But she never got a chance to thank Fong for helping reform U.S. immigration laws that allowed her family to be reunited in America after a generation of living apart.

"I never did," Thern said last week. "He was a busy man."

Fong, who died Wednesday at the age of 97, will be memorialized at services Thursday and Friday for a long list of accomplishments in the Territorial Legislature, U.S. Senate as well as for his vast business interests.

But it was his efforts to amend the national Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 that continue to touch lives, especially in Hawai'i, said Ron Oldenburg, an immigration lawyer who formerly taught immigration law at the University of Hawai'i law school.

The 1965 Immigration Reform Act may be his greatest legacy, Oldenburg said.

"There are literally thousands of people in Hawai'i who benefitted," Oldenburg said. "Before 1965, there were piles of people who were just unable to bring their sons and daughters, mothers and brothers to the United States, even if they waited 50 years.

"Once Sen. Fong's 1965 act became law, suddenly there was hope on the horizon. It opened the door to all the plantation workers, all the Japanese that were living here, all the Chinese that were living here, all the Filipinos that were living here, to bring in their families."

With Fong's passing, immigration lawyer Gary Singh asked some of his clients last week if they realized that the amendment Fong co-authored 39 years ago continued to make it possible for them to see their families again.

The McCarran-Walter bill of 1952 was drafted to control the changing demographic landscape of America after World War II by consolidating U.S. immigration policies into the Immigration and Nationality Act. It essentially based U.S. immigration quotas on previous immigration patterns — and was thus criticized as favoring white immigrants from European countries.

"It was de facto discrimination," Oldenburg said. "Even though it doesn't say, 'We're going to discriminate against Asians,' the law favored haoles. In Hawai'i, the Filipino plantation workers, for instance, could petition to have their families come, but it was a useless exercise."

Fong, America's first elected Asian-American senator, helped push for reforms that allowed in the same number of immigrants from all countries, regardless of populations, Oldenburg said.

"China, with all of its billions of people, has a limit of 26,000 people per year, and Jamaica also has a limit of 26,000 people per year," he said. "There's still some disparity there, but it's a tremendous improvement."

Fong was not alone in pushing for change; he joined Hawai'i's Sen. Dan Inouye and Rep. Patsy Mink as well as Sens. George McGovern, Edward Kennedy, Robert Dole, Strom Thurmond and others.

The debate was seen as an extension of the civil rights reforms of the time. But Fong and the other proponents still had to fend off criticism that amending the immigration act would allow America to be overrun by foreigners.

While others urged reforms to the act, Fong deserves most of the credit for later giving Hong Kong its own quota, separate from either Britain or China, Oldenburg said.

Honolulu immigration attorney Alan W.C. Ma was born in Hong Kong 53 years ago and isn't sure to this day whether Fong's actions directly affected his own immigration.

But Ma knows one thing for certain: "Many people would not be able to come here without the senator's efforts."

Thern is sure she can trace her family's successful immigration to Fong's work in the Senate.

She was born Peggy Huang in Shanghai, the youngest survivor of nine brothers and sisters, three of whom died in childhood.

Huang married an American in Taipei and came to America in 1964 as Peggy Thern. They eventually settled in Honolulu, where she opened the Paradise Garden Restaurant at Kalakaua Avenue and Makaloa Street in 1972.

As she began the long process of bringing her brothers and their families to Honolulu, Thern used the restaurant to send them money in China.

Her oldest brother, a Christian, was not allowed to leave China for a decade because of his religious beliefs, Thern said. Other family members also waited years.

But eventually about a dozen of Thern's relatives made their way to Hawai'i and found at least temporary work at the Paradise Garden Restaurant.

Only a nephew remains in Honolulu today. The rest have moved to the Mainland for even better opportunities, taking the same trip as thousands of other immigrants before them.

Thern continues to see dozens of new immigrant faces through her after-hours work teaching English as a second language at McKinley Community School for Adults.

Last week, Thern sat at her dining room table high up on Wai'alae Nui Ridge and looked out at a gorgeous view of Diamond Head and the Pacific Ocean.

She flipped through old family photos that she had reproduced in a book about her life, written in Mandarin.

"I know many families who have come here," Thern said. "We all have a better life."

Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com or at 525-8085.

Correction: Peggy Thern teaches English as a second language at McKinley Community School for Adults. The name of the school was incorrect in a previous version of this story.