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Among the many lessons we all have learned during the pandemic, we have learned the real meaning of cabin fever. We have learned that having our freedom of movement restrained even for our own health and safety was difficult and unimaginable long-term. This unimaginable truth despite the fact that we had access to the comforts and niceties in our own homes. We certainly were not incarcerated in our own homes like Yuri Kochiyama was during Japanese internment in the United States.
As we celebrate Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage this month, let’s remember to celebrate our own AAPI members, who have paved the path by shattering glass ceilings.
As we celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander history this month, let’s celebrate the first female Asian American who became a lawyer in the United States in June of 1937: Elizabeth Kuma Ohi. A Japanese American and Chicago native, Ohi was born on February 9, 1911. She graduated valedictorian from Pullman Free School of Manual Training and attended local universities in Chicago. She earned her law degree from John Marshall Law School, where she graduated first out of a class of 41 students.
Our longest serving executive director, Elaine Lawrence, retires tomorrow, April 30, 2021. Elaine has been our “servant leader”, her preferred title, since 2011. We are deeply grateful for Elaine, who has been the rock of our organization for the last decade. I count it among my blessings that I’ve had the opportunity to work with her and benefit from the tremendous asset of her leadership during my presidency of Lawyers Club.
During our childhood years we learn about history and may find ourselves wondering what it must have been like to live through the history we have learned, how we may have behaved, and the choices we would have made. While we cannot travel back in time to find the answers, we can be present now and be part of the history that is our shared lived experiences. Our participation is dependent on our choice to engage in the history that future generations will read about.
Unlike years past, it seems all people were aware of International Women’s Day on March 8, 2021. The annual celebration was met this year with a heightened awareness of the value women, past and present, have contributed to society. Even the little people knew it was a special day.
March is very special to Lawyers Club because it is Women’s History Month, a month to recognize “sheroes” for their important past and present contributions to our society.
The promise of this America, one where I can be myself, where my bravery is rewarded rather than punished, where Black men and women feel protected by the justice system and can pursue any dream they have, where women are allowed to be powerful and in control, moved me to tears.
[RBG] assumed the mantle of her unsolicited celebrity so graciously in her later years that she helped more than one generation reimagine a life in the law as simultaneously fulfilling and cool.
What are you?” A question I constantly have tried to find a correct answer to growing up. My appearance next to my Caucasian mother would often collect second glances from others in the grocery store, at restaurants, or even school events. Once, I had a doctor who apparently did not read my chart before coming in the room, who suggested a course of action he thought best for “Hispanic women.” I should clarify, I am a half-Caucasian and half-African American woman. This is why, on November 7, I ugly cried as Kamala Harris was confirmed as the first female to be elected vice-president—a woman of color elected to the second-highest office in the nation.
