Hiram Leong Fong was an American businessman, lawyer, and politician from Hawaii. Born to a Cantonese immigrant sugar plantation worker, Fong became the first Chinese-American and first Asian-American United States Senator, serving from 1959 to 1977.
The William S. Richardson School of Law is the professional graduate law school of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Located in Honolulu, Hawaii, the school is named after its patriarch, former Hawaii State Supreme Court Chief Justice William S. Richardson, a zealous advocate of Hawaiian culture, and is Hawaii's only law school.
Nelson Kiyoshi Doi, was the sixth lieutenant governor of Hawaii from 1974 to 1978 in the first elected administration of Governor George Ariyoshi. Doi was a member of the Hawaii Democratic Party.
Herbert Young Cho Choy was the first Asian American to serve as a United States federal judge and the first person of Korean ancestry to be admitted to the bar in the United States. He served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
John Fujio Aiso was an American nisei military leader, lawyer and judge. Aiso was the Director and head instructor of the Military Intelligence Service Language School, and the highest-ranking Japanese American in the U.S. Army during World War II. He was also the first Japanese American appointed as a judge in the contiguous United States.
The politics of the U.S. state of Hawaii typically take place within the framework of a Democrat-dominated government. The Democratic Party in Hawaii was formed in 1900, by supporters of Queen Liliʻuokalani. For the first half of the twentieth century, the Republican Party ruled comfortably, dominating local politics until the end of World War II. After the war, Honolulu police officer John A. Burns began organizing plantation laborers, including many Japanese Americans and Filipino Americans and built a coalition that gradually strengthened the Democratic Party in Hawaii. This culminated in the Hawaii Democratic Revolution of 1954, after which Republican political influence in the islands was greatly diminished.
Peter Aquino Aduja was the first Filipino American elected to public office in the United States. He was elected as a representative in the Hawaii Legislature in 1954.
Susan Oki Mollway is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii and the first East Asian woman and Japanese-American woman ever appointed to a life-time position on the federal bench.
Shiro Kashiwa was an American lawyer and judge who was the first Attorney General of Hawaii to be appointed after it became a state in 1959. He served as a judge of the United States Court of Claims, then as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C. from 1982 to 1986. He was the first federal judge of Japanese-American descent, the first Asian American judge on the Federal Circuit and was a member of the Jōdo Shinshū sect of Buddhism.
Chuck Mau was a Chinese-American politician and jurist.
Benjamin Menor was a justice of the Supreme Court of Hawaii from April 16, 1974, to December 30, 1981.
Masaji Marumoto was the first Japanese American Justice of the Supreme Court of Hawaii. He served from 1956 to 1973. He was the first Japanese American to graduate from Harvard Law School, and the first Japanese American to serve as president of the Hawaii Bar Association.
Wilfred Chomatsu "Tsuky" Tsukiyama was an attorney, Territorial Senator, and chief justice of the Supreme Court of Hawaii. He was the first Japanese American elected to the Territorial Senate of Hawaii, and the first to serve as a state Supreme Court Justice in the United States.
Lawrence M. Reifurth is a former Judge of the Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals.
Derrick H.M. Chan is a former judge of the Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals.
Ted Tatsuya Tsukiyama was a Japanese American attorney and bonsai enthusiast. During World War II he was a member of the Varsity Victory Volunteers, 442 Regimental Combat Team, and the Military Intelligence Service. He was the first Japanese American to graduate from Yale Law School.
Sau Ung Loo Chan (1906–2002) was Hawaii's first female lawyer of Asian descent.
