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Okay. Today is August 8, 2022. And I'm here from the Houston Asian American Archive interviewing Mr. Ed Gor. My name is Sarah Kong, and this is Mr. Ed Gor's second interview with HAAA.

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So, I’d like to begin with my first question: How did you first become involved with the Chinese American Citizens Alliance, and how did this idea for the project to get a Congressional Gold Medal

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arise? Well, Sarah, I've been a member of Chinese American Citizens Alliance for probably close to—almost– almost 40 years, I think, when I first started working with Chinese American Citizens Alliance . They’re a national organization formed in 1895

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in San Francisco. And actually, the genesis of the organization was the result of the mistreatment of Chinese railroad workers back in those days, and so the organization started

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as a pipeline, or a way for us to advocate for the civil rights of Chinese Americans who were part of the railroad effort, and of course, after railroad was finished, many of them were just basically tossed out in the street without

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any work—scapegoated for many of the ills of the country at the time. So, fast forward to today, we–we’re predominantly involved with not only the civil rights, but also immigration issues, advocacy for Chinese

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Americans, and–and most recently, some of the issues having to do with the anti-Asian hate crimes that are going around–around the country. So, one of the things that happened when I first started this project—I was national president from 2013 to

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2017 of the organization. And one of the things that I always thought about when I was–when I was a member, of course, is as people are members of any organization, when you pay dues, there is some expectation that you

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would think that there's some benefits behind being a member of an organization, you know? Say—you say, “What do I get for my benefits?” You know? ”What do I get?” Well, if you think back, way back, when we first started the organization, many Chinese were not able to get some of the basic

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benefits, like insurance. For instance, health insurance and life insurance were not available to them because many of the mainstream companies that are insurance companies were not–were not willing to underwrite those

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kinds of risks, because they knew nothing about the Chinese. So these–these types of policies—health insurance, and life insurance, et cetera—were not available to them. So, C.A.C.A. actually became its own underwriter, if you will.

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Things like insurance—health and life insurance. And even today, we still have a few policies on–on our books of people who are still living, who actually—whose families have policies on their relatives, still, and as those who are passing

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away, are now, you know, doing so, they—their family steps forward and produce those life insurance policies. So, we're able to give them those benefits. So—well, fast forward to today, unfortunately, we find that there's fewer and

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fewer opportunities for organizations like ours to provide membership benefits. So, when I, you know, tasked our board with, you know, trying to find ways to a benefit, because I always feel like we have to–we have to offer something

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back to our members, you know? We just can't have them paying dues. And so, one of the things that struck me was, I was making visits around the country to the various lodges—and we have lodges

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over in about 20 different cities. And one of the things that struck me, of course, was the individuals who were the longest serving members, the ones who had paid their dues all these years, many of them longer, you know, 30-,40-,50-year

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members, were the ones who actually ended up—were the—were the World War Two veterans. And this included men and women, of course. And the interesting thing about that was, these–these individuals

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were loyal to their organization, and believed in its purpose. But over time, we never really had any more benefits for them after about, I would probably say, into the 60s.

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We no longer had any other benefits, other than just being loyal member, you paid your dues, because they believed in the organization and some of the things that we're doing. And so, I thought about this, and I think over the time that I was national president prior before—prior to that, the

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Nisei and the Filipinos had introduced bills in the Congress as well for their World War Two veterans. And over a period of time—I would think it was about eight years prior to ours that the Filip–excuse me, the Nisei got theirs,

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and in 2018, the Filipinos were approved. Well, I ended up meeting a general, Major General Tony Taguba, who's Filipino, and at the time that I met him, he had already retired from the army, but he was at—an ambassador at

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AARP. So, his role at AARP was talking about caregivers for seniors. So, he had a–he had an old dad, who he was taking care of his home, and so I met him in Houston. And he said to me—one day he says, “You know, Ed, you

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guys ought to do the same sort of thing for your Chinese American World War Two veterans, because you guys are the last group,” and basically, that's true. The last group of minorities who've served in World War Two, who are–who ne–who did not get this recognition or honors as well.

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And as–as most people in the United States do not know, is that many minorities served during World War Two. This includes African Americans as Tuskegee Airmen, some of the Native American code talkers, as well as the Nisei and Filipinos,

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and women as well, through the women Air Service Pilots. So, that became a kind of a rallying cry for me to take this on. And so,

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that's how it started at C.A.C.A. So, across the country, of course, I had to get this approved by our board. And they spent a tremendous amount of work to go to the Hill, advocate on Congress, not only–not only there, DC.

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But of course, here locally, you know, you have various senators and congressmen each state. And I would say to you, Sarah, the biggest challenge, as you can imagine is, how many Chinese are there in all 50 states?

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Well, you can almost, you know, narrow it down to maybe about seven states here in the United States where there's any major populations. And you might say, you know, obviously, New York.

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You say, California, Texas, here, maybe Washington State. Little bit in Oregon. Chicago, Massachusetts, where Boston has a—so, if you kind of take those, you know, six or seven areas, you're

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still left with 40-45 states—up to 45 states that do not have a large population of Asian Americans, much less Chinese Americans in those states. So, there's a difficulty in advocating for a bill that is so ethnic, you know,

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ethnic, that you–you have to wonder if you—how many people in Montana are going to advocate for the bill, vote for it? But as things turned out, it was—it ended up being a very successful project, which we were able to do in

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two years, one session of Congress, which is almost unbelievable, when you think about it. But we had the right people helping us, meeting the right people and all that. So, that's kind of how this whole thing started.

