This month’s Los Angeles Lawyer includes an essay by Rachelle Chong, an attorney and former FCC commissioner, about her great uncle — Hong Yen Chang — and the effort by UC Davis law students to have the California Supreme Court reverse its 1890 race-based decision (In re Hong Yen Chang (1890) 84 Cal. 163) denying Chang admission to the California bar. The state Senate several months ago passed a supporting resolution.
In the New York Times archives, you can read an 1888 article about Chang becoming licensed to practice law in New York (after an earlier denial) and being at the time, according to the article, “the only regularly admitted Chinese lawyer in this country.”
