This is part of a series of posts examining the interaction of the Asian Pacific American community and our court system. You can make an immediate contribution to increasing diversity on the federal bench by calling your Senators and signing a letter urging your Senators to take positive action on Judge Edward Chen, nominee to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.  Judge Chen is awaiting a full Senate confirmation vote.

Meet Goodwin Liu

ALERT:  Professor Goodwin Liu’s nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit will be voted on by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, May 13. You can support him by calling Senate Judiciary Committee members this week at 202-224-3121 and asking them to vote for Professor Liu.  More information can be found here.

Most of you by now have heard about UC Berkeley School of Law Associate Dean and Professor of Law Goodwin Liu and his outstanding qualifications to be the only active Asian Pacific American Article III judge serving on the Ninth Circuit.  Here’s a more personal look at his background and how his experiences growing up as an Asian Pacific American shaped who he is today.

Liu’s upbringing reflects the American attitude that, with hard work, anyone can succeed.  He was born in Augusta, Georgia, to Taiwanese immigrants who came to the U.S. in the late 1960s when foreign doctors were being recruited to work in underserved areas.  His parents immigrated to the U.S. when Taiwan was under martial law, and they have always admired and respected America for its commitment to the rule of law, a trait that his parents passed on to him.  The Liu family arrived with little money but worked hard and sacrificed to make the most of the opportunities that America offered.  In 1973, the family moved to Clewiston, Florida, a small sugarcane town near the southwest shore of Lake Okeechobee.  In 1977, the family settled in Sacramento, California, where Liu’s parents worked as primary care physicians for over twenty years.

Liu attended public schools in Clewiston and Sacramento, and his parents stressed education.  Remarkably, Liu and his older brother did not learn to speak English until kindergarten because their parents worried they would acquire an accent if they were taught at home.  During the summer, Liu’s parents left math problems on the kitchen table each day for Liu and his brother to supplement their schoolwork.  Liu was not a natural reader, however, and he struggled with vocabulary.  For months, he stayed up late at night learning new words to prepare for the SAT.  He eventually graduated from Rio Americano High School as co-valedictorian and captain of the tennis team, and was admitted to Stanford University.

During high school, Liu had the unique opportunity to serve as a page in the U.S. House of Representatives, thanks to the sponsorship of the late Congressman Robert Matsui.  It was his first real exposure to law and politics, and it sparked a deep interest in government that eventually drew him to the law.  At Stanford, Liu majored in biology and initially aspired to be a doctor like his parents and his brother, now a physician in Fremont, California.  But his experiences at Stanford—in student government, as a summer school teacher for low-income youth, and as co-director of a major conference on K-12 education—moved him further toward law and public service.    

Notwithstanding his busy schedule as a teacher and school administrator, Liu values his time with his family, which includes a three-year-old daughter, Violet, and a newborn son, Emmett.  Liu is married to Ann O’Leary, the daughter of a social worker and a union leader, who is the founding Executive Director of the UC Berkeley Center on Health, Economic & Family Security.  Liu and his family enjoy the outdoors, and The Desolation Wilderness in California is home to some of their favorite hiking trails.  Since childhood, Liu has been an avid fisherman, a hobby he learned from his father and hopes to pass on to his own children.  In addition, Liu is a seasoned runner; he has run four marathons and hopes to run a fifth this year.  He also enjoys tennis and basketball, and counts among the highlights of his Supreme Court clerkship the weekly basketball games with his fellow clerks on “the highest court in the land,” the gym atop the Supreme Court building.