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Yeah, that's amazing to hear about. So, you mentioned getting every state. So, do you need representatives from, kind of, all the states to, kind of, vote yes on the bill, or what is—like,

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what is the exact process, I guess? Yeah, for this type of bill, it's not a simple majority. It's actually—you need two-thirds of each house. So two-thirds of the Senate, you know, it's 100 Senators.

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You need 67 there. And in the House of Representatives, 435 representatives, so you need two-thirds of that. So, about 290 you need there.

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The Senate is not as difficult because you–you can–you can meet those–those individuals pretty quickly. So it's only 100 states–50 sen—100 Senators you need to–to convince. And so, we were able to get—I think about almost 70.

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I think 69 or 70 is what the number ended up being. But the House was where it was the most difficult, because obviously, you're not going to find very many Chinese in states like Montana and Idaho, Iowa, you know, the

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Midwest, you know, even along the eastern seaboard, North Carolina, South Carolina. And so, you are just tasked with that tremendous responsibility to try to find those individuals. So what you have to do is really contact those

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individuals who work in the—each–each congressional member’s office, who have a military background. So, the key for us was actually being able to find Chinese American general officers.

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Those who were admirals and generals, who were Chinese Americans, retired, who could help us walk the hill and advocate. And so I think that was the real secret behind why the bill was able to pass because we were able to

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reach some of those people that in each congressional office, most of them have what they called military liaison. In other words, someone who's already in the military, whether they're in the Navy, Army, military, Marines, Coast Guard, who actually are

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staffed within the Congress person's office. So, they get to learn about how Congress works, and what they're able to do in the military. Obviously, you know, that the military has a significant budget, you know, in the nation as well.

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So, it behooves all of them to know each other very well. So, it helps to have that military liaison working in the Congress person's office that we're able to talk to about this particular bill. And as–as you

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can imagine, most people don't even recognize or even have heard of Chinese Americans serving in—not only World War Two, but World War One and the Civil War, going all the way back there. So, it's–it’s a

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new phenomenon, in a way. I don't know if you have any relatives of yours have served in the military, but it's very unusual today, and I think I've looked at some of the numbers. And even today there's—the military only—it

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being all volunteer, there's still only about 5% of the military that has Asian Americans, and most are–are actually not Chinese. Most today—Asian Americans who served in the military on a volunteer-basis are–are Filipinos, Vietnamese, and just a few

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others, you know, Korean as well. So, don't have too many Chinese serving anymore in the military. Yeah, so I researched because when—during school, of course, I feel like—so, I went to a

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public high school in Texas, but I feel like this kind of stuff wasn't really in our textbooks. So, when was–when was the first time that you kind of learned about the achievements of Chinese Americans? Was that when you were serving as president

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of CACA or earlier? I think the only thing that–that I learned in public school, and I live in Houston, so HISD—was probably things like the Great Wall of China, the Opium Wars. Not–not much at all of anything—World War two service,

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not anything about life of the Chinese—the contributions of Chinese, and of course, there's a lot of history behind what Chinese have contributed to the country, not just in the last 25 to 40 years—50 years, but probably going all

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the way back to—like, there was no mention of what–what's—what's the big, big thing that we've done? Was the Transcontinental Railroad, right? I mean, I bet–I'll bet you very few people mentioned the fact that that–that the

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Transcontinental railroad was built by Chinese through Chinese labor, where both the Chinese and the Irish collaborate. You know, one started from the from the East Coast, the Irish, and other one—the Chinese start from the West Coast. And it turns out that—what I've learned is that there

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was a lot of engineering feats that the Chinese were able to bring over from, you know, where they were builders and constructors in China. And more anything else, kind of their ingenuity, actually.

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So, I've been able to take an exhibit of the Transcontinental Railroad. This is about an 80 panel exhibit. And does talk about all of the various accomplishments, engineering-wise, that led them to—what did they do?

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They went through the most treacherous parts of the country, back then. . Like, through the mountains. Through—you know, across valleys, and extreme cold and extreme heat, to kind of build

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that section of the railroad that was very successful. So, that's the other area that–that probably was an accomplishment that–-that really, historically no one talks about. And it's really kind of a shame, in a way because

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even some of the pictures that they showed, back when the railroad was built and completed, don't show any Chinese in those pictures. They're all–all Caucasians, those pictures, you know.

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It's difficult, but it happens. They're not gonna have very many pictures. So, they have reconstructed, I guess, or reenacted some of those photos now, to have Chinese there, in period costume, to–to

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reenact that whole Transcontinental Railroad. So–so, did you read–did you read anything about that when you're going through school? Anything about the railroad? Yeah. Yeah, I think that was maybe one of the few mentions of Chinese

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Americans in our history textbooks, like, building the railroad. But yeah, it’s still very brief. Yeah. Few–few paragraphs and you’re done.

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Yeah . So, yeah, I've also seen that, you know, so Chinese American men and women were—served in, like, every theater of World War Two. And at that time, especially when they face—many of them face discrimination and other barriers.

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So, can you tell us a little about, kind of, their achievements during World War Two? Yeah. Yeah, I think in World War Two, what you found is that a lot of Chinese—if I can just drop back a second

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here, we know that approx—we estimate about approximately 20,000 served during World War Two, out of a census population back in 1940 of about 100,000. So, twenty percent, which is a very, very high number.

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Usually that number is around three or four percent of any population, or you know, any ethnic group to serve. But in our case–in our case, we had twenty percent of our census population actually served in World War Two.

