Interviews

1. Family’s Japanese roots and values

2. The lack of discussion about family’s incarceration in Amache

3. Her desire to help at-risk and dependent youth

4. Her motto came from her mother

5. Unique perspective that a judge can bring to community organizations

6. How she transitioned from anthropology to law

7. Mother founded Japanese language school in neighbors’ backyard

Wasserman,Fumiko Hachiya

Sansei judge for the Superior Court of Los Angeles County in California

Her desire to help at-risk and dependent youth

As far as working, I’ve been on the bench since 1986. I have been happy being a judge, that’s why I am still on the bench. My experience on the bench has gone from starting in the municipal court, then going to Superior Court, working with dependents, juvenile dependency, they are the abused, neglected, molested, very sad cases in terms of being part of our system of dependency, foster care. Then I asked to do delinquency, because that’s one of the reasons I wanted to become a Superior Court judge, was in order to work with at-risk youth.

governments judges youth

Date: July 27, 2018

Location: California, US

Interviewer: Kiya Matsuno

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

Interviewee Bio

Judge Fumiko Hachiya Wasserman is a Sansei judge for the Superior Court of Los Angeles County in California. She was born in Torrance, California and grew up in Harbor City, California. She was the first Asian American female hired by the US Attorney’s office in the Civil Division, the first minority elected official in the Torrance School Board, and the first judge to ever serve on the LA Biomedical Research Institute. She currently serves in the Los Padrinos Courthouse as the site judge. She grew up in a diverse and welcoming neighborhood and felt secure in being Japanese American. She is involved with the Japanese American community, works to promote diversity, and she mentors lawyers and judges. (June 2018)

*This is one of the main projects completed by The Nikkei Community Internship (NCI) Program intern each summer, which the Japanese American Bar Association and the Japanese American National Museum have co-hosted.