2005-2006 APA Women of the Year Profiles

A companion to our annual "APA Women's Wall of Fame" feature, the editors' starter list of select newsmakers from the past year making a difference.  Send us your nominations -- We'll be updating throughout the month!

Asian American Village Editors

Tammy Duckworth

In what has been an otherwise lousy year for Asian-American women politicos from both parties, there is one standout who is undeniably the one to watch on the APA political horizon: the Thailand-born, ethnic Chinese American veteran from Illinois, Tammy Duckworth.

Duckworth is one among a field of hungry Democratic primary candidates eager to go gunning for the House seat vacated by retiring Rep. Henry Hyde (IL Sixth District, including suburban Chicago) after the March 21 primary.

Duckworth's heroic story has proved to have surprisingly dramatic cross-over appeal, garnering front-page coverage in mainstream media nationwide.  A Black Hawk helicopter co-pilot, Duckworth lost both legs and suffered a shattered arm following a mid-air RPG attack in northern Iraq.  Following her recuperation and return, she went on to testify before Congress to advocate high-level medical treatment for soldiers transitioning from military service to veteran status.  She has served for 14 years as a Reserve and National Guard solider, and is currently ranked a Major in the Illinois National Guard.

Although the DNC does not officially involve itself in the primary season fray, the buzz about Duckworth has been excited and admiring.  She has received favorable assists from the Party's heavy-hitters, from John Kerry and Barack Obama to Mike Honda and Senator Dick Durban, just to name a few, as well as labor organizations and groups promoting Asian American political representation such as the Asian American Action Fund and APAs for Progress.

Even some APA Republicans we asked voiced admiration for Duckworth personally, and as a strong Asian-American woman whose sacrifice and loyalty are unquestionable after race-baiting tactics that have been against our candidates from both parties in the past few election cycles.

According to a short bio published by the Asian American Action Fund, Duckworth was born in Thailand but had "grown up in several Southeast Asian countries," as her father's work with the United Nations and global companies provides the family with broad, international travel experiences.  Her mother, Lamai Sompornpairin, was a native Thailand and ethnic Chinese.  The family finally settled in Hawai'i, where Tammy completed her education right through college.  Like her "neighbor" Barack Obama, she seems to have maintained close ties to the islands and has enjoyed strong support there.

This unique, charismatic war hero with the Asian face and the "funny name" has overcome so many personal trials and attained so much -- as a woman, an Asian American, a soldier, a disabled veteran -- there's no doubt that even if she doesn't prevail in her March 21 primary, it won't be the last we hear of Tammy Duckworth.

Sandra Oh

Riding high on her somewhat surprising casting and stellar performance in Sideways, Sandra Oh not only landed a primo role on the medical drama Grey's Anatomy, but took home this year's Screen Actors Guild Best Actress honor for a television drama series, along with Supporting Actress honors from the Golden Globes, and nominations for the Emmy and other awards.

Oh has developed something of a reputation for being "an actor's actor," a trail-blazer whose recent workpath has been particularly inspiring to and appreciated by other APA actors.  This is not only because of her own considerable talent, but in some sense it is also because she has been able to maximize that talent and some unusual casting opportunities to break into that rarest, most-elusive and coveted of aspirations shared by nearly all APA actors: to command and succeed at juicy, prominent characters who "happen to be Asian Americans".

Oh's success was celebrated by her fellow actors in a number of main features at the Village year: Why There are "No" APAs on Television" by Erin May-Ling Quill, and an actor's roundtable featuring members of the touring drama, After the Quake, led by Alec Yoshio MacDonald.

When asked who she looked up to, Margaret Cho -- interviewed about her new show Assassin -- named Oh, "a great actress," and one among the very small number of Asian-American actors to have had vehicles for breaking through.  "There have been so few," Cho observed.  "We get one every five years!"

By most accounts, Oh's casting in Sideways was as bold, as risky as it was rewarding.  Not only did the role not specifically call for an Asian, but the quirky, unexplained juxtaposition of the character's Black daughter and white mother actively mitigated against the likelihood of casting an Asian character.  That Oh was cast by her husband should not detract from the accomplishment of her performance; but it does say something about what can take for even the most highly skilled APA actors to break through to those meatier roles they need to carry them to cross-over stardom.

It is wholly to her credit that even upon receiving the SAG Award, Oh acknowledged this significant point, and did not forget where she had so recently come from.  In the Associated Press, she went on to praise the show for casting that reflected real-world diversity:

"This is unbelievable. I thank every single actor out there. I'm so grateful for having a job," Oh said. "To all my fellow Asian-American actors out there, I share this with you, and be encouraged and keep shining."

Lan Samantha Chang

Novelist Lan Samatha Chang, author of the books, Inheritance and Hunger: A Novella and Stories, was selected in the face of stiff competition to fill the legendary shoes of Frank Conroy as the head of the famed Iowa Writers Workshop.

Long considered the 800-pound gorilla among the nation's writing programs, the Iowa workshop was founded in 1936, and has had only four directors.  It was the early model for most of the "professional writing" programs, or those granting the Master of Fine Arts terminal degree in creative writing.

Prior to taking the position, Chang had been on faculty at Harvard, where she served as fiction editor for the Harvard Review.  En route to Iowa City, she was up against some of America's most prominent, award-winning writers including Jim Shepard, Ben Marcus, and Richard Bausch, who said of the process that "In the world of writing and writing programs, to be asked to apply for [Iowa's] directorship is like being asked to do The Tonight Show in the entertainment business."

Among her writing honors, Chang was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and earned a Bay Area Book Award and literary awards from the Greensboro Review and the Transatlantic Review. Her work has also been nominated for the PEN Center USA West Award and the PEN/Hemingway Literature Prize.  Her other teaching credits have included Warren Wilson College and Stanford University, and conference workshops at Bread Loaf, Napa Valley, Sarah Lawrence, the Asian American Writers' Workshop and others.

"As a child of immigrants," Chang said, upon receiving the news of her selection, "I first heard of the University of Iowa as a host to writers from all over the world. This vision of Iowa as a haven for writers, given to me by my parents, has only been enhanced by my experiences as a workshop student and teacher. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to sustain and renew this extraordinary program that exists at the heart of our literary culture."