Family and Education
Locke was born on January 21, 1950 in Seattle, Washington, and spent his early years with his family living in the Yesler Terrace public housing project. A third-generation Chinese American with paternal ancestry from Taishan, China, Locke is the second of five children of James Locke, who served as a staff sergeant in the U.S. Fifth Armored Division during World War II, and his wife Julie, who is from Hong Kong, which at that time was a British crown colony. His paternal grandfather left China in the 1890s and moved to the United States, where he worked as a houseboy in Olympia, Washington, in exchange for English lessons. Gary Locke did not learn how to speak English until he was five years old and entered kindergarten.
Locke graduated with honors from Seattle’s Franklin High School in 1968, and achieved Eagle Scout rank and received the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America. Through a combination of part-time jobs, financial aid, and scholarships, Locke attended Yale University, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in political science in 1972. He later received his Juris Doctor from the Boston University School of Law in 1975.
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