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The Legal Education of the First Chinese American Admitted to the New York Bar in the Twentieth Century and his Crusade to End Discrimination Against Ethnic Chinese in America
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 November 2017
Abstract
This article attempts to reveal how a typical first generation Chinese American activist set out to go to law school to learn the skill set to help fight against racial prejudice directed at the Chinese in the early twentieth century. It examines how Hua Chuen Mei, a first-generation Chinese American lawyer was educated and trained in America; it primarily traces his undergraduate and law school education at Columbia and New York University Law School from 1910–1914 to show how he overcame the odds and excelled academically to complete his undergraduate and law degree programs with flying colors. It revisits his extracurricular activities to understand what motivated early Chinese immigrants like him to seek legal education, and what issues were uppermost in the mind of a typical Chinese American law student in that era.
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References
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3 Id.
4 Id.
5 Id.
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26 Supra note 19.
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34 Supra note 1.
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55 Id.
56 Id.
57 Id.
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59 Supra note 43.
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69 Supra note 43.
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72 Supra note 1.
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74 Id.
75 Id.
76 Id.
77 Id.
78 Id.
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80 Id.
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86 Id.
87 Id.
88 Id.
89 Id.
90 Id.
91 Supra note 1.
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95 Id., a 175.
96 Id., a 178.
97 Id.
98 Id., a 183.
99 Id.
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101 Id.
102 U.S. Bar Admits Chinese, Hua-Chuen Mei, First of Race to Practice in Federal Tribunal, NEW YORK TIMES, Jul. 2, 1915, at 6.
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104 Supra note 19.
105 In the matter of Hua-Chuen Mei, alleged native departing, Office, Chinese Inspector, NY.C., July 1, 1915 (unpublished manuscript on file with the author).