DID YOU KNOW that Chris Tashima in 1997's 70th Annual Academy Awards won an Oscar in the category of SHORT FILM (Live Action) with his film entitled Visa and Virtue. This film talks about Chiune "Sempo" Sugihara, Japanese Vice-Consul to Lithuania in 1940, is credited with saving the second largest number of Jews from the Holocaust! For further info, click HERE.

DID YOU KNOW that Doug Chiang (along with Ken Ralston, Doug Smythe and Tom Woodruff. Jr. won an Oscar in the "Special Effects" category in the film "Death Becomes Her." Doug Chiang is best known for his art direction of Lucas' "Star Wars/Phantom Menace" film. He was educated at UCLA, where he won the prestigious Focus Award for his animated film, "Mental Block." His other credits include "Pee-Wee Herman's Playhouse," "Back to the Future," "Terminator 2," and "Forest Gump." He has worked at Industrial Light and Magic for many years. His 2001 project is "Robota." Visit the Oscars' Official Website for further Oscar information.

DID YOU KNOW that Steven Okazaki won as Oscar in 1990 at the 63rd Annual Academy Awards in the category of DOCUMENTARY (Short Subject) with the film entitled DAYS OF WAITING (Mouchette Films Production) and won a nomination in 1985's 58th Annual Academy Awards in the category of DOCUMENTARY (Feature) with his film entitled UNFINISHED BUSINESS (Mouchette Films Production>!

DID YOU KNOW that Oakland Tribune's Gary Reyes (a Filipino American) won a Pulitzer in photography won in 1990?

DID YOU KNOW that Christine Choy in 1988's 61st Annual Academy Awards was nominated for an Oscar in the category of DOCUMENTARY (Feature) with the film entitled WHO KILLED VINCENT CHIN? (Film News Now Foundation and Detroit Educational Television Foundation Production)!

DID YOU KNOW that Haing Ngor received an Oscar in 1984 at the 57rd Annual Academy Awards in the category of ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE in the Oliver Film film entitled "The Killing Fields." (Note: Pat Morita was also in the running for "Supporting Actor" for his role in "The Karate Kid."

DID YOU KNOW that Michael Toshiyuki Uno in 1982's 55th Annual Academy Awards was nominated for an Oscar in the category of SHORT FILM (Live Action) with the film entitled THE SILENCE (The American Film Institute)!

DID YOU KNOW that Ben Kingsley in 1982's 55th Annual Academy Awards won the Oscar for "Best Actor" in the film "Gandhi." He was also a Oscar nominee for the film Bugsy (Actor in a Supporting Role) and in the 2002 film release "Sexy Beast" for "Actor in a Supporting Role."

DID YOU KNOW that, in 1980-1981, John Lone won an Obie Award for his performance in "FOB" and "The Dance and the Railroad."

DID YOU KNOW that David Henry Hwang won an Obie Award during the 1980-1981 season with "FOB" as the "Best American Play."

DID YOU KNOW that Moctesuma Esparza in 1977's 50th Annual Academy Awards was nominated for an Oscar in the category of DOCUMENTARY (Short Subject) with the film entitled AGUEDA MARTINEZ: OUR PEOPLE, OUR COUNTRY (Moctesuma Esparza Production)!

DID YOU KNOW that Richard Chew in 1977's 50th Annual Academy Awards won an Oscar in the category of FILM EDITING in the film entitled STAR WARS (LucasFilm, LTD, Productions)

DID YOU KNOW that Samuel C.C. Ting was a Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher who shared the 1976 Nobel Prize in physics by using BNL's Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS) to discover a new particle and confirm the existence of the charmed quark. Samuel was credited for finding what he called the "J" particle, the same particle as the "psi" found at nearly the same time at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center by a group led by Burton Richter. The particle is now known as the J/psi. Ting's experiment took advantage of the AGS's high-intensity proton beams, which bombarded a stationary target to produce showers of particles that could be detected by complex detectors. A strong peak in electron and positron production at an energy of 3.1 billion electron volts (GeV) led Ting to suspect the presence of a new particle, the same one found by Richter. Their discoveries not only won the Nobel Prize; they also helped confirm the existence of the charmed quark -- the J/psi is composed of a charmed quark bound to its antiquark.

DID YOU KNOW that Richard Chew in 1975's 50th Annual Academy Awards won an Oscar in the category of FILM EDITING in the film entitled ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST (Fantasy Film Productions)

DID YOU KNOW that YASUNARI KAWABATA won the 1968 Nobel Laureate in Literature for his narrative mastery, which with great sensibility expresses the essence of the Japanese mind! For more information, just click HERE.

DID YOU KNOW that James Wong Howe in 1963's 36th Annual Academy Awards won an Oscar for CINEMATOGRAPHY (Black-and-White) for his work in HUD (Salem-Dover Production; Paramount) and in 1955's 28th Annual Academy Awards won an Oscar for his CINEMATOGRAPHY (Black-and-White) in the film THE ROSE TATTOO (Hal Wallis Productions; Paramount).

DID YOU KNOW that T.D. LEE AND C.N. YANG won in 1956 received the Nobel Prize in physics for radically questioning one of physics' basic tenets. They interpreted results of particle decay experiments at BNL's (Brookhaven National Laboratory) Cosmotron particle accelerator and discovered that the fundamental and supposedly absolute law of parity conservation had been violated. The results they studied concerned two particles, the tau and the theta, which had the same masses, lifetimes and scattering behaviors, but which decayed differently in experiments at the Cosmotron. Because of this, the law of parity conservation required that these otherwise similar particles be considered different from one another. Lee and Yang suggested experiments that showed that the weak interaction of radioactive decay could indeed violate parity conservation. When the experiments were later successfully completed, the puzzle of the two particles was solved -- they could be the same.

DID YOU KNOW that Sammy Lee in 1948 was the first Asian American to win an Olympic Gold Medal.

DID YOU KNOW that Carlos P. Romulo in 1941 was the first Asian to snatch America's Pulitzer Prize in journalism. He was also the first Asian to be the president of the UN or United Nations General Assembly.

DID YOU KNOW that PEARL BUCK won the 1938 Nobel Laureate in Literature for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces. For more information, just click HERE.

DID YOU KNOW that RABINDRANATH TAGORE won the 1913 Nobel Laureate in Literature because of his profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse, by which, with comsummate skill, he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English words, a part of the literature of the West! For more information, just click HERE.

DID YOU KNOW that the first Asian actor to make over a million bucks a picture in Hollywood was the legendary Sessue Hayakawa a young Japanese nobleman who helped launch Rudolph Valentino's career when he turned down the lead in "The Sheik." Information courtesy of TMI.

DID YOU KNOW that the only Asian leading man to beat out a white rival to get the white girl was the dashing baritone James Shigeta who won Carroll Baker in "A Bridge to the Sun" (11/6/98) Information courtesy of TMI.