Famous Asian Pacific American people include Nikki Haley, Dwayne Johnson, and Sundar Pichai, among others. May is dedicated to celebrating AAPI Heritage.
Asian-Pacific Islander Americans are defined as anyone having their origin from far Eastern countries including Japan, China, Philippines, Malaysia, and the Indian subcontinent including Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and Maldives.
May was chosen as the Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) heritage month to honor the first Japanese Immigrants arriving in the United States on May 7, 1843. It also honors the Chinese Americans who helped build the Transcontinental railway which was completed on May 10, 1869.
AAPI month can be celebrated in various forms.
Asian American and Pacific Islander heritage month activities are conducted by government departments and institutions involving speakers and experts.
As an individual, you may celebrate by speaking to the owner of your local Asian eatery or having a thought-provoking conversation with a young member of AAPI. Although there is no right way of celebrating AAPI month, the simplest you could do to raise awareness is to let your friend and family circle know about the month.
Similar: 15 Famous Native American Female Celebrities Of All Time
Famous Asian American People
Notable Asian American individuals include David Choe, Nikki Haley, and Chien-Shiung Wu, among others. Asian Americans are found in all sectors of the US.
Asian American celebrities including David Choe, Bruce Lee, and Carrie Ann Inaba, paved the way for others to follow their American dream in Hollywood.
Asian American Pacific Islander famous person like Chien-Shiung Wu played an important role in the field of science and technology with her groundbreaking work in particle physics.
1. Nikki Haley
Nikki Haley is an American politician with an Indian heritage.
Haley is one of the most notable Asian-American politicians in the United States of America. Her popularity has skyrocketed after announcing her candidacy for the upcoming 2024 presidential race rivaling Republican candidate Donald Trump among others.
Nikki was born in Bamberg, South Carolina on January 20, 1972, as Nimarata Nikki Randhawa to Indian immigrant parents of Punjabi descent. Her parents are Raj Kaur and Ajit Singh Randhawa. She also has two brothers Mitti Randhawa and Charan Randhawa in her family.
Haley has been in American politics for a long time now, she previously served as the 116th Governor of South Carolina and later as the 29th United States Ambassador to the United Nations under President Donald Trump.
2. David Choe
David Choe is an American artist with Korean heritage.
Choe is best known for hosting the Vice series titled Thumbs Up! where he was seen hitchhiking and freight hopping between Los Angeles to Miami and Tijuana to Alaska. The duo also crossed China from Beijing to Shenzhen in the same manner.
David is also a renowned murals painter in Los Angeles and is best known for making art for Facebook’s first office in Silicon Valley. He received stocks for the company instead of $60,000 in cash. His stock was valued at over $200 million when the company went public.
The artist was born to Jane Choe and Jimmy Choe, both Korean immigrants to the United States of America. He comes from an artistic background as his mother Jane is also a well-known artist and painter.
3. Norman Bay
Norman Bay is an American attorney with a Chinese heritage.
Bay was born in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, to Chinese immigrants parents. His father is of Hebei descent and his mother is of Shanghai descent, both of his parents immigrated to the United States of America together after World War II.
Norman served as the United States Attorney for the District of New Mexico between September 8, 2000, and October 15, 2001, under President Bill Clinton. He became the first Chinese-American to hold such a position in the United States of America.
The Harvard Law School graduate also served as a Member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission between August 4, 2014, and January 26, 2017. He was chairman of the commission between 2015 and 2017.
4. Sundar Pichai
Sundar Pichai is an American business executive with an Indian heritage.
Pichai is best known as the CEO of the tech giant Google’s parent company Alphabet INC, a position he has held since December 2019. Sundar joined Google in 2004 as a product development manager.
He was born in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India, and attended IIT Kharagpur for his B-Tech degree before moving to the United States of America. In the US he attended Standford University for his MS and later the University of Pennsylvania for his MBA degree.
Sundar was born to his parents Lakshmi and Regunatha Pichai. His mother Lakshmi was a stenographer and his father Regunatha worked for British conglomerate GEC and owned an electrical component manufacturing plant.
5. Bobby Lee
Bobby Lee is an American comedian with Korean heritage.
Lee is best known for co-hosting TigerBelly Podcast with his former partner Khalyla Kuhn. Apart from TigerBelly Podcast, Lee also co-hosts Bad Friends Podcast with Andrew Santino.
He has also appeared in several films and television series including The Dictator, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, and Pineapple Express, among others. Bobby also appeared on MADtv and portrayed several powerful characters including Kim Jong-il, John McCain, and Stewie Griffin, among others.
