Delbert Wong is a fourth generation American of Chinese heritage. After completing an undergraduate degree in business at Stanford University, Wong served in World War II as a B-17 Flying Fortress navigator, receiving the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal on four occasions, and the Distinguished Unit Citation. After the war, Wong faced a choice between “Joining my family’s grocery business or continuing with law school.” However, this was not met with much support from his parents: “Who would hire you, a Chinese?” Undeterred, Wong completed his law degree, as the first Chinese American graduate of Stanford’s Law School in 1948.
After graduation he received an appointment as a Deputy Legislative Counsel serving the California State Legislature in Sacramento in 1948. In 1951 he was appointed as a Deputy Attorney General, becoming the first Asian American to hold that position. During the next seven years he tried cases in all of the fourteen southern counties of the state from Fresno County to the Mexican border and argued many cases before the Courts of Appeal and the California Supreme Court, before receiving his judicial appointment in 1959.
Judge Wong’s judicial career has spanned over 46 years, starting with being appointed to the Los Angeles Municipal Court in January of 1959. At the time of his appointment by Governor Edmund G. “Pat” Brown, Wong was the first person of Chinese descent to serve in the judiciary in the continental United States. In 1961 he was elevated to the Superior Court where he served for over 20 years, including five years on the Appellate Department. At the time of his retirement in 1982, he was the senior judge out of 206 jurists with the Los Angeles Superior Court.
He has served on many Superior Court committees, including three terms on the Executive Committee. He has been chairperson of the Courthouse Committee, the Grand Jury Committee, and the Historical Events Committee. He served for 10 years as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Los Angeles County Law Library, and was its president for five years. His civic volunteer activities have included serving on the boards of the Chinatown Service Center, the Chinese American Citizens Alliance, the Boy Scouts of America, the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California, and the National Conference for Community and Justice.
After retirement from the Superior Court, he remains active in law with private judging services, assisting with arbitrations, mediations, and the settlement of cases outside of the traditional court system. His judicial and legal experience continues to be further utilized by the City of Los Angeles, numerous private and government commissions, participating in drafting Los Angeles City government’s first ethics code, the International Court of Arbitrations, medical malpractice arbitration, and even a role in the O.J. Simpson murder trial as the Special Master where he had custody of the mysterious “brown envelope” at the beginning of the case and testifying at the trial with respect to some important items of evidence. In 2002 he augmented his practice to include the mediation of complex business and family disputes in the Asian communities.
Judge Wong is married to Dolores Wong, who is a retired psychiatric social worker who became a full-time community volunteer. They have four children: Shelley a professor of linguistics at Ohio State University and now at George Mason University; Duane, a country western entertainer, music teacher, and owner of a music store in El Cerrito; Kent, a lawyer and the Director of the UCLA Center for Labor Research; and Marshall, formerly with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., and currently with the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations.
History, Ethnicity and the Law
Part of his motivation in becoming a lawyer was due to seeing the effects of the Chinese Exclusion Acts. “Even at the time when I became a lawyer, the California Constitution stated: ‘Indians, imbeciles and Chinese are prohibited from testifying in court and ineligible from employment in public works, except as punishment for a crime.’ There were other laws prohibiting Chinese from owning land.”
These laws also directly affected his parents: “My mother, who was born in Weaverville, California in 1901, lost her citizenship in 1919, by marrying my father, who was an immigrant from China. She had to restore her citizenship, years later, through the naturalization process.”
“Because of the discrimination laws, many Chinese believed the courts could not be trusted. This is part of the reason why Chinese Americans were late in getting into the legal profession and politics.” said Wong.
Has Judge Wong ever felt that his ethnicity was an issue in court? Aside from being told by an attorney “You speak English very well,” to which he responded, “Yours is very good too!” he recalls “When some minority criminal defendants came into my court room, they saw me–the judge also being a minority–were more willing to cooperate with the court, perhaps sensing that he might be treated more fairly, thinking I could have a slightly better understanding of his position.”
“In the last 20 years, I have seen amazing progress by Asian Americans in law and politics. Today we can be proud of the fact that with the exception of the United States Supreme Court there are Asians presiding at every level of the State and Federal Courts. We can be proud of the fact that an Asian, Gary Locke, was elected Governor of the State of Washington. We can be proud of the fact that there are five Asian Americans serving in the California State Legislature, three of whom are women, and that there are Asian men and women who are serving as mayors and city councilmen in many cities in California and other states. We can be proud of the fact that there are Asian American lawyers teaching in the most prestigious universities, representing clients in all of the courts at every level, and sitting in places of responsibility on corporate boards and in major labor organizations..”
What does Judge Wong see for Asian Americans in the legal and political arena in the coming years? “The glass ceiling is slowly cracking. We’re living in an exciting period. Asian Americans are winning elections. Each victory carries over to others, setting successful precedents and inspiring future politicians.”
Judge passed away on March 10, 2006.
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