SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 22 (Xinhua) -- A San Francisco-based organization is raising funds to produce duplicates of the Congressional Gold Medal for Chinese American veterans who served the United States during World War II.
Chinese American Citizens Alliance (CACA), a civil rights organization established in San Francisco in 1895, had advocated for the Chinese American World War II Veterans Congressional Gold Medal Act for decades.
The Act, which would award Chinese American World War II veterans a group Congressional Gold Medal -- the highest civilian honor in the United States, was signed into law on Dec. 20, 2018.
The law stipulates for the striking of one gold medal which would be given to the Smithsonian Institution and be available for display elsewhere, particularly in locations associated with the veterans.
The Chinese American WWII Veterans Recognition Project, an ongoing program of CACA, spearheaded the efforts to push the bill into law. It aims to preserve the veterans' service records and educate the public about their contribution to the U.S. history.
"We do not want anyone to be forgotten," says CACA on its website. It has been calling on the public to invite all Chinese American World War II veterans and their families they may know of to participate in the project.
Several Chinese American World War II veterans, all in their 90s, gathered in San Francisco in June to support the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in passing a resolution to urge the U.S. Congress to speed up the passage of the bill.
One of the veterans, Dale King, died at 98 soon after. The organization is thus now raising funds to produce duplicates of the medal for the individual veterans as fewer and fewer of them remain alive.
Chinese Americans have served the United States in every war since the Civil War. Before the start of World War II, Chinese Americans volunteered for covert missions and operations against the Japanese in China.
The first all Chinese American group was the 14th Air Service Group in the China-Burma-India Theater, which enabled extensive and effective operations against the Japanese military in China, according to the Chinese American World War II Veterans Congressional Gold Medal Act.
"Despite the anti-Chinese discrimination at the time, as many as 20,000 Chinese Americans served in the Armed Forces during World War II, of whom, approximately 40 percent were not United States citizens due to the laws that denied citizenship to persons of Chinese descent," says the Act.