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So, the thing about it is, as you–as you kind of know now, the Chinese Exclusion Act was in effect during the entire time. Of course, the Chinese Exclusion Act was a result of all the things that happened to the railroad workers back in

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1882. So, all through that time, up to and including the beginning of World War One and Two, the Chinese Exclusion Act was in effect. Well, what did that do? It–it actually said that no Chinese can enter the United States,

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and there were some—certain subsets of groups who could, but for the most part, Chinese were excluded from being able to come into the country. So, what happened is that there are so many who were here already, and some, of course, were born here.

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We've—we estimate about forty percent of those who actually served in World War Two were not even citizens. So, they could not vote; They were not able to get citizenship, couldn't own property. All those rights, if you will, that Chinese should have had but

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did not have because of Exclusion Act. So, when you think about that large of percentage of people, why did they serve? You think, well, why–why should I–why should I serve in a war and get killed, if they're not even going to allow me to

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become a citizen or own property? Well, one of the things that happened, you know, of course, back in those days was that the Chinese came to the United States looking for opportunity.

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Of course, you heard about the Gold Mountain story—everybody looking for gold in California. And of course, some of it was true, some probably more–more wives' tales than anything else. How many actually made it in this—in the gold arena?

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So, it turns out that these individuals really came to the United States to have the opportunity, because they knew things were bad in China at the time. So, you come to United States. You want to prove yourself.

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So, one of the things they did, of course, was serve in the United States military to prove their patriotism loyal to the country, because this is where they wanted to be. There was no question about it, you know.

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It's much different today, you know–you know, people who are—can be citizens in many countries. Well, back in those days, they decided they were going to be here. They're going to prove themselves.

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So, many of them—I would say, a large percentage of them—seventy percent served in the Army, and the other thirty percent were from other parts of the military. So, seventy percent served in the army or Army Air

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Force, and the other thirty percent in the Marines, Coast Guard, Navy, Merchant Marines, other branches. So, you can kind of see behind the—some of the–-some of the things—you know, you mentioned earlier that–that

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Chinese Americans served in all theaters of the war, so both Eastern and Western–Western, or Asia Pacific theaters. So, you'll see that—if you look at the design of the medal, it actually represents every facet of the

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military, and how Chinese Americans serve. So if you look at, for instance, on your left, Excuse me. You'll see this—faces of the seven—there

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you go. Of one, two, three, four, five, six seven. See the seven faces. So, those are all of the branches of military service. They served in every branch of the military,

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Army, Army Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard, et. cetera. The one thing that makes us different is that we also recognized the Army nurse. So you see, there's a female there.

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Excuse me. So, we also wanted to recognize her, because she also made a significant contribution. We know that there were Women Air Force Service Pilots, but they have their own Congressional Gold Medal.

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So in this case, we decided to honor the army nurse as well. So, every one of them served, you know, proudly as Americans. And you see on the backside of the–the coin.

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So, that's the–that's the front, the obverse. And the reverse side shows the various branches, and it shows the three major components of the war. So, you're—you've heard the Flying Tiger.

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So, there's a–there's a Flying Tiger right there, P-40. There’s a Sherman tank, and there is the USS Missouri, which shows that we served in land, sea and air. So, that pretty much encompasses everybody's, you know, service.

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We've had–we've had one Medal of Honor winner, Francis Wai, W-A-I. And he was in the army, He was killed in action, and as it turns out, we've actually had quite a few Chinese Americans who served and were killed during

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the war. Most of them have not been recognized, per se. But, you know,as it turns out one of the nice things about our project— excuse me—is that we've been able to recognize some of the individuals who did not get the

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recognition they deserve. So, it's one of those things where, whether because of a lack of recognition, or they were not recognized—they were not, you know, awarded the medals at the time, we're able to

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upgrade some of the medals that some of the individuals received during some of our efforts. So, we've had some really nice bronze star medals people. We have two people who served via–as Army Rangers, so

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that's kind of a special unit right there. And we've had several people who were killed in Normandy. So, yeah—so it's not to say that we were all, you know, drivers, or cooks, or laundry people, but we had many who were actually—had

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heroic deeds back in those days. Yeah, that's amazing to hear about. So, when you first got started, I guess, what were—what was the first step in getting the bill passed?

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Were you—was it just contacting the representatives? Or how did you get started? Well, the first–first step is probably one of the more difficult. Was just trying to get cooperation and

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collaboration in the community, That's gonna be one of the hardest things you can find to do. And when you talk about–talk about that, it's predominantly trying to get everybody on the same page as far as—how do you write

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the bill, you know? You—it requires a lot of research, because you have to have justification for–for having this bill passed. So, as it turns out—oh, I think we had a committee of about—maybe about a

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dozen people. And of course, with a dozen people, you get, probably, two dozen different answers on how to write this bill. So, there's always back and forth.

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And that's probably the same thing that happens within Congress itself, you know? When you have a bill, then whether it's for health care, or whether it's for, you know, research, or anything like that—that's the thing I'd say is one of the more difficult parts is just trying to get

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people to collaborate on writing, what's important about—you know, get the research correct, because you want to make sure your information is correct as well. So, you're obviously always contacting people with a historical

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background into World War Two. Then after that, it's a matter of trying to locate the right co-sponsors of the bill. So within–within both houses of

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Congress, you always need four co-sponsors, basically. Two in the house, two in the Senate. So, what amounts to is you need a Republican and a Democrat in the House and Republican and Democrat in the

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Senate to become co-sponsors of the bill, because each have to advocate in your own—in each house, to have—need to get the momentum going. So, you're trying to find someone who–who has a lot of history, a lot of clout, and someone

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who's able to advocate for the bill themselves, because it helps to have the right name and the right person to do it. So, that's the hard part. And then after that, it’s trying to contact everybody.

