U.S. District Court Judge Robert Takasugi and Attorney Carl Shsuterman

U.S. District Court Judge Robert Takasugi
And Attorney Carl Shusterman

The Eleventh Annual National Asian Pacific American Conference on Law and Public Policy (NAPACLPP) was held on March 4-5, 2005 at Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Attorney Carl Shusterman participated in a panel with Professor Bill Ong Hing and Traci Hong, Esq. entitled “Pursuing the American Dream: Long-Term Vision or Temporary Mirage?” Professor Deborah Anker of Harvard Law School moderated the panel.

The conference featured a dinner honoring U.S. District Judge Robert M. Takasugi. The Judge and his family were interned along with 130,000 other Japanese Americans pursuant to Presidental Order 9066. Describing the ordeal as “an education to be fair,” Judge Takasugi persevered, receiving degrees from UCLA and USC Law School. Thereafter, his commitment to equal justice led him to represent many indigent arrestees of the Watts Riots, East Los Angeles Riots, and other civil rights protestors in the ’60s.

In the late 1970s, when Mr. Shusterman was an INS Attorney, he accompanied Judge Takasugi to a nursing home where the Judge swore-in a 100-year-old Japanese-American man as a U.S. citizen.