From Jamaica to Judgeship: Dreaming Big

By Gail Chang Bohr, Saint Paul

I was born in Jamaica, the ninth of 15 children in a Chinese immigrant family. My mother was born in Jamaica; her family came from China as did my father as a teenager. My parents started with nothing but through their hard work and determination, they opened Jamaica’s first self-service supermarket, Chang’s Emporium.

I learned from them to take risks, to work hard, and to have faith in myself. My childhood in Jamaica prepared me well for my later education and career as a social worker, lawyer, executive director, and judge in the United States.

I left Jamaica at 18 to attend Wellesley College where I had been awarded a full scholarship. After graduating with a B.A. degree, I earned a graduate degree in social work and had a 19+ year successful career as a clinical social worker in Boston, Hong Kong, Sacramento, and St. Paul.

For most of my social work career, I worked with children and families in medical settings and was the lead Pediatric social worker at the teaching hospital of UC Davis, Sacramento. In Minnesota, I was a senior social worker at Children’s Home Society.

At the age of 43, with the loving support of my husband and two children, ages 5 and 10, I decided to go to law school to enhance my advocacy for children. I graduated magna cum laude from William Mitchell College of Law, clerked for the Chief Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, and was an associate at Faegre and Benson. In 1995, I became the first executive director of Children’s Law Center of Minnesota (CLC).

I thank my parents for teaching me to put the children first. Their admonition, “who is taking care of the children” was never far from our minds at CLC. We used the law to advance the rights of children. By the time I left in 2008, I had recruited and trained over 270 pro bono lawyers to represent children in foster care; helped to ensure, through legislation, that siblings were placed together for foster care and adoption; that foster youth had independent living skills before they turned 18 years old; and could keep more of their earnings if they worked to save for college and were still in care, among other systemic reforms.

Yet, my immigrant dream was not over. I had always wanted to be a judge ever since I clerked at the court. My applications for appointment were rejected so many times I finally resorted to self-help. When the opportunity of an open judicial seat occurred, I took the risk to run for election, campaigned hard, and achieved my dream of being a judge. I won the election by 52 per cent.

In doing so, I became the first Asian Pacific American judge in Ramsey County, home to the largest APA population in Minnesota. Upon retiring in 2014, I was pleased to continue to serve as a senior judge, to be an international consultant for the National Center for State Courts and train judges in Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica. As my parents in Jamaica did, I hope I broadened the landscape of opportunity for Minnesota’s Asian Pacific American community.

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