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So, how do you find the right people? So, that's the hardest part about–about trying to contact the people, and you have to go to everybody you can. So, here in Houston, we have quite a few, actually, as it turns out.

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So, you know, that's–that's the most difficult part, trying to contact and convince them, so—since we need two thirds of each House to pass the bill. And who were the co-sponsors for this bill?

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Well, in the Senate, we had Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, on the Repub—excuse me, on the Democrat side. And the House—excuse me, on the Republican side, we had Senator

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Thad Cochran. And two interesting stories there would be Tammy Duckworth, as you might know, is a World War—is a veteran herself. She's a helicopter pilot.

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I don't know if you know. She–she lost both her legs in a helicopter crash. So, Tammy is–is part Chinese, part Thai. That's her background. And so, she was one of the

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major co-sponsors who kind of–kind of helped us push the bill through in the Senate. Thad Cochran unfortunately passed away about the middle part, the time we're trying to advocate for the bill. However, Thad Cochran was in

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Mississippi. Now, you might think that's pretty unusual to have a Missi—southern Senator sponsoring a bill that is mostly for Chinese. But you might also know that Mississippi has quite a few Chinese that

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live there—Chinese Americans. Many of them actually live here in Houston now. So, what you found out was Thad Cochran, one of his closest friends was a guy that, at the time, was 103 years

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old. And he was Chinese American. Lived in Mississippi, of course, and his name was Pap Pang, p-a-n-g. And the interesting thing about Mr. Pang was somehow he and this sen—he and Senator Cochran became

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great friends. And so–so, he signed on to the bill to become a co-sponsor because of his friend Pap Pang. And show you how close friends they were: one year, ‘bout two years before he passed, Senator–Senator Cochran had

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Pap Pang come to the halftime of an Ole Miss football game, and they introduced Mr. Pang as a World War Two veteran. Well, you know anybody gets introduced as a World War Two veteran

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anywhere—it doesn't matter where it is, everybody, you know, is–is just, you know, enamored by the fact that not only is—you—do you have a Chinese—you have a World War Two veteran, but you have a Chinese American World War Two

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veteran. So, everybody kind of goes crazy during the halftime. You kind of–kind of saw bits and pieces of that. So, that was kind of a cool story behind why Senator Cochran

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sponsored the bill. Then on the–on the House side, we had House Rep. Ted Lieu from California, who is a veteran as also–he's Taiwanese. And we also have Ed Royce, Representative

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Ed Royce, who's re–who's retired now, but the time he was very—his–his congressional district is in Orange County, which has quite a few Chinese and Asian Americans living there. So, he felt very compelled, because he has supported many military bills in the

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past, and so he's more than happy to be a co-sponsor of this bill. So–so it was–wasn't as difficult, but you still need to know the right people, to get to the right people, to find the right people who will–will help

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sponsor the bill. And so, we're always advocating for that. And–and all along the way, doesn't matter what state you go to, you always have to know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody.

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All the connections. Always about—it's always about the connections. It’s always about trying to find, you know, who has the best connection to reach this particular elected official.

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Yeah, yeah. So, earlier, you also mentioned the Filipinos and other minority groups getting Congressional Medals. So, did you ever talk to their organizers or kind

00:26:33.020 - 00:26:46.550

of collaborate with them on how to get the Congressional Gold Medal? Yeah, absolutely. It was a–it was—the nice thing about that is General Taguba, as I mentioned, he was very,

00:26:46.550 - 00:26:59.640

very, you know, inspirational and became a really good mentor for me to work with. I mean, there's one thing about some of these military guys, they will help you as much as they can, and more than happy to tell you what

00:26:59.640 - 00:27:10.970

to do, even. I mean, because they're–they're used to giving you orders, right? And so, you know, I've never been in the military. Most of these–most of these guys figured that–that anybody who's willing to do this, they're willing

00:27:10.970 - 00:27:24.560

to help you along the way. And, of course, on the other side of the coin, we also had a very instrumental person helping us as well. Was Chinese American, two-star general, General Robert

00:27:24.600 - 00:27:35.120

G. F. Lee from Hawaii. He's retired. And the nice thing about Bob was, he actually worked on the Nisei bill with the Japanese. And so, he—and many

00:27:35.310 - 00:27:52.810

of the things about Bob was, he was part of that— what it was before the 442nd, the Japanese squadron that–that was so famous, you know, for having done so well in World War Two. So, all of his experience, all of Bob Lee's

00:27:52.810 - 00:28:10.630

experience, all of Tony Taguba’s experience, you know, I certainly call upon. Now, the other interesting thing I'll say is, as far as surveillance goes, is that right here in Houston, we have the three people I would say who are most instrumental, each one of the efforts—each

00:28:10.880 - 00:28:24.030

one of the organizations. So, on the Nisei side, we have another Houstonian, Donna Cole. Donna owns Cole Chemical, and Donna was very instrumental with the Nisei effort as well, she’s being–she being Japanese.

00:28:24.760 - 00:28:35.860

And then we had Christy Poisot. Christy Poisot works for Shell Oil. I think she's still with Shell Oil. Anyway, she's Filipino, and she helped on the

00:28:35.920 - 00:28:46.470

Filipino side. So, yeah, I'm blown away. I mean, I had the experience of all these individuals to call upon, to find out about how they did it and what they did.

00:28:46.930 - 00:29:01.230

And yeah, we tried to model as much as we could after them. And maybe—that's probably why we have—we were successful in doing it within the two-year period, because I think the Filipinos—I think—took at least five, six, seven years and Nisei about the

00:29:01.230 - 00:29:12.200

same amount of time. Which is a little bit unusual, because—not so much the Filipino group, but I know in–in Congress, the Japanese have quite a few elected officials.

