bouts, MMA fights aren't limited to stand-up techniques like punches, kicks, knees and takedowns. As in a real-world fight, any part of the body can be used to batter, twist or dominate opponents. The only no-nos are gouging eyeballs, striking genitals or twisting toes and fingers. The loser faces a stark choice: be destroyed or accept the humiliation of submission.

     In front of over 18,000 screaming fans at the San Jose HP Pavilion Cung Le made an impressive MMA debut, knocking out Mike Altman in 3:51 of the first round. His second MMA bout was equally impressive. On June 9 he scored a TKO in 4:19 of the first round against Brian Warren. Le impressed the crowd by starting with effective high kicks and spinning back kicks, then ended the fight with a series of punches that dropped Warren.

     In addition to leading the U.S. san shou team in international competition in Vietnam later this year, Le is working on his movie ambitions with multiple projects. One action film currently filming stars Le and co-stars David Carradine, Eric Roberts and Gary Bussey.
76. Leehom Wang
Leehom Wang      Any Asian American who has ever felt that, in an Asian-centric world, he might have become a pop star instead of a doctor, accountant or computer engineer can point to Leehom Wang. Not only has Wang attained international pop stardom, he has done it while coining a new, uniquely Asian genre. His "chinked-out" music incorporates tribal sounds from China, Tibet, and Mongolia with more classical influences to create a sound that feels culturally rooted. Heroes of Earth, his most recent album, takes typical pop candy chords and infuses them with strains that could only have come from the Beijing Opera.

     At 22 Wang became the youngest artist to win the Golden Melody Awards, Taiwan's equivalent of the Grammies, for Best Male Artist of the Year and Best Producer of the Year. A years later he became the youngest Best Producer of the Year and Best Male Vocalist at the Golden Melody Awards of 1999. Wang has released 10 Mandarin and two Japanese albums. His concerts attract hordes of screaming female fans in Singapore, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Taipei and Tokyo. He even has a big role Lust, Caution, the next big-budget movie from Oscar-winning director Ang Lee.

     Leehom Wang was born May 17, 1976 in Rochester New York. He is the black sheep from a family of doctors. His father is a pediatrician, his older brother is a Yalie doctor based out of Chicago. His younger brother, also a doctor, graduated from MIT. Wang himself is no academic slouch. He was high school valedictorian, scored a perfect 1600 on his SATs, and was accepted to both Yale and Princeton. But passing up Ivy prestige for the chance to pursue his passion, attended Williams College and the Berklee College of Music. His defection to music was finalized in 1995 when, while vacationing in Taiwan, he was signed to a professional recording contract.
77. John Liu
John Liu      New York City Councilman John Liu directed public outrage against hip-hop DJ Troi Torain for calling the half-Asian wife of a rival DJ a "slant-eyed whore". Torain was fired by WWPR-FM (Power 105.1). The next day the New York City Police Hate Crimes Unit arrested Torain for endangering the welfare of a child.

     Few moments were sweeter in Liu's career as a City Councilman in the first year of only his second term representing Flushing, Queensboro Hill and several other sections of Queens. As was his namesake John F. Kennedy, Liu is touched by the shadow of a father who strayed outside the law. In addition to renaming his sons John, Robert and Edward, the elder Liu went so far as to rename himself Joseph. He was an ambitious man who rose to become president of Great Eastern Bank, which served a predominantly Chinese clientele in Flushing. In 2001, as his son John was fighting a close race to win his first term in City Council, Joseph was convicted of bank fraud. While his son was enjoying the triumph of his career, Joseph served one month in prison and six months of home confinement. Today John Liu calls his father Òa low-level bank clerkÓ.

     After graduating from the Bronx High School of Science, a selective public magnet school, and Binghamton University, Liu worked as a manager at the prestigious financial consulting firm of PriceWaterhouseCoopers. He uses that finanancial expertise aggressively to sniff out inefficient or mismanaged areas of city government. As chairman of the Council's Transportation Committee, he has won supporters across ethnic lines by championing reforms to improve bus and taxi service and to improve traffic flow efficiency.

