The US House of Representatives has authorized monies for commissioning a portrait of late lawmaker Dalip Singh Saund, the first Indian American ever elected to that body. Congressman Joe Wilson, a Republican from South Carolina, had introduced a resolution in January this year to put up a portrait of Saund in the US Capitol Building in recognition of the California legislator's legacy as the first Asian American ever to be elected to the national legislature back in 1956.
The portrait will be completed in approximately one year, followed by an unveiling ceremony on Capitol Hill.
The late Saund was elected three times to the House from California, beginning in 1957. Born in 1899, in Chhajulwadi, Punjab, Saund immigrated to the US, got a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1924, and was president of the Hindustan Association of America as a student there.
He was a successful farmer for nearly 30 years in Imperial Valley, California, and from 1946, played an important role in ending restrictions that prohibited Indian immigrants from becoming naturalized citizens. In 1952, Saund was elected justice of the peace in Westmorland, California. A Post Office in California state has already been named after him.
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