Asian Descent Archives - Page 61 of 65

Nellie Kim

Nellie Vladimirovna Kim was a Soviet gymnast who won three gold medals and a silver medal at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, and two gold medals at the 1980 Summer Olympics. She was the second woman in Olympic history to earn a perfect 10 score (after Nadia Comăneci, also at the 1876 Olympics), and the first woman to score it on the vault and on the floor exercise. Kim worked for many years as a coach, training several national teams, and judged many major international competitions. Serving as President of the Women’s Artistic Gymnastics Technical Committee, she coordinates the introduction of new rules in women’s gymnastics. Her athletic performances are remembered for “her strong feminine, temperamental and charismatic appeal”.

Radha Poonoosamy

Radha Poonoosamy was a Mauritian politician who served as the country’s first female cabinet minister and was a member of the executive committee of the African National Congress (ANC).

Teresa Hsu

Teresa Hsu Chih was a Singaporean charity worker, known for her lifelong dedication to helping the elderly sick and impoverished. A retired nurse, she founded non-profit charities Heart to Heart Service and the Home for the Aged Sick, one of the first of its kind in Singapore.

Qian Xiuling

Qian Xiuling was a Chinese-Belgian scientist who saved nearly 100 lives during World War II.

Ruby Thoma

Ruby Thoma is a Nauruan politician who became the country’s first woman Member of Parliament when she was elected in 1986. Throughout her career, she was the only woman in the Nauruan Parliament – no other woman was elected until Charmaine Scotty in the 2013 general election.
She had previously unsuccessfully stood as a candidate for the 1983 general election, and was supported by women who believed that voters would benefit from having an educated woman, who would defend the interests of women and children, in Parliament. She encountered resistance, including from female voters who told her that politics should be left to men.
She was appointed Minister for Finance, from December 1986 until the government was brought down upon losing the confidence of Parliament in August 1989. Thoma kept her seat in Parliament in the subsequent general election, but lost in the 1992 election. She founded the People’s Movement Association to oppose what she considered wasteful public spending by President Bernard Dowiyogo’s government. She was re-elected to Parliament in 1995, but her political career ended when she lost her seat in 1997.

Tsai Ah-hsin

Tsai Ah-hsin was the first female physician in colonial Taiwan’s first female physician. She graduated from the Tokyo Women’s Medical College in 1921, then completed her residency at the Taihoku Hospital in Japanese Taiwan and founded her own hospital at Taichu in 1925. She created a seminar to train midwives in obstetrics, which was offered through her hospital. She had to end the seminar in 1938 as the Japanese, who had invaded northern China in 1937, came to her seminar and forced some of her students to work for them as nurses on the front lines.
The serial drama “Wave Washing Sands,” based on her life, won Best Serial Drama at the Golden Bell Awards (celebrating Taiwanese television) in 2005.

Narcisa de León

Narcisa Buencamino-De León was a Filipino businesswoman and film producer who navigated her family-owned LVN Pictures (which she co-founded in the 1930s) into a major force in post-World War II Philippine cinema, operating until 2005.

Teriitaria II

Teriitaria II became Queen of Tahiti when she and her sister Teremoemoe married their second cousin King Pōmare II and later, she ruled as Queen of Huahine and Maiao in the Society Islands.
In 1815, Teriitaria became the Queen of Huahine and Maiao. The previous ruler, Mahine, had fought alongside her at the Battle of Te Feipī, and formally presented the government of the islands to her while he remained the resident chief until his death in 1838. She ruled as a largely absentee monarch while residing on Tahiti for the first few decades of her reign. Teriitaria had no children with Pōmare II, but Pōmare fathered the next two Tahitian monarchs, King Pōmare III (r. 1821–1827) and Queen Pōmare IV (r. 1827–1877), by Teremoemoe. Pōmare II died in 1821, and Teriitaria and Teremoemoe served as regents for Pōmare III and (after his death in 1827) for Pōmare IV.
Teriitaria was removed from the regency in 1828, but continued to have a significant role in Tahiti, including leading Tahitian forces in the Taiarapu rebellion of 1832. She joined her niece, Pōmare IV, in exile on Raiatea during the Franco-Tahitian War (1844–1847). During that time, she repelled a French invasion force at the 1846 Battle of Maeva, which secured the independence of the Leeward Islands.

Teresa Magbanua

Teresa Magbanua was a Filipino schoolteacher and military leader at the turn of the 20th century. When the 1896 Philippine Revolution against Spain broke out, she joined the Panay-based Visayan branch of the Katipunan, the initially secret revolutionary society headed by Andrés Bonifacio.
Despite opposition from her husband, Magbanua took up arms against the Spaniards, leading troops into combat and winning several battles under the command of General Martin Delgado. She is credited as the only woman to lead troops in the Visayan area during the Revolution. Afterward, Magbanua shifted to fighting American colonial forces during the Philippine–American War.
She is one of the few Filipinos to have participated in all three resistance movements against Spain (in the Philippine Revolution), the United States (in the Philippine-American War), and Japan (in World War II). While not an active fighter during World War II, Magbanua did what she could to resist Japanese forces during their occupation of the Philippines. She sold her personal belongings to purchase food and supplies, which she would then give to the local guerrillas, and sold her property in Iloilo to help finance the fighters.

Ailes Gilmour

Dancer Ailes Gilmour was one of the young pioneers of the American Modern Dance movement of the 1930s and one of the first members of Martha Graham’s dance company.