To say Katherine Sui Fun Cheung was a rarity is an understatement. When she became the first Chinese woman to earn her pilot’s license in the United States, she was part of the one percent of women pilots in the entire country — and, as a woman of color, she was one percent of the one percent of women pilots.

The story goes that the idea for Katherine to take flight began when she was learning how to drive in a lot next to what was known as Dycer Airfield in Los Angeles. After her father gave her driving lessons, they’d park the car and watch the planes take off and land.

Katherine was born on Dec. 12, 1904, in Enping, China. In 1921, she moved to the US to study music, graduating from Los Angeles Conservatory of Music and continuing her studies at Cal Poly Pomona and the University of Southern California.

In the 1930s, women weren’t allowed to join flight school in China, but the U.S. was a different story.

“I thought it over and I said ‘well, I’m over here, I can do anything I want, why shouldn’t I do it?’,” recalled Katherine in an old interview with a local TV station.