National Asian American/Pacific Islander Heritage Month was recognized at the Middle East District May 16 with an equal employment opportunity special emphasis lunch-and-learn event attended by more than 60 employees.
This year’s theme is Building Leadership: Embracing Cultural Values and Inclusion.
The guest speaker, senior executive service member Stacey K. Hirata, chief of Installation Support Division at Headquarters USACE, discussed two Americans of Asian heritage who are known leaders, role models and people who have made a difference in the world.
He began with Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth, a first generation American of Chinese heritage. She is the U.S. Representative from Illinois’s 8th Congressional District. In 2004, she was deployed to Iraq as a Blackhawk helicopter pilot, one of the first Army women to fly combat missions during Operation Iraqi Freedom. When her helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade Nov. 12, 2004, she lost her legs and partial use of her right arm. She was awarded a Purple Heart for her combat injuries. Following a year in recovery at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where she became an advocate for her fellow Soldiers and testified before Congress about caring for wounded warriors, she ran for Congress. Although she narrowly lost in 2006, she was appointed Assistant Secretary of Veterans Affairs in 2009 and ran again in 2012.
Hirata described his role model, the late Senator Daniel Inouye from the state of Hawaii. An American of Japanese heritage, Inouye volunteered for military service in 1943 and served until 1947. His heroism was recognized in June 2000, when he was belatedly awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. He served in government starting in 1954, before Hawaii was admitted into the Union and throughout his life, concluding with the U.S. Senate from 1962 to his death in December 2012.
The district's AAPI Special Emphasis Program also showed a documentary movie about the state of Washington’s Governor Gary Locke, addressing his inauspicious beginnings as the son of Chinese immigrants and demonstrating both the benefits and burdens of being ‘the first.’
“The special emphasis program mission at MED is to promote equal opportunity in the hiring, advancement, training, and treatment of all employees including women, minorities, and individuals with disabilities,” Ingrid Howard, AAPI Special Emphasis Program Manager said. “During the month of May, we celebrate the rich contributions of Americans who trace their ancestry to Asia and the Pacific Islands.
"Mr. Hirata's presentation and the movie really inspired us to be role models and leaders in this great country," Howard said.
AAPI is celebrated each May to commemorate the immigration of the first Japanese people to the United States on May 7, 1843, and to mark the anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad May 10, 1869. The majority of the workers who laid the tracks of the railroad were Chinese immigrants.