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Proud to Be Korean American

Suzanne Ahn.

By Sam Chu Lin | Special to AsianWeek

“Wouldn’t it be great if Suzanne Ahn could be one of the people honored for the Korean American centennial?” commented one of the people attending a news conference at the Wilshire Grand Hotel in Los Angeles, an event tied to the Korean American float in the Rose Bowl Parade. “Even though she is such an important part of the community, it’s a shame that not too many of these people who know who she is.”

Ahn, a 50-year-old Dallas neurologist and political activist, has emphasized through example the importance of ‘giving back’ to local communities and to her adopted nation. Sadly, Ahn — the mother of two children — was diagnosed last spring with terminal lung cancer. Even though this dedicated activist has never smoked a cigarette, the lung cancer is expected to take her life before the year is over.

Last August, Ahn stunned an audience of 1,000 people when she took the podium at the national convention of the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) meeting in her city and announced that she had a special mission and gift for them.

Many in the audience wondered why this neurologist would insist on addressing this group. She was not even listed in the official program. Once she began speaking, the gravity of her situation was clear — this would be her first and last appearance before this audience.

“As doctors, we affect one patient at a time,” she said. “You, as journalists, can affect the whole society. You are the messenger, but more than that, you determine which message is delivered. You can change the way people think.”

She went on to present AAJA with $100,000, the largest endowment the organization has ever received, to carry on her legacy.

Ahn, who is also a successful businesswoman and political activist, says the money is to be used for cash prizes to recognize the journalistic excellence of reporters who are telling the stories about the fight for justice and civil rights for Asian Pacific Americans. She also hopes the APA community will unite and work together to help win these battles.

“With so little precious time left, I see clarity,” she said. “I see what is important in life. What means most to me are the times spent with the people I love, the laughs and chuckles, the people who inspired me, the people who made me a better person. I realize now, that compared to incurable lung cancer, all the challenges of my past were so easy. If I had only known it was this easy, I would have done more, taken more risks.”

From An Early Age

Insook, as she was known as a child, immigrated to this country from a village near Pusan, Korea when she was 7 years old, in the wake of the Korean War. Her father Chai Ho Ahn had been scratching out a living for his wife and children. The villagers were so impressed with his intellect they sacrificed and collected $143 to send him to a local college to start him on his way to become a doctor. He came to the United States when Insook was 2 years old to advance his training. When the family was finally reunited, they first settled in Booneville, Ark. and later moved to Tyler, Texas.

The family patriarch never forgot his neighbors and friends, and until his retirement, he often returned to the village loaded with donated pharmaceuticals to treat patients.

Growing up in Tyler, there were few Korean American families nearby. Ahn quickly acclimated to her new home and was speaking fluent English just eight months after her arrival.

Dr. Chai Ho Ahn proudly states Suzanne was the top student in her class through junior high school and participated in many activities including the school debate team. She became an accomplished pianist and at age 17, she entered the North Texas Beauty Contest and won first alternate. On graduation from high school, she decided to study pre-med at the University of Texas in Austin.

Despite her many accomplishments, Ahn feels she has been a victim of racial prejudice on many occasions and this is part of what has inspired her to make change throughout her life.

“Racism is poison,” she told the captivated AAJA audience. “It wasn’t easy being the only Asian American girl in the first grade in Arkansas in 1959 or being a teenager in Tyler, Texas in the 1960s.

“I was always made to feel that I was different, that I was out of place, that I was not a real American, but a visitor or foreigner. It wasn’t easy to go to medical school in the early ’70s, and it wasn’t easy to go into private practice in the early ’80s. Now, even with my successes and my wealth, I am reminded every day that I am not white.”

Success Through the Struggle

Despite the limitations of America, Ahn has achieved an incredible amount of success.

“Suzanne is so much like our father,” stated Ahn’s sister Mary Pak of Santa Maria, Calif. “She is always giving back.”

Ahn is a co-inventor of 23 U.S. medical patents. She was the founder of a medical division of a start-up hi-tech company and served as its president for three years. She has served on numerous civic boards and was the founder and first president of The Summit, a group of Dallas women in decision-making positions. She is active in the stock market and has an excellent track record. She enjoys working at her computer — buying and trading. She calls the stock market “a level playing field for men and women.”

She has attended state dinners at the White House. She has been introduced to President and Mrs. Clinton, dined with Queen Elizabeth and hosted private dinners at her home for such dignitaries as Ambassador Sun Joun-yung, permanent representative of Korea to the United Nations and other VIPs.

But after all the work she had done to help her community, she now faces the biggest struggle of all.

“I have treated people with lung cancer, and it’s really not a pretty death,” she says. Ahn says the average length of time for survival is 14 and half months.

This time is crucial for her family. Ahn and her husband Dr. Steven Hays, a nephrologist, are the parents of a teenage son and daughter, 16-year-old Foster and 14-year-old Kimberly.

