On May 12, 2022, BakerHostetler commemorated Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month with an engaging, virtual reenactment of two appellate cases that serve as a microcosm of the legal struggles and injustices that Asian immigrants faced in the U.S. in the early 1900s. “Race, Color, and Citizenship: Ozawa and Thind in the 1920s” follows the journeys of Takao Ozawa, a Japanese immigrant, and Bhagat Singh Thind, an Indian immigrant. Both lived in the U.S. for many years and sought to carve out a place for themselves in society. Their cases went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. This program explored what exactly it meant to be “white” and “American” in the early 1900s and reflected on the broad influence that AAPI people have had on our nation’s progress toward equality and inclusivity.
The reenactment featured cast members from many BakerHostetler offices. They included Timothy Casey (Seattle), Matthew Caligur and Sushant Mohan (Houston), Jeffrey Paravano (Washington, D.C.), Lauren Resnick and Brian Song (New York), Laurin Quiat (Denver), Shawn Cleveland and Sophilia Wu (Dallas), Carole Rendon (Cleveland), Sylvia Kim (San Francisco), Kristin Yokomoto (Costa Mesa), Ali Haque (Columbus), Dyanne Cho (Los Angeles), Charlotte Luu (Atlanta) and Yeshesvini Chandar (Philadelphia).