ASIAN PACIFIC FUND GALA

Senior Counsel with Minami Tamaki

Dale Minami, Senior Counsel with Minami Tamaki, received his JD from UC
Berkeley in 1971.

Minami has led litigation for the civil rights of Asian Pacific Americans (“APA”),
including Korematsu v. United States, United Pilipinos for Affirmative Action v.
California Blue Shield (class action employment discrimination), Spokane JACL
v. Washington State University, (action to establish an Asian American Studies
program) and Nakanishi v. UCLA (challenge to unfair tenure denial).

He co-founded the Asian Law Caucus, the Asian American Bar Association, the
Asian Pacific Bar and an APA PAC in 1987. Minami taught Asian American and
the Law course at U.C. Berkeley in 1972 (and studied the Wong Kim Ark case).
He has been recognized as a Super Lawyers since 2004, included several Top
Ten designations. He was awarded ABA’s highest award, the ABA Medal as well
as the ABA Thurgood Marshall and Spirit of Excellence Awards, among others.
And, the Asian Pacific Fund Award in 2009.

Norman Wong is a descendent of Wong Kim Ark, the San Francisco-born laborer whose landmark 1898 Supreme Court victory in United States v. Wong Kim Ark established that almost all children born on U.S. soil are citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment — a principle that has shaped American identity for over a century. Norman was born in San Francisco, worked in the carpentry trade for decades, and continues to reside in the Bay Area. He did not learn of his family’s extraordinary legal legacy until he was in his fifties. Over the past several years, he has emerged as a prominent public voice in the national debate on citizenship. In April, Norman traveled to D.C. to hold vigil outside the Supreme Court building during oral argument in Trump v. Barbara, a case in which the government sought and failed to narrow the scope of Wong Kim Ark and restrict the citizenship of children born in the U.S. to non-citizen parents.