Career
During his tenure as a Deputy State Attorney General, Delbert was appointed by then-Governor Pat Brown to the Municipal Court of the Los Angeles Judicial District in 1959, making him the first Chinese American named to the bench in the continental United States. Two years later, Judge Wong was elevated to the Superior Court, where he served for over 20 years. Despite his busy schedule as a Municipal Court Judge, Wong served as Cubmaster of Cub Scout Pack 527 of the Hollywood Wilshire Council of the Boy Scouts of America. One of his Cub Scouts was Lance Ito, later to become trial judge in the infamous O. J. Simpson murder case. Ito appointed then retired Judge Wong to serve as a special master to retrieve a switchblade knife from the Simpson residence that had been missed by police detectives. Even after he retired from the bench in 1986, he continued to be involved in his community.
Wong researched and reported on racial issues within the Los Angeles Airport Police Bureau at the request of the Los Angeles Department of Airports; was appointed by then-Mayor of Los Angeles Tom Bradley to serve on a panel tasked with drafting an ethics policy for the City of Los Angeles; and was appointed Chair of the Asian Pacific American Focus Program of the National Conference of Christians and Jews to combat the rise in violence against Asian Americans.
Together with his wife, Dolores, Judge Wong was also an ardent supporter of the Chinese American community, making significant contributions to the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, the Chinatown Service Center and the Asian Pacific American Friends of the Center Theater Group.
Judge Wong died on March 10, 2006, at the age of 85.
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Wong, Delbert |
| Alternative names | |
| Short description | American judge |
| Date of birth | May 17, 1920 |
| Place of birth | Hanford, California |
| Date of death | March 10, 2006 |
| Place of death | |
Read more about this topic: Delbert E. Wong
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“I doubt that I would have taken so many leaps in my own writing or been as clear about my feminist and political commitments if I had not been anointed as early as I was. Some major form of recognition seems to have to mark a woman’s career for her to be able to go out on a limb without having her credentials questioned.”
—Ruth Behar (b. 1956)
“The problem, thus, is not whether or not women are to combine marriage and motherhood with work or career but how they are to do so—concomitantly in a two-role continuous pattern or sequentially in a pattern involving job or career discontinuities.”
—Jessie Bernard (20th century)