00:29:12.790 - 00:29:24.790

A lot from California, of course, and Hawaii. So, it—maybe it's a little bit disturbing that it took them so long as well to–to pass their bill, but that finally got passed as well.

00:29:24.790 - 00:29:37.300

So, every bit of success I—we've had on our project, and I think Chinese Americans ought to be very, very, very, very grateful for all the help that–that those two groups gave us.

00:29:37.840 - 00:29:54.170

And I think to some extent, Sarah, I would almost think that the Chinese were a bit spoiled sometimes. You know, when you–when you get this thing done so quickly, few people seem to have, you know, skin in the game.

00:29:55.020 - 00:30:07.850

Because unless you work for something hard and long like the Filipinos and the Nisei did—maybe their groups appreciate it a lot more than our groups did. Because even

00:30:07.850 - 00:30:23.070

though, for the most part, the Filipinos and Nisei served in segregated units, the Chinese did not. Our Chinese were integrated into all units across the spectrum, because they were not in—there was only two segregated units,

00:30:23.070 - 00:30:35.230

I'd say, that Chinese served. And it was I think it's most—only because of the language, and of course, they served in China during that time. But I would have to say that this one thing that–that

00:30:36.620 - 00:30:48.110

I have a little bit regret about is it that the project was so successful so quickly. I think people thought it was so easy. And I think that's the sad part to me about how I don't

00:30:48.140 - 00:31:00.770

think that they—our Chinese community, while they're proud and happy to get this recognition, I don't really believe that they understand how difficult Right. it was to go through the work to get it.

00:31:01.280 - 00:31:17.180

And like I said before, I can only thank those–those individuals that I met along the way, and I—that help with our effort to do this. And so, I say this in all humility that–that I don't–I don't wanna say that–that the Chinese didn't contribute to

00:31:17.180 - 00:31:31.570

some of the work that we did. But I think the fact is, the heavy–heavy hitters and hard pushers and movers were probably some of our friends in the Filipino and Nisei community. Yeah, so when was the

00:31:33.510 - 00:31:47.600

bill finally passed? Yeah, the bill was finally passed in December of 2018. That was one of the—almost one of the last things that happened at the end of 2018 before the Congress, you know, closed the

00:31:47.600 - 00:31:58.640

session. President Trump signed the bill at the very last moment. You may not remember, but historically, there was the partial government shutdown about to happen during that period of time.

00:31:59.220 - 00:32:10.220

So, everybody scrambling out of town ready to leave, getting ready–they were going to shut down the government or partially shut it down, et cetera. So, he was able to sign the bill, so we were able to get things going at the end of 2018.

00:32:10.400 - 00:32:27.870

And from 2019 until May 31, 2021 was–was really our major, active push to register some of the World War Two veterans who—and their families, you know, who knew about the project, and were able to at least sign up or

00:32:27.870 - 00:32:43.480

register, so they could get the, no-cost medals. The medal’s the one we raised funds for. We called upon our donor community to step forward and help donate for the project. Because, you know, it's–it's kind of the typical, I guess,

00:32:43.480 - 00:32:56.920

Chinese way of looking at things. I said. “Well, how does it feel right that you honor somebody, but you make them pay for their own medal, right?” Because the medals have actually increased in price since the time we started this project.

00:32:57.550 - 00:33:10.860

We—the same medal that we–we—well, you see it behind me. But I don't know if I can show you the–the real one here. But the same medal that—in the case that we purchased for the

00:33:10.860 - 00:33:22.280

veterans that was like sixty bucks. I don't know if you can see that kind of, sorta. So that's—this same medal, with the case, was about sixty five

00:33:22.280 - 00:33:31.690

dollars when we first bought it. It has now increased in price, like two hundred dollars. Yeah, so it's like a four-fold increase. I mean, you talk about inflation.

00:33:31.690 - 00:33:46.870

I mean, that's crazy. So–so, that's one of the other things we decided to do was—decided to raise funds so that no veteran or their family would have to pay for the medal, you know. It just doesn't make any sense for us to do things like that, although

00:33:46.950 - 00:34:02.400

other groups are doing it that way now. Because nobody wants—no one can really sustain having to pay $200 for each medal. So–so anyway, we're happy about that. And currently, we have—we've registered just–just shy of

00:34:02.440 - 00:34:15.100

3600 veterans from across the country who are out there. And of that number, I want to say, you know, probably close to two hundred are still living.

00:34:16.760 - 00:34:27.930

So, you can see there's not very many more that are still alive. And I think here in Houston, we have, maybe, about five that are still alive. So, still a pretty good number, in a sense.

00:34:28.860 - 00:34:43.910

But that's–but that's 3600 out of, what, about 20,000. So that's, you know, we're still—you know,it's–it'd be impossible to find them, because a lot of them you can imagine, you know, either were single,

00:34:44.110 - 00:34:58.300

or—they stayed single, didn't marry afterwards, or we just lost track of them. No one knows where they are, you know, and some may have moved back to China. Who knows? So—and difficult part about this too, Sarah, this

00:34:58.340 - 00:35:10.250

project was, how do you contact these individuals? Most people in their 90s are not on any kind of social media, right? And–and the people who are their children, they’re, you know, people my age in their 60s and 70s.

