Daniel Inouye

 

This 1960 photo of Daniel Inouye (1924-2012) by George Tames hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.

During World War II, after the U.S. Army lifted its ban on Japanese Americans, Daniel Inouye joined the first all-Nisei volunteer unit, winning a Distinguished Service Cross, Bronze Star, and Purple Heart with Cluster after losing his right arm. He later received a Medal of Honor. Upon returning to his native Hawaii, he helped lead a movement that brought political power to the region's ethnic minorities. 

When Hawaii was admitted to the union in 1959, Inouye was elected to the House of Representatives, becoming the first Japanese American member of Congress. Having won a seat in the U.S. Senate in 1962, he became the Senate's senior member in 2010, placing him third in the line of presidential succession and making him the highest-ranking public official of Asian descent in American history. Inouye gained national attention in 1974, when he served on the Senate Watergate Committee. In 1976, he was appointed to chair the Senate Committee on Intelligence.