Out of adversity, a career in law (continued)

"I thought about staying home and helping them out. But not in this country."

In this country, he realized, a few years of education can open a lot more doors for a family than decades of manual labor can.

Through college, Lor worked in the dining hall of Berkeley's International House, sending money home when he could. When he visited, he bought groceries for the family. He patched his education together through loans and grants, most recently winning one of six Asian-Pacific Bar Association of Sacramento scholarships to be awarded at the group's May 27 fund-raiser.

And so has it been through America's history, one wave of immigrants after another.

Lor hardly remembers his life before America. His parents, still sad for the old way of life in the
mountains that the war took from them, remember little else.

"When I told my parents I wanted to go to law school, they said, 'Good,' but they don't really know the meaning of it," Lor says. "They don't know much about education."

That's OK. Because their children do.

Historic Meeting in Courts Building

January 31 saw a historic meeting of CAPITAL in the Library and Courts Building downtown.

CAPITAL's Executive Committee occupied the bench normally occupied by the Justices of the California Court of Appeal, Third Appellate District, and the California Supreme Court. This was the first time in the Library and Courts Building's 100-year history that a community group had sat on the Justices' bench. Shown, from left to right, are CAPITAL advisor Justice George Nicholson, member at large Ofa Mann, advisor County Supervisor Illa Collin, secretary Cynthia Bonta, vice chair Judy Fong Heary, chair Sonney Chong, treasurer Jeanie Lee, legal counsel Jerry Chong, member at large Grace Kim, and advisor City Councilmember Jimmie Yee.