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HONORS

Ellis Island Medals of Honor

4 Indian Americans among 135 invested with honor at colorful ceremony
By Jyotirmoy Datta

Fom left, R. Vijaynagar, heart surgeon and founder of Indian American Republican Council; Muhammed Majeed, founder of Sabinsa; and Gopal Raju, publisher, and founder of Indian American Center for Political Awareness. Jay Yadav, cardiovascular physician and neurologist.

The National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations (NECO) presented on May 15 at a ceremony in the Main Hall of the historic Ellis Island immigration station in New York Harbor its Ellis Island Medal of Honor to 135 outstanding Americans, including four Indian Americans.

The four Medalists of Indian heritage are Muhammed Majeed, founder of the research and pharmaceuticals company Sabinsa; Gopal Raju, publisher and founder of the Indian American Center for Political Awareness (IACPA); R. Vijaynagar, heart surgeon and chair of Indian American Republican Council (IARC); and Jay Yadav, cardiovascular physician and neurologist.

In the 18 years from 1986 to 2003, only 18 Indian Americans were presented with the Ellis Island Medals of Honor.

The 135 Medallists honored this year are from 25 countries, and were chosen by NECO from a field of 9,500 nominees. The Ellis Island Awards Gala, an event restricted to only the Medalists and their families and friends, was attended by 1,600 guests.

NECO, with over 5 million members, serves as an umbrella for over 250 organizations that celebrate, educate and nurture ethnic pride, heritage, culture, tradition and religious belief. It is NECO’s firm conviction that the diversity of the American people is what makes this nation great.

The NECO mandate is universal in scope and humanitarian in purpose:

To preserve and celebrate ethnic diversity
To promote equality and tolerance among ethnic and religious groups
To combat hate and injustice
To help bring about harmony among all peoples.

Since its creation in 1986, this multiethnic coalition has sponsored a range of programs, events, and educational initiatives designed to break down the walls and misunderstanding between individuals and groups. The award of the Ellis Island Medals of Honor is one such initiative.

The Medals of Honor are presented to American citizens of diverse origins for their outstanding contributions to their own ethnic group, to their ancestral countries and to American society. The U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate have unanimously passed resolutions sanctioning NECO and the Ellis Island Medals of Honor. The Medals are sanctioned by the U.S. Congress and the recipients’ names are listed in the Congressional Record.

NECO said in its ‘Tributes Journal’ circulated on the occasion of the Ellis Island Medals of Honor Awards Gala: “Today we honor a distinguished group of Americans. Each of them represents the very essence of the American way of life, having greatly contributed to our national identity while preserving the distinct values and heritage of their ancestors.

“The Ellis Island Medals of Honor have been aptly named, for the island is a symbol of the diversity of our nation’s people –– a people whose genius, culture, artistry and thought have joined to form a single mosaic of many cultures and ancestral backgrounds. It is from this diversity that the United States is still a beacon of hope for so many, and is the greatest democracy the world has ever known.

“So this is a celebration of not only the outstanding accomplishments of the Medalists, but also an acknowledgement of the spirit, hard work, and values of our ancestors’ those who took the ‘American Dream’ from just a hope, and made it a reality.”

The list of Ellis Island Medal recipients in the Congressional Record 1986-2003 include (in alphabetical order): Madeleine Korbel Albright, Albert Badillo, Jagdish Bhagwati, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Art Buchwald, Dan Burton, George Bush, Jimmy Carter, Mary Higgins Clark, Hillary Rodham Clinton, William Jefferson Clinton, Walter Cronkite, David N. Dinkins, Olympia Dukakis, Angier B. Duke, Geraldine Ferraro, Gerald R. Ford, Charles A. Gargano, Rudolph W. Giuliani, Charles Gleason, John Glenn, Rajat Gupta, Alan G. Hevesi, Fritz Hollings, Bob Hope, Lee Iacocca, Thomas H. Kean, Har Govind Khorana, Coretta Scott King, Henry Kissinger, Frank R. Lautenberg, Patrick J. Leahy, Jay Leno, Sreedhar Menon, Norman Y. Mineta, Susan Molinari, Robert Morgenthau, Martina Navratilova, Richard M. Nixon, Cardinal O’Connor, Paul O’Dwyer, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Arnold Palmer, Leon E. Panetta, George E. Pataki, Gregory Peck, Itzhak Perlman, Thomas R. Pickering, Larry Pressler, Anthony Quinn, Charles B. Rangel, Ronald Reagan, William Rehnquist, Janet Reno, Chita Rivera, Howard Safir, Paul S. Sarbanes, Telly Savalas, Norman Schwarzkopf, Frank Sinatra, Eliot Spitzer, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, George Tenet, Donald J. Trump, Jack Valenti, Rajendra B. Vattikuti, Paul A. Volcker, Eli Wallach, Barbara Walters, Ruth Westheimer, Elie Wiesel, and Zachariah P. Zachariah.

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