Lee was born on September 17, 1971, in San Diego, California, to his parents Jeanie and Robert Lee. Both of his parents are Korean immigrants to the United States. Lee also has a younger brother Steve Lee in his family who is also a comedian.
6. Ke Huy Quan
Ke Huy Quan is an American actor born in Northern Vietnam to Chinese parents.
Quan is best known for his debut role in the 1984 film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom as Short Round. His recent film Everything Everywhere All at Once was both critical and commercial success where he portrayed the character of Waymond Wang.
Ke has an uncanny resemblance to popular Hong Kong actor Jackie Chan. He was born in Saigon, South Vietnam on August 20, 1971, to Chinese descent parents. His family later moved to Hong Kong and then shifted to the United States of America as refugees.
Quan became the second of two Asian-born actors to win Academy Awards in best supporting actor roles and was named Top 100 influential person in 2023 by Times magazine following his numerous accolades and awards for his 2022 film Everything Everywhere All at Once.
7. Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee was a prominent American actor and martial artist with citizenship in both Hong Kong and the United States of America.
Lee was born in San Francisco, California, to a Cantonese opera singer father Lee Hoi-Chuen, and his mother Grace Ho was of Eurasian descent. Although both of his parents were based in Hong Kong, they were attending international opera tours in the US when Bruce Lee was born making him an American citizen by birth.
Bruce Lee is often considered one of the most important figures in developing martial art culture in the United States of America. Although Lee passed away at the relatively young age of 32 years old, he appeared in several dozens of films and television series and wrote three books in his career.
Lee tragically passed away on July 20, 1973, in Kowloon, British Hong Kong, at the age of 32 years old. His death was ruled as death by misadventure after the autopsy report indicated swollen brain caused by an allergic reaction to the medicine he took for his headache that day.
8. Chien-Shiung Wu
Chien-Shiung Wu was a Chinese American physicist who was also known as The First Lady Of Physics.
Wu was part of the Manhattan Project that created the first Atomic Bomb in the world. She helped to create a process for separating uranium into uranium-235 and uranium-238 isotopes by gaseous diffusion.
Chien is also known for conducting the famous Wu Experiment that proved parity is not conserved. The experiment also helped her two colleagues to win Nobel Prize for Physics in 1957 and Chien was later awarded the inaugural Wolf Prize in Physics in 1978.
The Physicist was born in Liuhe, Taicang, Jiangsu in China on May 31, 1912, before moving to the United States of America in 1936 to attend the University of Michigan. She never got to see her parents after embarking on a voyage to the US aboard SS President Hoover. She only visited China in the 1970s.
Wu passed away on February 16, 1997, after suffering a stroke. She was rushed to the hospital in New York City but was pronounced dead on arrival.
Famous Pacific Islander American People
Famous Pacific Islander American People include Dwayne Johnson, Jason Momoa, and Samoa Joe. Pacific Islanders include Native Hawaiian and Samoan Americans.
Pacific Islander celebrities include Nicole Scherzinger and Samoa Joe among others. Notable Asian American and Pacific Islanders are known for their contribution to any fields ranging from entertainment to science and technology.
1. Dwayne Johnson
Dwayne Johnson is famously known as The Rock in Hollywood by his fans and followers.
Johnson is an American actor, film producer, and former professional wrestler. He made his film debut in 2001 with the film The Mummy Returns where he portrayed the character of The Scorpion King. Since his debut, The Rock has amassed over 106 acting credits on his IMDb profile.
Dwayne was born on May 2, 1972, in Hayward, California to his parents Ata Johnson and Rocky Johnson. He has a Samoan ancestry through his mother’s side and briefly lived in New Zealand with his mother’s family.
Before Johnson made his professional wrestling or acting debut, he played football in high school and later accepted a full athletic scholarship at the University of Miami. He was signed by the Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League to play professional football but Dwayne never made a professional debut.
2. Nicole Scherzinger
Nicole Scherzinger is an American singer, songwriter, and actress from Honolulu, Hawaii.
Scherzinger was born on June 29, 1978, in Honolulu, Hawaii, to her parents Alfonso Valiente and Rosemary Elikolani Frederick. Her mother Rosemary had a native Hawaiian ancestry while her father was a Filipino.
Nicole made her acting debut in 2001 with the television series Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Scherzinger has amassed 45 acting credits since her debut. However, she is equally known for her singing as well. She has released two full-length studio albums.
