AAPI individuals have been an important part of American legal history for well over a century. In the late 19th century, Chy Lung, Yick Wo, Wo Lee, and Wong Kim Ark cemented this community’s presence in a number of decisions issued by the U.S. Supreme Court. None of those men were lawyers. Hong Yen Chang reportedly became the first Chinese-American lawyer in the U.S. in 1888, but was denied admission to the California Bar due to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. In 2025, AAPI individuals together made up a single-digit percentage of all U.S. lawyers. AAPI lawyers have exceled in nearly every area of the law—short of seeing an AAPI justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Our Asian-American legal history is made up of the experiences of the individuals who lived them. The BBB Project aims both to memorialize the stories of living AAPI legal luminaries in their own words, and to share these stories with others to use on their own journeys.