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LACC to honor Susan Ahn Cuddy

November 5, 2015

Susan Ahn Cuddy

By The Korea Times Los Angeles staff

Susan Ahn Cuddy, a Korean American icon who died earlier this year aged 100, will be honored for her achievements by her alma mater, Los Angeles City College.

According to LACC, the event will celebrate 44 notable graduates of its institution with banner campaigns. Ahn’s banner will be unveiled Nov. 18 inside its campus.

Ahn was the college’s first Asian American female student to join its baseball team. She went on to become the first female gunnery officer in the U.S. Navy and the first Korean American to work in U.S. Naval Intelligence.

After some years working in the National Security Agency, Ahn became a community figurehead whose work in activism — from the Young Korean Academy to the 3.1 Women’s Association in the USA — mirrored that of her late father Dosan Ahn Chang-ho, one of the most prominent faces of the Korean independence movement and an early Korean immigrant community pioneer.

She was the recipient of the American Courage Award by the Asian American Justice Center of Washington, D.C.

March 10 was designated Susan Ahn Cuddy Day by Los Angeles County.

Among other LACC graduates honored in the event will be architect Frank Gehry, Nobel Prize-winning economist Lawrence Klein and actor Morgan Freeman.

LACC Foundation Director Robert Schwartz said the banner campaign hopes to inspire passion and pride in students.

-Korean American icon Susan Ahn Cuddy dies aged 100