She also gained attention as the lead singer of the American Girl Group and Dance Esembel The Pussycat Dolls.
3. Jason Momoa
Jason Momoa is an American actor and film producer best known as Aquaman in DC Extended Universe.
Momoa was born on August 1, 1979, in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Coni and Joseph Momoa. His mother Coni was a photographer of European descent and his father Joseph was a painter of Native Hawaiian descent. His parents split shortly after his birth.
Jason made his acting debut as Jason Ioane in the long-running television series Baywatch Hawaii. His film debut came as Navarro in the 2004 film Johnson Family Vacation. Since his debut, Jason has amassed 43 acting credits on her IMDb profile.
His notable appearance includes Dune, Game of Thrones, Slumberland, Fast X, Aquaman, and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, among others.
4. Tulsi Gabbard
Tulsi Gabbard is an American politician and former U.S. representative for Hawaii’s 2nd congressional district.
Gabbard was born on April 12, 1981, in Leloaloa, Maʻopūtasi County, on American Samoa’s main island of Tutuila. She has both European and American Samoa heritage from her parents’ sides.
She was elected to the Hawaii House of Representatives at the age of just 21 years old, starting her political career very early. Tulsi has held different positions in her career including Member of the Honolulu City Council from the 6th district, Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee, and Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Hawaii’s 2nd district.
Apart from her political career, Tulsi also served in Hawaii Army National Guard. She was deployed in Iraq and Kuwait.
5. Samoa Joe
Samoa Joe is an American professional wrestler.
His real name is Nuufolau Joel Seanoa and he is currently signed to All Elite Wrestling and is famously known by his moniker Samoa Joe. He was born on March 17, 1979, in Orange County, California. He spent his childhood in Hawaii with his parents and family.
Joe made his stage debut at the age of just 5 years old in the 1984 Summer Olympics as part of a Polynesian dance troupe with his parents. He later started playing Judo and was California State Junior Judo Champion, Joe also played football in high school.
Although much about his ancestry is unknown as he has not revealed information about his parents or his grandparents on the web, Samoa is currently billed from Huntington Beach, California, and The Isle of Samoa.
6. John S. K. Kauwe III
John S. K. Kauwe III is an American geneticist and academic administrator.
John was born in Provo, Utah, on April 10, 1980. He was born to his parents John Sai Keong Kauwe Jr. and Rhonda Beth King Kauwe and has a mixed ancestry of Native Hawaiian, European, and Asian.
He graduated with Bachelors’s and Masters’s degrees from Brigham Young University in 1999 and 2003 respectively. John attended Washington University in St. Louis to earn his Ph.D. degree in 2007. He completed his post-doctoral fellowship at Washington University School of Medicine in 2008.
Kauwe joined Brigham Young University in 2009 as a lecturer and was promoted to full professor by 2018. He has been serving as the 11th President of Brigham Young University–Hawaii since July 1, 2020.
7. Liliʻuokalani
Liliʻuokalani was the last Queen to rule over the Kingdom of Hawaii before it was overthrown.
She was born on September 2, 1838, in Honolulu, Oʻahu, Hawaiian Kingdom. She ascended the throne on January 29, 1891, and was overthrown by the pro-American elements of the island on January 17, 1893.
After she was overthrown by the American forces and the attempt to restore the monarchy in Hawaii failed, the Queen was placed on house arrest where she composed several kinds of literature. She was an accomplished author and songwriter.
Her biography Hawaiʻi’s Story by Hawaiʻi’s Queen proved to be instrumental in understanding the annexation of Hawaii story from the Monarch’s perspective. She also wrote several songs and songbooks to preserve Hawaiian-style music.
8. Wilhelmine Kekelaokalaninui Widemann Dowsett
Wilhelmine Kekelaokalaninui Widemann Dowsett was a Hawaiian women’s rights activist.
She was born to Hermann A. Widemann and Mary Kaumana Pilahiuilani in Lihue, Kingdom of Hawaii, on March 28, 1861. Her father Hermann was a German immigrant and politician and her mother was a descendant of the Royal Family of the Kingdom of Hawaii.
Wilhelmine worked tirelessly for suffrage and other fundamental rights. She was also the founder of the National Women’s Equal Suffrage Association of Hawaii (WESAH) and pressed for voting rights for women in Hawaii before the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed in 1920.
To remember her remarkable contribution to women’s rights activism in Hawaii and in the United States of America, she was honored by the National Women’s History Alliance in 2020.
NEXT: List Of Native American Tribes That No Longer Exist