     The best known of Liu's crusades is pushing the NYPD to find the shooters of Chinese deliverymen FaHua Chen and Shi Yi Yan. So many Chinese deliverymen are routinely robbed and assaulted in New York that the NYPD was suspected of simply going through the motions after FaHua Chen died after being shot in the face. The arrest in late June of the two men accused of the shooting is credited to tips that were phoned in. Arguably, those tips may never have come in but for the publicity generated by Liu's efforts. Arguably the police may not have worked those tips so thoroughly but for the pressure brought to bear by Liu.
78. Koichi Nishimura
Koichi Nishimura      During his decade as Solectron's CEO Koichi Nishimura led the company to become the world's largest, most profitable provider of electronics manufacturing services. His winning strategy was to implement an industry-leading feedback system that lets employees respond quickly to customer needs and market conditions. During his tenure as CEO, Solectron's contract manufacturing clientele came to include elite brands like IBM, Cisco, Dell Computers, Nortel Networks, Lucent Technologies, Hewlett-Package, Sun Microsystems and Sony.

     Nishimura joined Solectron in 1988 when it was a regional company with one factory, 1,500 employees and $93 million in annual sales. He was named president in 1990 and CEO in 1992. Today the company has over $12 billion in annual sales and 72,000 employees in 150 factories around the world. He had spent the preceding 23 years at IBM where he held senior management positions in the disk file design, technology and manufacturing divisions. For his contribution to advancing manufacturing practices, Nishimura has been recognized by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and Solectron was twice awarded the Federal Government's Malcom Baldridge Award for manufacturing quality.

     Koichi Nishimura was born August 31, 1939 in Pasadena. His was among the Japanese American families sent to the Manzanar internment camp.
79. Hubert Vo
Hubert Vo      Texans may soon be thanking Hubert Vo for a common-sensical new law. Vo's bill, which recently passed the state senate, would force utilities to accept the postmark date as the date on which a bill is paid. Its uncertain whether that bill will pass the conference committee, but Vo is used to uncertainty. He won his first term as a state legislator in 2004 by 16 votes! And that was after enduring a recount forced by the losing incumbent.

     Hubert Vo's skin-of-the-teeth entry into the Texas legislature was no more difficult than his long and arduous struggle to graduate from college. After arriving in the U.S. Vo worked a wide variety of jobs including waiter, busboy, cook, convenience store clerk, phone book updater, goldsmith and data technician. He supported himself through the University of Houston by working nights as a steel worker at the Hughes Tool company. Vo managed to work his way up the ranks at Hughes from a forge shop assistant to a master machinist while progressing toward his 1983 bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering.

     That degree gave him the credibility to start a business that sold computer systems and networking services to local government agencies. By 1995 Vo had saved enough to buy an apartment building. Since then he added several more apartments and developed an office/shopping mall in the Houston suburb of Alief. And now Hubert Vo has added the distinction of becoming the first Vietnamese American elected to the Texas Legislature.
80. Andrea Wong
Andrea Wong      Don't let anyone tell you that your B.S. in electrical engineering from MIT and Stanford MBA just aren't worth the sheepskin they're printed on. Look at Andrea Wong. She reverse-leveraged those degrees into a research gopher gig at ABC 14 years ago, then clawed her way up to head that network's reality and late-night shows. Wong is credited with firing up ABC's ratings with hot reality shows like Dancing with the Stars, The Bachelor and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. On April 26, 2007 Wong was tapped to infuse life into the Lifetime Network which went from the top of the cable heap to sixth place the past several years.

     It didn't hurt that Wong had become a favorite of Robert Iger, CEO of Disney which, together with Hearst, co-owns Lifetime. Wong admits she didn't just wait for the job but lobbied for it after she had recently been passed up for the job of TLC president and general manager. When she got the job, she was expected to move in a hurry to New York. "It happened very, very quickly," Wong told Anne Becker of Broadcast Newsroom. Apparently she was hired just as Betty Cohen was forced out on April 25 after unveiling Lifetime's programming slate for the coming year. "Yesterday was obviously a crazy day!" Wong says.

     Wong joined ABC in 1993 to work as a researcher for ABC News PrimeTime Live. She then moved up to executive assistant. Wong's most notable achievement was bringing in The Bachelor in 2002. That became a genre-starter, spawning sister show The Bachelorette and 12 different editions around the world. In large part due to that success, Wong was promoted to head of reality/specials/late-night in May of 2004.

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