Celebrating Asian American, Native Hawai'ian, Pacific Islander Heritage Month: Elizabeth Ohi, first Asian American female to practice law

Kuma Elizabeth Ohi, born February 9, 1911 in Chicago, Illinois, became the first Japanese American female to practice law in the United States in 1937.  

She was detained after the attack on Pearl Harbor, but Arthur Goldberg, the attorney for whom Ohi was working as a clerk, intervened.   She served as an ensign in the US Navy, and afterwards moved to Washington, DC.  She became an attorney at the Office of Management and Budget and the US Department of Labor.

She passed away in August 1976 in Washington, DC.