Discover Nikkei

https://www.discovernikkei.org/en/interviews/clips/1704/

Challenges faced by female judges

Probably the same challenges I still face as a judge, which is that you still get stereotyped. At that period of time, I mean, Asian American women were not lawyers and so besides being mistaken for the interpreter or the court reporter or just treated badly, I said you get a lot of "sweethearts" a lot of brushing you off, a lot of assuming that what you have to say isn’t important, and that even as a young lawyer, even as a partner at my law firm, if I was with a young Caucasian man they always, the other side would always talk to him. And ask him his opinion, and ask him what is the client going to do? And I would have to stop and say excuse me, it’s my client. This is my case and I am the partner on the case, and they would just kinda go… "Really?" You get a lot of that… I feel, a lot of women of color on the bench feel that we get a lot less respect than do say white males or even white females, and there's a feeling more that they can be disrespectful to us and that-that is okay -- of course it’s not and they learn that once they’ve had an interaction or two with me. You know, I work very very hard to make sure that I have control of my courtroom and that people understand that women of color can be the boss in this situation, but it’s still an issue.


Date: July 11, 2019

Location: California, US

Interviewer: Kayla Tanaka

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

Interviewee Bio

Judge Holly J. Fujie is a Sansei judge on the Superior Court of Los Angeles County in California since 2012. She grew up in West Oakland, California in a diverse neighborhood. Both of her parents were incarcerated as children during World War II, but did not share their experiences with her until she was an adult. This affected her view on laws and government and led her to pursue a career as an attorney and later as a judge.

As a lawyer, she became involved with various minority bar association, including the Japanese American Bar Association, and mentorship programs. She became the first Asian American President of the State Bar of California in 2008. (July 2019)

*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.

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