00:35:10.250 - 00:35:19.550

So, how many of them are really actively engaged in social media? So, you say, “Okay, let's talk about how to find a World War Two veteran.” So, that's even more difficult to do. So yeah, it's been, it's

00:35:19.550 - 00:35:36.100

been quite a challenge. Quite a challenge. Yeah. So when was the ceremony held for the gold medal? Well, this was one of the unfortunate things about the pandemic. So, in many other cases, we would have had

00:35:36.100 - 00:35:49.620

the ceremony in Washington DC, the official Congressional Gold Medal ceremony conducted by the Speaker of the House, which at the time, and still is Nancy Pelosi. So, because it—because we could not have any ceremonies

00:35:53.250 - 00:36:06.940

in—together, you know, Congress setting, we ended up having a virtual ceremony, which Speaker Pelosi held December the 9th of 2020, I think it was. So, anyway, 2019, I guess it was. So anyway, what happened was, it's

00:36:06.940 - 00:36:19.080

just not the same as being at Emancipation Hall. We have about a thousand people. And this is–this is—just think about a thousand Chinese Americans sitting in the Emancipation

00:36:19.080 - 00:36:29.690

Hall in D. C., and you have both Houses of Congress, the majority, minority leaders of both Houses of Congress and major leaders there—the sponsors of the

00:36:29.690 - 00:36:42.650

bill, addressing a thousandChinese Americans, which, you know, we were not able to do because of the pandemic. And so, I guess that was what I call the official ceremony. So, everything was done virtually.

00:36:43.320 - 00:36:57.740

Everything from the national anthem, to the pledge of allegiance, to the Speaker Pelosi presenting the medal, to our—to one of our chosen, you know, Chinese World War Twoveterans, Elsie Seetoo. And so, after that, when we were finally able

00:36:57.990 - 00:37:08.000

to have a ceremony, we finally had one, the official one, September 29th, I think it was. September 29th or the 30th. Maybe it was 30th. It's September 30th.

00:37:08.980 - 00:37:20.360

At–at the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Washington, DC. And so we had—it’s amazing. We had seven hundred people come to that ceremony. And actually, that—someone told me

00:37:20.360 - 00:37:33.430

that was the first major event they've had in Washington DC since the pandemic started. So, we were real happy about that. Everything considered it worked out well. I mean, can’t be… Yeah.

00:37:36.150 - 00:37:49.390

Okay, and how did it—yeah, how did it feel, I guess, to be at the ceremony? Were y’all able to invite any veterans to come and be a part of it? Yeah, we actually had four veterans—four living veterans that showed up.

00:37:49.390 - 00:37:59.520

We originally—we were thinking we're gonna have about seventy or eighty, before the pandemic. That's how many that were committed to come. But as it turns out, we only had four.

00:38:00.060 - 00:38:10.780

And they were happy to be there. We had–we had some tremendous ceremonies, the World War Two Memorial, outdoor. And then we had the ceremonies—presentation ceremonies

00:38:11.250 - 00:38:24.290

indoor, at the Crystal Gateway Marriott. And I mean, coming out of the pandemic, with everybody coming there. Everybody's happy. I mean, no one got COVID later. But everyone was really happy to be there.

00:38:24.850 - 00:38:40.780

I mean, it was an event that–that everyone looked forward to. And I would say that I've never seen so many people in the community, happy to be out–out and about, number one. And then number two, to finally recognize even if

00:38:40.780 - 00:38:59.080

their–their dad or mom, or aunt, uncle or aunt were no longer alive, the fact that we're able to recognize them, you know, in this kind of a ceremony, it was really heart–heartfelt and moving. Another interesting thing I found out about at the ceremony was there were people who

00:38:59.080 - 00:39:08.200

were friends that knew each other but didn't know each other was going to be at this event. Because how many–how many–how many times you talk about your dad being a World War Two veteran?

00:39:08.760 - 00:39:18.890

You don't. When you're growing up, you don't—no one—Dad doesn't talk about it, and then the kids don't know about it. And wasn't until later, you know, they found out that their–their dads were World War Two veterans.

00:39:18.910 - 00:39:26.930

Well, even then you know it, but you don't share it with anybody, necessarily, because it's not a big topic of conversation, right? “No, yeah, my dad was a World War Two veteran.” Okay, big deal.

00:39:27.740 - 00:39:44.350

So, I think the matter—the fact of the matter is, all these people ended up seeing each other that didn't know each other is gonna be there. But they found that another common bond with them—with each other that they had dads and moms and uncles, aunts,

00:39:44.420 - 00:39:58.260

brothers, sisters who served in World War Two. So I mean, that's another real nice thing about how we brought people together through this project effort as well, to–to kind of recognize this.

00:39:58.360 - 00:40:13.060

So, you know, a lot of good—lot of really nice things happening. This is–this is a generation of men and women, the parents, who were never recognized much for what they did, Because most of them had total anonymity, right?

00:40:13.060 - 00:40:24.760

I mean, as soon as they got out of the war, they came back, found a career, you know, worked, studied where they—you know, some took advantage of the GI Bill. Came, started a career, got married, had kids, you know, et

00:40:24.760 - 00:40:36.960

cetera. And went on and on. Man–many of them—You know, I'd say—I'd say success—define how they wanted to define success, as far as how their family, their life went. I would say most of these most of these men and

00:40:37.050 - 00:40:52.800

women that we talked to who served have no regrets that just—many of them said to me themselves, who said “This–this is a—”. Despite what you might hear today ‘bout some of the rhetoric—no one

00:40:53.150 - 00:41:01.240

in that age group in that generation said to me, they would—they hate this country. They all said they love this country. They would not be

00:41:01.240 - 00:41:14.520

anywhere, and would not been for–for the things that they were given the opportunity to do. So, yeah. Kind of cool. Seems like a very special moment for them. Oh, for everybody. It’s special for everybody.

