In Re Hong Yen Chang

We grant Hong Yen Chang posthumous admission as an attorney and counselor at law in all courts of the State of California.

Hong Yen Chang, a native of China, came to this country in 1872 as part of an educational program to teach Chinese youth about the West. (Farkas, Bury My Bones in America (1998) p. 87 (Farkas).) Chang graduated from the Philips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, in 1879 and earned his undergraduate degree at Yale University. (Id. at pp. 87, 89, 93.) He went on to graduate from Columbia Law School in 1886. (Id. at p. 90.) He applied for admission to the New York Bar, but despite a “high marking” and unanimous recommendation from the bar examiners, he was turned down by the state supreme court in 1887 because he was not a citizen. (In and About the City: Naturalizing a Chinaman. Hong Yen Chang’s Struggles to be Admitted to the Bar, N.Y. Times (Nov. 19, 1887) p. 8.) That same year, a New York judge issued Chang a certificate of naturalization. (Ibid.) After the New York Legislature passed a law allowing him to reapply for bar admission, Chang was admitted in 1888, becoming “the only regularly admitted Chinese lawyer in this country.” (A Chinese Lawyer:…