Entrevistas

1. Early Childhood

2. Camp as a Young Boy

3. “Something ominous in the background…”

4. On Joining the Marine Corps

5. Racial Antagonism in the Marine Corps

6. “I was never an exceptional student…”

7. Being 1 out of 4 Asians at Harvard Law School

8. Asian American Lawyers as Victims of “Overt Racial Discrimination”

9. “I could never get a job offer from a private law firm”

10. Being Denied as a Japanese American Lawyer

11. “The Best Seat in the Courthouse”

12. The First Japanese American on the U.S. Court of Appeals

13. On the Increase in Asian American Representation

14. The Intersection between Internment and Judgeship

15. Leaving a Legacy

Tashima,A. Wallace

(n. 1934) O Primeiro Nipo-Americano nomeado para o Tribunal de Apelações dos Estados Unidos

Asian American Lawyers as Victims of “Overt Racial Discrimination”

And then, the same thing with lawyers, in those days, the only lawyers I knew were Japanese lawyers and Chinese lawyers. Japanese lawyers, all of them, had their offices in Little Tokyo, and all the Chinese lawyers had their office in Chinatown. And their clientele was exclusively, almost exclusively with that same ethnic group. Most of them had small general practices, and I know the Chinese lawyers. I got to know a couple of them later, and some of them had a pretty busy immigration practice, but still, their practice was confined to the local ethnic community.

There were a few, very few Japanese American lawyers who were in government service, but again, not that many. Usually state or county government, city government. But I would say just very, very, few- not too many around in those days because it was still a time of quite, at least in the business community, very overt racial discrimination.

discriminação enclaves étnicos relações interpessoais Japonês advogados

Data: July 2, 2014

Localização Geográfica: California, US

Entrevistado: Sakura Kato

País: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum; Japanese American Bar Association

Entrevistados

Nascido em Santa Maria, Califórnia, o juiz Atsushi Wallace Tashima foi o primeiro nipo-americano e terceiro asiático-americano na história a servir em um Tribunal de Apelações dos Estados Unidos. Ele nasceu de imigrantes isseis e passou três anos de sua infância no Poston War Relocation Center [campo de concentração de Poston], em Poston, Arizona. Quando Tashima entrou em seu primeiro ano na Harvard Law School em 1958, ele era um dos quatro únicos estudantes asiáticos-americanos em Harvard. No entanto, Tashima passou a conduzir 34 anos de carreira como juiz federal. Em 1980, Tashima foi nomeado para o Tribunal Distrital dos EUA pelo Distrito Central da Califórnia pelo presidente Carter. Depois de servir 15 anos no Tribunal Distrital dos EUA, o presidente Clinton promoveu Tashima ao Tribunal de Apelações dos EUA no Nono Circuito, que abrange os nove estados do oeste da Costa Oeste. Em 2004, Tashima assumiu o status sênior e atualmente está no Nono Circuito do Tribunal de Pasadena, em Pasadena, CA. (Agosto de 2014)