The Robert D. Ray Asian Garden honors Governor Robert D. Ray's visionary leadership and humanitarian work while highlighting the importance of diversity in the community and acknowledging the contributions Asian Americans have made to Iowa. In the 1970s, under Ray's compassionate leadership, Iowa responded to three refugee challenges, providing moral leadership to America and the world and saving thousands upon thousands of people from Asia from starvation and death. Ray was the first public official anywhere in the world to offer endangered Vietnamese Boat People a haven, created Iowa SHARES to send food and medicine halfway around the world to feed starving Cambodians, arranged for the Tai Dam of Laos to resettle in Iowa and remain intact as a people and a culture, and welcomed many other people from countries across Asia to become Iowans. He was also in the forefront of building strong relationships with China, Japan, and other countries of Asia both while serving as governor and after leaving office.