00:41:15.000 - 00:41:29.640

Really, really is. Yeah, so I see that you were also involved with the Congressional Gold Medal design liaison team. Yeah. So how was it—yeah, how was it a part—to be a part

00:41:30.820 - 00:41:41.230

of that? Yeah, this is—you know, I've learned so many things. I mean, I've been a STEM person all my life. So I gotta tell you, finding out more about history is very interesting to me at this point in my life.

00:41:41.280 - 00:41:55.930

But I'll tell you, the smartest thing is—one of the smartest things I've ever done was to actually to appoint this gold metal design committee. Everybody in the committee except for me is a military

00:41:55.930 - 00:42:09.290

person. So, what's my thinking there? My thinking is, if–if you open up this thing for input from the public, you'd have ten million opinions on how this medal should be designed.

00:42:10.320 - 00:42:23.070

But I said to myself, “Who knows the work and effort of the military people, especially Chinese Americans, than another Chinese American officer, right?” So, everybody on the committee is a Chinese

00:42:23.070 - 00:42:38.220

American, what they call a "General Officer.” So, General Officer means someone who has rank. So, there is rear admirals in the Navy, as well as two—one to two-star generals who are part of this committee. And the committee

00:42:38.220 - 00:42:50.980

was led by Major General Robert Lee, and so he had experience in designing medals, so he knew how to work with the Mint. And so, that part made it so easy as to—you know, that's the best thing I've ever done is that if

00:42:50.980 - 00:43:02.450

anyone has a question or a problem with how the military medal was designed, I would say, “Go talk to General Lee. You have a problem? Go talk to General Lee.” So, you always go back to the people who know the most about

00:43:02.450 - 00:43:12.580

it, because who knows more about it? I mean, otherwise, us civilians would have been designing things all over the place. We put it in goofy stuff, which kind of is an interesting thing in and of itself.

00:43:12.580 - 00:43:26.810

So, how did we get to where we were? Well, actually, how the Mint does their work is this: they actually have commissioned artists and sculptors on their—on their staff.

00:43:27.890 - 00:43:45.220

And so, each was given a narrative that we wrote about the story—about what we thought Chinese veteran did during World War Two. Their job was to read our narrative, go back, and design—give us a design based upon

00:43:46.360 - 00:44:00.990

that story. And you know, just using their visual techniques, and all that kind of thing, artistic everything. They came up with design. So, we probably had—we had, I think, a dozen designers

00:44:01.130 - 00:44:11.870

and each one submitted a obverse and a reverse of the metal. So you–you get to choose between–between—maybe you like the obverse of one artist, maybe the reverse of another's, you know?

00:44:12.380 - 00:44:26.620

That kind of thing. So, between all of those submissions, there are some that we eliminate pretty easily. And there are others we refined on and worked through. And then you see what behind me is–is what we ended up with.

00:44:27.250 - 00:44:36.260

And I would say—I mean, like I said, I'm a STEM person, but I'm proud—I was pretty impressed with how everything worked itself out. But we had some very interesting designs, Sarah.

00:44:37.670 - 00:44:50.100

I mean, you had–you have flowery leis on some of the designs, yeah. People think—so, it's not exactly—we didn't–we didn't start off with something like as cool and as pretty, you know, spot-on as these–these two

00:44:50.100 - 00:45:08.660

images. So—but as it turns out, actually the artists who submitted the obverse and the reverse was the same person. So–so, we didn't–we didn't argue too much about that. And then, they also have a sculptor that is the person who

00:45:09.040 - 00:45:23.320

creates the sculpture part of it. And I don't know if you can tell, but on the–on the—I think on the reverse side of the medal, there are two sets of initials, one of the artist

00:45:23.400 - 00:45:35.190

and one of the sculptor. So—but yeah, it's–it's–it was just—it's just extremely interesting proc—so, yeah. Every now and then we'd have to go to Washington DC.

00:45:37.750 - 00:45:53.110

Look at—look and review at all the–all the–all the submissions. And yeah, we had a good—that was–that was one of the interesting parts about the design of the medal. Yeah, no. The final design is very striking, I think.

00:45:53.110 - 00:46:07.860

It's very— Yeah, it's–it's amazingly beautiful, and like I said, it captures just about everything that you can say. So, if you ever get a chance to read the narrative of the story—and I think that's the most important part, unless you

00:46:07.900 - 00:46:20.870

look—unless you read the narrative, you don't really understand what all the things are bad if you're not a military person, because you can't—you kind of see the military uniforms are a little bit different. But–but you don't know which ones are which, right? Yeah.

00:46:20.870 - 00:46:35.660

You know, if I gave you a test right now, can you tell me which ones were which? I think–I think the one in the back, is that the air— Yeah, the guy that got the helmet, right? And the guy next to him is pretty easy.

00:46:35.660 - 00:46:49.540

He's Army. He's got that—. He's got his—. Of course, you can tell the nurse–Oops. And then Navy, I guess, on the left side with the—is that the Navy? Right. Right. Which one is the Merchant Marine?

00:46:51.900 - 00:47:02.220

So, the one on the right side, maybe? The one that's closest? Let's see. If you're looking at it—let's see. Okay, let's look at the nurse.

00:47:02.220 - 00:47:14.910

How far away from the nurse is the one with the— Right next to the nurse. In front of the nurse? . Not too sure on this one.

00:47:14.990 - 00:47:28.030

Look at who's holding the–the steering wheel. Oh, the person next to the Air Force. Right. That's–-that's the Merchant Marine. And you can also tell because he's wearing, like, a wool cap.

