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HUMBLE BEGINNINGS by Raquel Miranda Vega and Hon. Ralph Wm. Wyatt
J
UDGE LOUIE L. Vega did not get to where he is today easily. Louie has been a transformative force in his various career fields and community through his accomplishments as a television news reporter, a CSUB student working full-time, a credentialed teacher, lawyer, Kern County Superiour Court Commissioner and now retired Judge.
mother only finished fifth grade and then had to work in the fields to support the family. Louie embarked upon a brief teaching career with the Kern High School District teaching at Shafter High School, East High School, and South High School. Along with teaching, he started soccer teams at both Shafter High School and South High school.
Louie Vega was the eldest son of a farmworker family living in rural poverty. In the 1950’s his family would move from rural California to the Greater Los Angeles area where Louie would finish high school. Upon high school graduation, Louie enlisted in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War in 1968. He was trained to be a helicopter mechanic - door gunner and while in the combat zone (shot down twice), promoted to helicopter crew chief. After coming home, Louie, now a combat Veteran, was awarded a Purple Heart and various combat ribbons for his time serving the military.
In 1980, Louie deviated from his career path as a teacher and earned his law degree from UCLA Law. Following graduation he remained in Los Angeles working for a prominent law firm specializing in re-development law.
In the early 1970s Louie followed a job lead to Bakersfield and became the first Latino television broadcaster in Kern County. He broke the color barrier in the local broadcasting profession as observed by a Bakersfield Californian newspaper article: “Louie Vega heard about a reporter opening at KERO, and gave it a shot... Kern County had its first brown face on local television news.” Louie would ultimately work at KERO from 1971 to 1977. At the height of intense farm labor strife, which pitted the farm workers and the Farm Workers’ Union against the farmers, this was a pivotal moment for the Kern County media community impacting the local journalism field in Bakersfield, forever changing the way local newsrooms would look like and the faces broadcasting. If it were not for Louie, his daughter’s opportunity as a young Latina woman working in journalism in Kern County would have looked a lot different. Today she sees faces that look like her own and the Latino culture does not go unrecognized in this community. While working at KERO, Louie enrolled at CSUB and obtained his Bachelor’s Degree and teaching credential, becoming the first in his family to pursue higher education. He came from a family where his RES IPSA LOQUITUR
Louie returned to Bakersfield and worked as a Kern County Deputy Public Defender and, thereafter, joined the law firm of Young Wooldridge practicing civil litigation. While at Young Wooldridge, Louie took on a pro-bono client “The Friends of Heritage Park.” “The Friends of Heritage Park,” was a citizen-based organization seeking to preserve Heritage Park by opposing the location of Kern County’s Juvenile Justice Center on five acres of the park space. During the litigation, the County agreed to move the location of the Juvenile Justice Center down the street south of the park boundaries. In an ironic twist of fate, the now, down the street courthouse, is where Judge Vega would decades later preside as a Supervising Juvenile Court Judge. Through Louie’s pro-bono efforts as a young attorney, the entirety of Heritage Park was preserved and remains open for families to enjoy. In 1990, Louie Vega was selected to become a Court Commissioner, where he served from 1990 to 2008. As a capstone of his legal career, Court Commissioner Louie Vega was appointed to a Judgeship in 2008 by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. During his career, Judge Vega was at the forefront of starting Family Reunification Day in 2013 at the Juvenile Justice Center in conjunction with the Department of Human Services. This celebration was created to recognize the time and dedication parents separated from their children took to reunify with their children. As a Judge for the Juvenile