Background
Delbert Wong was born in Hanford, California on May 17, 1920, and raised a short distance away in Bakersfield.
黃錦紹
Delbert Wong was born in Hanford, California on May 17, 1920, and raised a short distance away in Bakersfield.
He attended University of California Berkeley and was a brother of Pi Alpha Phi, an Asian-American Interest fraternity. After he left University of California Berkeley, Delbert joined the Army Air Corps during World World War II, and became one of eighteen B-17 Flying Fortress navigators that graduated in his class at Mather Field in Sacramento. During his service with the military, he was one of only three navigators who completed their thirty bombing missions.
In 1949, Wong became the first Chinese American graduate of Stanford Law School. After his graduation, Delbert continued to break new ground. He was the first Asian American to be appointed Deputy Legislative Counsel serving the California State Legislature, and the first Asian American to be appointed a Deputy State Attorney General.
During his tenure as a Deputy State Attorney General, Delbert was appointed by then-Governor Pat Brown to the Municipal Court of the Los Angeles Judicial District in 1959, making him the first Chinese American named to the bench in the continental United States.
Two years later, Judge Wong was elevated to the Superior Court, where he served for over 20 years. Despite his busy schedule as a Municipal Court Judge, Wong served as Cubmaster of Cub Scout Pack 527 of the Hollywood Wilshire Council of the Boy Scouts of America.
One of his Cub Scouts was Lance Ito, later to become trial judge in the infamous O. J. Simpson murder case. Ito appointed then retired Judge Wong to serve as a special master to retrieve a switchblade knife from the Simpson residence that had been missed by police detectives.
Even after he retired from the bench in 1986, he continued to be involved in his community.
Judge Wong died on March 10, 2006, at the age of 85.