00:47:29.170 - 00:47:44.280

He doesn't really have a helmet. Back in those days, the Merchant Marines actually were not a branch of the military. If you think about all the work that they did, most of them were responsible for

00:47:44.280 - 00:48:00.700

the transport of munitions, supplies, food, et cetera usually unescorted, across the Pacific and across the Atlantic. So, if they're able to—if the enemy already were able to find the supply ships, that would pretty much, you know,

00:48:01.200 - 00:48:15.040

knock out part of your–your logistics there. So, yeah. Significant contributions as well. A huge contribution, yeah. And people don't recognize that, and we had about—we have forty Merchant

00:48:15.040 - 00:48:32.720

Marines, and—who are Chinese American. So—and the funny thing about that is the Merchant Mariners also received their own Congressional Gold Medal last–last year. So, those guys are double awardees, they both—they get two Congressional Gold Medals,

00:48:32.720 - 00:48:46.810

right? Right, yeah. Okay, so I guess my final question is: the Chinese American World War Two veterans recognition project—is it still active, or do they have any, like, future projects?

00:48:47.120 - 00:49:02.730

Yeah, I think right now, the last thing we're trying to do is locate those individuals who did not come to the ceremony who actually registered and were approved by the project to receive a medal. But because of either COVID, schedules, that kind of stuff, they did not come to the

00:49:02.730 - 00:49:13.430

ceremony. And so, we're trying to contact them to see if they're still interested in receiving the medal. If they are, we're–we're–we're going to be able to ship it to them. But we'll see.

00:49:13.870 - 00:49:27.310

But the long term goal of the project, actually, is to continue talking about the story. I don't want to be so ambitious to say that this–this could get into curriculum, you know, school

00:49:27.310 - 00:49:42.970

curriculums, K through 12 or even Asian American Studies, or things like that. Although that's, you know, that–that would be a nice objective. I don't know that–you know, the problem with that is we're always going to face, you know, other

00:49:42.970 - 00:50:00.520

groups that have bigger stories, larger populations, the whole thing. Hispanic, African American Studies, all those groups are much—you know, there's–there's probably 10 times more Hispanic in Texas than there are Asian

00:50:00.520 - 00:50:16.850

Americans, you know. And African Americans, probably at least, maybe, four times more. And so their–-their stories are also compelling, just as ours are. But I think it's important, at least, to maybe instill some of the interest

00:50:17.000 - 00:50:26.900

in our own group. Because if you don't know about your own group, you know, what are you going to advocate for? I mean, what—you know, where do you fit? Where do you–where do you say you fit?

00:50:27.370 - 00:50:41.770

Well, part of the problem is, we—most Chinese or Asian-Americans don't know where they fit, because they don't know enough about their own history here in the US, because, you know, somebody said before, you know, everyone's history is

00:50:41.850 - 00:50:55.620

American history. It's just not because your ethnicity makes it different. Because there's so many similarities, right? And everybody's—I'll say—immigrant story, if you will. But there's also so many differences about how

00:50:55.900 - 00:51:09.610

we, you know, were able to not only get here, but also how we're able to struggle and survive and thrive, you know, in our–in our work. So, I guess the answer to your question would be what are we doing from this point forward?

00:51:10.600 - 00:51:20.690

Right now, there are a lot of different things we’re doing. I'll give you three examples right now in Sacramento. some reason, this thing has taken off quite well. So, one group is doing a lot of oral histories.

00:51:21.440 - 00:51:29.420

So, they still have quite a few living veterans in Sacramento area. That's one thing that we're doing. Another one is doing a project to have various

00:51:30.000 - 00:51:41.670

artifacts and memorabilia at the public libraries. So, they've gotten together the Sacramento Public Library. So, they're going to have exhibits about—mostly about World War Two—the Chinese World War Two effort in

00:51:42.420 - 00:51:57.010

exhibits across the city in Sacramento. We have a third group. There's a small group of Chinese in Red Bluff, which is about a couple hours north of Sacramento. And so, what they want to do is they had a area in Red Bluff.

00:51:57.340 - 00:52:13.290

That's–that's mostly, you know, Chinese, Chinatown. And they're going to put a mural together, and the mural is going to have this medal—the front of the medal, and then they're going to put the—instead of these faces, they're

00:52:13.290 - 00:52:28.630

going to put the faces of the veterans that lived in their city. Yeah. I mean, it's pretty cool when you think about. So, variety of projects going on, and like I said, one of the major ones, the most

00:52:28.690 - 00:52:42.980

difficult would be trying to get curriculum inside your–your public school. You know, who knows? I mean, I don't know how that's gonna work. I've pretty much had enough legislative work for a while.

00:52:43.480 - 00:52:56.730

Right. Well, thank you so much for sharing these stories with us today. Yeah. Is there anything else you'd like to share with us or anything that I might have missed? Um, no.

00:52:56.730 - 00:53:11.980

I think the main thing is if I were to encourage you—not just, you know, Chinese Americans your age, but all across the spectrum, is to continue to engage and talk about communities.

00:53:12.840 - 00:53:26.600

You know, not–not just among your own group of friends who are all Chinese or Asians, but actually neighbors, others who would really stand to benefit. Because most of people would say, “Oh, I never knew that.” Right?

00:53:26.600 - 00:53:40.060

They'll just talk about—“I never knew that.” So, just try to get the word out more. Right, right. Well, hopefully we can get the word out more with, you know, this interview and other similar

00:53:40.060 - 00:53:47.080

things as well. It will work. It’ll get there. Yeah, thank you so much. Oh, you're quite welcome, Sarah. Take care now. Bye.