Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
Manuel Ferreira and his family in 1926. Photo courtesy of Lighthouse Digest, via Coast Guard Compass, Official Blog of the U.S. Coast Guard. During most of the first half of the 20th century, Manuel Ferreira served as a lighthouse keeper in the then-U.S. territory of Hawaii. Ferreira’s dedication and achievements in this role earned him... Continue Reading →
Chinese-American structural engineer Tung-Yen Lin left a formidable legacy when it came to transportation projects across the globe. “He was an extraordinarily creative engineer,” said Karl S. Pister, a former dean of engineering at the University of California (UC), Berkeley, who knew Lin for more than a half-century. Lin was born in 1912 in the... Continue Reading →
Sudhir K. Gupta is an Indian-American business executive who made key contributions to transportation during his long career. Gupta graduated with a B.S. degree in marine engineering from the Marine Engineering College in India in 1972 and with a B.S.E. degree in naval architecture and marine engineering from the University of Michigan in 1981. He... Continue Reading →
A fuzzy, many-generations-old photo of Shigeru Serikaku in front of his plane is one of the few images remaining of the adventurous issei from Sashiki, Okinawa. (Courtesy of the Serikaku family, via The Hawaii Herald) As a 13-year-old boy growing up on the Japanese island of Okinawa, Shigeru Serikaku (1890-1971) learned about how the Wright... Continue Reading →
During the summer of 1992, Eugene Huu-Chau Trinh became the first Vietnamese-American to travel to outer space when he flew aboard Space Shuttle Columbia as a payload specialist on mission STS-50. This mission lasted from June 25 to July 9 of that year. Trinh was born in 1950 in Saigon (present-day Ho Chi Minh City)... Continue Reading →
As a longtime American citizen, Korean-born John M. Chun carved out an enviable niche for himself as an automobile designer. His innovative products ranged from toy cars to actual high-performance automobiles. Chun started out life in present-day North Korea in 1928. He moved to South Korea in 1953 after active fighting in the Korean War... Continue Reading →
Michael A. Chowdry was a Pakistani-American who combined a strong enthusiasm for flying with his entrepreneurial talents to become a major force in the aviation industry. Chowdry, who was born in Pakistan in 1954, moved to the United States in 1976. He graduated from the University of Minnesota Crookston in 1978 with a degree in... Continue Reading →
Leah Hing, who was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1907, achieved a historic record in 1934 when she became the first U.S.-born Chinese-American woman to earn her airplane pilot’s license. While the better known Katherine Sui Fun Cheung obtained her own airplane pilot’s license about two years earlier, she had been born in China and... Continue Reading →
Abdus Suttar Khan was an Asian American scientist and aerospace researcher who made significant contributions to several modes of transportation. Khan was born in 1941 in Khagatua village in modern-day Bangladesh (at the time part of British India). He graduated from the University of Dhaka in his homeland with a master’s degree in chemistry in... Continue Reading →
During World War II, a large number of Chinese-American women made important contributions to the United States’ efforts in the fight against the Axis powers. A key example of these contributions, many of which centered on transportation, involved Los Angeles’ Chinatown branch of the American Women’s Voluntary Services (AWVS) throughout the war years. AWVS, which... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 