mr. wei li, he's a dear friend and i'm honored he's here today. another is kenneth lee, known as the mayor of chinatown in houston, texas. affectionately so. we also have chris kang, casey kang, donny dickey, ray hong, and lily li, all friends and visiting today. i'm honored today, mr. speaker to say a few words about american heritage month because the truth is america the beautiful is a more beautiful america because of asian americans and pacific islanders. one such beautiful american was wong kim ark. wong kim arc -- ark, was in the united states and born here and in 1894 he decided that he would travel to china. upon returning from china in 1895 he was denied entrance into the united states. wong kim ark. he was denied interest into the once because of the chinese exclusion act. this act was one that was passed to prevent chinese americans from having ingress and egress into this country. if you are not a citizen of course. the 14th amendment to the constitution became the subject of his re-entry into the country because when they declared him ineligible to return to the country it was because they were saying he was not a citizen, notwithstanding the fact that he was born in califor