President Obama has nominated two Asian Americans to be federal judges in California. If confirmed, Edward Chen would be the first Asian American federal judge for the Northern District. Dolly Gee and Jacqueline Nguyen would be the first Asian American females judges for the Central District.
Nguyen was nominated last week and Chen and Gee’s nominations were announced this morning.
“This marks the first time in history that two Asian Pacific American judicial nominations have been made on the same day,” Andrew T. Hahn, Sr. president of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, said in a statement. “These historic nominations come on the heels of the nomination of Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Jacqueline Nguyen for United States District Court for the Central District of California just one week ago and demonstrate President Obama’s commitment to improving the long-needed diversity of the federal judiciary.”
With Sonia Sotomayor confirmed for Supreme Court, let’s hope this the beginning of even more judges of color throughout the judiciary.
This post is also on Hyphen magazine’s blog.