The Ezaki family has been creating and innovating confectionary products, including the immensely popular Pocky, since 1922. Their company, Ezaki Glico is currently run by Katsuhisa Ezaki, who has been serving since 1982.

First sold in 1966, Pocky consisted of a biscuit stick coated with chocolate. Simply enough, right? It had sales of ¥30b yen in its first two years (roughly $30.2b USD) and was an instant hit among Japanese teenagers.

Founding Father
After the death of one of his sons, Riichi Ezaki had retreated to a fishing village and noticed a group of very healthy and active children playing. Further investigation yielded the villagers’ high consumption of oysters which contained elevated levels of glycogen.
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Tags: biscuit stick, chocolate, ezaki, pocky, riichi ezaki, treat, yen

Thanks Ami! The Degrassi series is a Canadian primetime drama that has captured audiences in more than 150 countries around the world.

The show developed a strong following for its “realistic and gritty portrayal of teenage life without resorting to melodrama.” The show has dealt with heavy topics such as online predators, sexual identity, date rape, and self harm.

Degrassi is one of Ami’s favorite shows and just discovered that the show is now casting Asians in the leading roles.
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Tags: Asian Americans on Degrassi, Degrassi, teenage drama show

Masi Oka became famous by playing Hiro Nakamura, a fan favorite character on the NBC hit show “Heroes.” Masi’s character is a comic-book-loving optimist who discovers he has the ability to manipulate time and space.

“When I was a kid, I kept saying that I wanted to win Oscars in the technical and creative fields, to show the world that the human brain has two sides.” Masi Oka has been nominated for a Golden Globe and Emmy Award.
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Tags: actor, coder, hero, heroes, Masi Oka, risk-taker

Anna May Wong was the most famous Asian American actress of the 1930s. She was born in Los Angeles as a third generation American with her Chinese name, Wong Liu Tsong, meaning “frosted yellow willows.”

An Early Passion
Anna was infatuated with the movies early on and would skip school and use her lunch money to go to movie theaters. Anna, at the age of 9, despite her parent’s opposition, would beg filmmakers for parts, earning herself the nickname “C.C.C.” or “Curious Chinese Child”.

By the age of 11, Anna May had come up with her stage name, Anna May Wong, paying tribute to both her English and family names.
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Tags: " Cultural Warrior, "Curious Chinese Child, Anna May Wong, asian hero, fashion icon, First international Asian American movie star

You know, we often talk about the success stories of our heroes without talking about their pitfalls, their struggles, their hurdles.

Pat Morita,  better known as Mr. Miyagi, from the movie The Karate Kid, taught a generation of young people how to block a punch with  “wax on, wax off” while coaching “Daniel-san” karate and catching flies with chopstick.

Moving on to what you did not know.

Doctors told Pat Morita that he would not be able to walk when he was diagnosed with spinal tuberculosis at the age of two. He spent the next nine years, enduring long periods in full body casts, in various Californian hospitals.

It took fusing four vertebrae in Pat’s spine for him to finally learn how to walk again at the age of 11. By this time, in the middle of WWII, his family had been sent to a Japanese internment camp in Arizona.
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Tags: Pat Morita, Wax off: Overcoming spinal tuberculosis, Wax on

Vikram Pandit is CEO of Citigroup, the world’s largest bank, and employs 358,000 people around the world in 100 countries. He was formerly President and COO at Morgan Stanley from 2000 to 2005. He is a former board member of the NASDAQ.

Vikram was born in India to a moderately affluent family. He moved to the US to attend Columbia University where he received a BS (electrical engineering), MS (electrical engineering), MBA, and Ph.D. in finance. Vikram is also a trustee at Columbia University.

After obtaining his multiple degrees in succession, Vikram became a professor at Indiana University Bloomington before joining Morgan Stanley’s institutional securities division. He was responsible for building their prime brokerage services. Afterward, he started his own hedge fund called “Old Lane,” which was later purchased by Citigroup, at which point Vikram was offered a job. When he was appointed to CEO, his father was quoted as saying,

“He was a brilliant boy. In school, he always stood first in his class. He is very astute and focused. I saw him rise. Vikram has stood to my expectations.”

Got to love them Asian parents!
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Tags: Asian heroes, BS-MS-MBA-PhD, CEO Of Citigroup, deeply religious, former professor, Qualified professional engineer, Vikram Pandit

Jerry Yang is co-founder and CEO of Yahoo! Inc. He is worth an estimated US$2.3 billion and ranked 524th among the richest people in the world. Mastering the English language in only three years during his high school years, Jerry was soon placed in an AP English class. He went on to Stanford University where he graduated with a B.S. and M.S. degree in electrical engineering.

Jerry has been a leading force in the Internet media industry for as long as anyone can remember. He has built Yahoo! into a destination network of sites that attracts 3.4 billion views per day. Yahoo! remains the world’s most highly trafficked website–beating Google–and is one of the world’s most recognized brands.

Yahoo was originally started in 1994 when Jerry was a PhD student. He jokes, “Really, we’d do anything to keep from working on our theses.”

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Tags: " Jerry Yang, $26bn Yahoo's "Yet Another Highly Officious Oracle, Asian heroes, entrepreneur, Internet icon, technologist, Yahoo's Jerry Yang

Gurbaksh Singh Chahal, known to his friends as “G,” is an award winning American entrepreneur who has created companies worth over $340 million. He is the Founder & CEO of two advertising companies which were sold for over $340 million.

G grew up as a Sikh in California, the religion that requires wearing a turban. He recalls,

Once when I was 10, I went to the local elementary school to play basketball. While I was playing, two kids were saying derogatory things to me. One said, “Come here.” He pulled a knife on me and told me to take my blue turban off.
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Tags: Advertising entrepreneur, asian heroe, BlueLithium, Gurbaksh "G" Singh Chahal, TV personality

Ellison S. Onizuka made the ultimate sacrifice and lost his life in service to his nation and the international space community on January 28, 1986 at 39 years of age.

Ellison was 15 where the Mercury mission put an American astronaut in space for the first time. His mother said,

Ellison always had it in his mind to become an astronaut but was too embarrassed to tell anyone [...] When he was growing up, there were no Asian astronauts, no black astronauts, just white ones. His dream seemed too big.

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Tags: Anything is possible: U.S. Air Force Colonel, Asian heroes, Asian Heroes and Role Models, Astronaut Ellison Onizuka, Ellison Onizuka

Tammy Duckworth was a commissioned officer in the United States Army Reserve in 1992 and chose to fly helicopters because it was one of the few combat positions open to women. She was promoted to Major in the Illinois National Guard and is an Iraq War veteran. She was awarded an Air Medal and an Army Commendation Medal.

Her patriotism compelled her to become the Democratic nominee for the Illinois House of Representatives. Tammy described herself as a “fiscal conservative and social moderate.” While she lost by a small margin of 2%, her valor and thoughtfulness were rewarded in November of 2006, when she was appointed director of the Illinois Veterans’ Affairs Department.
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Tags: Decorated Thai Patriot, Illinois National Guard major, Iraq veteran, politician, soldier, Tammy Duckworth