Prominent Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders on the Heroes Who Inspired Them

Meet the elders who paved the way for these celebrities

Greg Louganis on hero Duke Kahanamoku

"My parents never hid the fact that I was adopted,” says Greg Louganis, 61. “They told me my birth father was Samoan, but I didn't know what that meant. I only knew that I had darker skin than the other kids.”

Then, when he was 9 years old, the talented young diver traveled to a competition in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and saw a statue of Duke Kahanamoku, the legendary Hawaiian swimmer, who died in 1968. “I thought, He kind of looks like me,” Louganis recalls. “It was so gratifying to see that someone I resembled could be a champion."

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