Politically Minded

Ahn has made it a habit throughout her life to show that APAs are not “foreigners,” but proud Americans. She especially believes in the democratic process and has supported candidates with campaign contributions and developed close relationships with them.

Former Texas Governor Ann Richards credits Ahn for helping her to get elected. Ahn helped raise both campaign funds and community support for the former governor.

“Suzanne Ahn was so important to my election as governor; so important to organizing the people of Dallas; so important to the women of this state, by example and deed,” Richards stated.

Richards appointed Ahn to the Air Control Board during her governorship.

Ahn has also helped other people, including APAs, to be appointed to political posts. Richards selected Bob Gee as the director of the Public Utilities Commission.

“I had already applied and lobbied for the job,” Gee commented. “Suzanne’s friendship with the governor helped to make the difference. Thanks to her, I became the highest ranking Asian Pacific American to hold state office, and I still hold that distinction.”

Gee later served as assistant secretary for fossil energy under Bill Richardson in President Clinton’s second administration.

During Ann Richards’ administration, Ahn also became the youngest and only the second woman to ever be appointed to the Texas State Board of Medical Examiners in its 100-year history.

Ahn also knows, too well, about the negative sides of political contributions. When President Clinton ran for his second term of office, the Republicans accused the Democrats of receiving illegal campaign contributions, specifically from China. The FBI and Democratic National Committee auditors questioned any contributor with an Asian-sounding surname, including Ahn, about their contributions. She was infuriated and let her feelings be known to the national media.

Appearing on ABC’s Nightline, Ahn recounted her own experience.

“The questions that [the auditor] asked,” she said, “was one, what is your reported income on your tax statement? Two, what are your assets? Three, are you an American citizen?”

The questions came with threats. The auditor told Ahn that if she did not tell them everything, that she would be listed as uncooperative and her name would be released to the press.

“When white men violate campaign finance rules,” she pointed out, “they pay a fine and nobody gets hurt. There is no maligning of the entire race. I think there is an incredible double standard here.”

Active to the End

Ahn obviously isn’t afraid to speak out on the issues. She flew to Washington D.C. and — in a face-to-face confrontation — criticized Senator Edward Kennedy for not including APA and Native American cannery workers in Alaska in passing the Civil Rights Act of 1991. Kennedy and other senators, in a compromise agreement, had voted to exempt a controversial cannery at Wards Cove to pass the new legislation. It was workers at the plant who had initiated the discrimination lawsuits that generated the need for such a new law.

Those on hand said a red-faced Kennedy exclaimed to Ahn, “You don’t know how much my family and I have done for civil rights!”

Ahn is also a quick decision maker, as confirmed by John Tateishi, a San Francisco friend who later became executive director of the Japanese American Citizens League. He also cites an example involving Wards Cove.

“I received a telephone call from Suzanne one day,” recounted Tateishi. “She said, ‘Get a plane ticket and meet me in Washington D.C. We’ve got to do something about Wards Cove!’ When we started touring offices the next day, I realized she hadn’t made any appointments. She just pulled out a pad, and we just started dropping in to see people. She had that much influence. She didn’t waste time to get things done. It’s sad that Wards Cove was not a victory.”

Closer to home, the doctor helped to organize demonstrations at six local nightclubs near the Southern Methodist University campus that barred young APA patrons. She asked former Los Angeles City Councilman Michael Woo to fly to Dallas to participate in the protest. The two joined others and walked a picket line. The nightclubs eventually went out of business.

“Every city should have a Suzanne Ahn,” Woo commented. “She is really an outstanding leader, someone who is never reluctant to just stick her neck out, but to ask other people to join with her in battles. It was a great example of pulling together resources, getting people motivated, calling the attention of the news media, and Suzanne was really at the center of it.”

A Legacy Earned

Ahn’s dream is for a better world not only for the APA community, but also for her children. With her endowment to AAJA, she hopes the stories that Asian Pacific American journalists will generate about their community will help that dream come true.

Esther Wu, a columnist for the Dallas Morning News and AAJA’s national secretary, has also been a long-time friend of Ahn and is working with her to help fulfill her wishes.

“Suzanne told me, ‘I want my children to know what I stood for,’ ” Wu said of their initial discussion. “She added, ‘I want everybody to remember me as a person who was a champion for civil rights and a person who fought injustice. I want to continue that battle.’ Her contribution to AAJA is her way of continuing her legacy.”

In her closing remarks at the convention, Ahn echoed those feelings and offered the journalists a challenge.

“Along with this monetary gift, I give you the gift of knowledge that, as long as you have your life and health, you can achieve anything,” she stated. “You can speak up and fight for justice and fairness. You can reach your dreams. You can fulfill your potential. Use your power and influence as journalists.”

AAJA plans to present its first awards inspired by Suzanne Ahn at its national convention in San Diego, Calif. later this year.