On January 3, 1957, the first Asian American was sworn into Congress.
According to the History Channel, Dalip Singh Saund was the first Asian and Sikh American person to be elected to Congress. He represented California’s 29th district until 1963.
The Sikh Coalition, posted a thread on X, formerly known as Twitter, honoring Saund.
Saund was born and raised in Punjab while India was still under British rule. In 1920, he moved to California to study at UC Berkeley, earning a Ph.D. in mathematics, the History Channel reports.
Saund was a politician and an activist, advocating for Indians to become naturalized American citizens. In 1946, Congress approved the measure and Saund became a citizen three years later.
“He gave a voice to Asian Americans who had no one to represent them. Dalip Singh Saund was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1956 from California’s Imperial Valley. He was the first Indian American and the first person of any Asian descent in Congress. He broke barriers at the height of the Cold War at a time of American racial and societal upheaval,” John Yang said during a special report on Saund for PBS News Hour in 2023.
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