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

How she transitioned from anthropology to law

I became an Anthropology Major with a Sociology Minor. I thought I’d become an anthropologist; I went for my teaching credential after that because I could not really support myself nor my fiancé after we got married on a grant from anthropology which would have required me to be, most likely, out of the country. I would have to write, you know, get someone to sponsor me to work for a PhD. So I became a research assistant and an exam grader also in the Department of Education.

How I changed over was I became pregnant after I’d been teaching, I had my tenure. The school district only gave you one year leave of absence, and I wasn’t ready to go back to teaching at that point. I had done some volunteer work at legal aid when my husband was going to law school at USC. And part of it was they were trying to reach out to the Asian community, so I had gone and done some volunteer work when we went to Chinatown, then I took my father with me to translate and we went into Little Tokyo in order to establish services for the Asian American community. And that’s how I transitioned into law. It would — I thought it would give me greater flexibility, and it also gave me an avenue to serve.

judges law occupations (employment)

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.