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Content provided by the American Bar Association Division for Public Education. Visit the Division for Public Education's website to learn more about the law and its role in society (www.abanet.org/publiced). For more profiles of pioneers in the legal profession, visit the Division for Public Education's Raising the Bar: Pioneers in the Legal Profession website at www.abanet.org/publiced/raisingthebar.html.
Gary Locke
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When Gary Locke delivered the Democratic response to the State of the Union address on January 28, 2003, he began his speech with a family anecdote that he's told many times in the course of his political career: My grandfather came to this country from China nearly a century ago and worked as a servant. Now I serve as governor just one mile from where my grandfather worked. It took our family 100 years to travel that mile. It was a voyage we could only make in America. The values that sustained us-education, hard work, responsibility and family-guide me every day.1 Locke was the first Asian American to make the nationally televised response to a State of the Union address by the president. It was an appropriate moment to recall the great cultural distance traversed over the course of that hundred years and one mile. Locke was born in Washington State on January 21, 1950. His father fought in World War II under General Patton, as a result of which Locke spent his first six years in Seattle's Yesler Terrace, a public housing project for families of veterans. He worked in his father's grocery store and became an Eagle Scout. As a young student, Locke often faced small, but demeaning, acts of discrimination: When I was in the third grade our teacher would ask every student each morning what we had for breakfast. If it was not a traditional American breakfast we would get our hands slapped by a ruler. And because I often ate a rice porridge with fish and vegetables for breakfast, I had my hand slapped quite often-so did a lot of my Asian classmates.2 In 1968, Locke graduated from Seattle's Franklin High School with honors. He attended Yale University, where he received his bachelor's degree in political science, and went on to earn a law degree from Boston University in 1975. While he was in college, Locke realized that he didn't have to choose between two cultures: "It took the civil rights movement to teach me that I could be both Chinese and American: I could be Chinese-American. I could be myself. I could be as loyal and patriotic as anyone else, and still eat with chopsticks."3 After law school, Locke became a deputy prosecutor in King County, Washington. Seven years later, he capitalized on his popularity as a successful prosecutor to move into politics, when he was elected to the Washington State House of Representatives. Locke spent five years as chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, during which time he negotiated budgets that increased college and university enrollment, improved children's health care services, and strengthened environmental protections. In 1993, he was elected chief executive of King County, where he became known for his commitment to improving social services in a complex urban area, while still enforcing fiscal discipline. Locke was elected Washington's 21st governor on November 5, 1996, becoming the first ever Asian-American governor in the continental United States. On November 7, 2000, he was re-elected to his second term. His leadership has been distinguished by his commitment to education, his drive to promote jobs, and his recognition of the need to promote economic development in rural and urban areas. In 2003, he was elected chair of the Democratic Governors' Association. In an article in Asian American Policy Review, Locke wrote of his sense of responsibility and of his vision of the future for the United States: We bring into the new century a legacy of the blood, sweat and tears of our parents and grandparents who helped make this country all that it is today. We owe it to our ancestors to take action that will guarantee that the children of the twenty-first century do not have to live through the cycles of discrimination that have marred our own coming of age. Will you take the time to educate, to listen, to share, and take action to create a more healthy and vibrant Asian-American community and to make sure all Americans have equal access to opportunity? I hope so. Let us use our collective power to keep moving America forward.4 Locke did not seek a third term as governor in 2005. He is currently a partner at the law firm of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP in Seattle, Washington. Sources and Resources 1Response to the State of the Union Address, January 28, 2003 2Remarks at Boston University Commencement, May 17, 1998 3Remarks at the National Asian-Pacific Bar Association, November 23, 1997 4Gary Locke, "The Need for Asian American Leadership: A Call to Action," Asian American Policy Review (Vol IX: 2000) (Originally published in 2003. This article has been updated to include events occurring after 2003.) |
