SECTION & AFFILIATE NEWS
Angela Lai is the 2017 President of the STMS. She can be contacted at angelamlai@gmail.com.
Year in Review at St. Thomas More Society by Angela M. Lai
St.
Thomas More Society (STMS) enjoyed another fruitful year, filled with a variety of informative and thought-provoking programs, including programs on the fascinating history of the Catholic Diocese of Sacramento, alternative vocations to serve the community under the umbrella of the Catholic Church, the pilgrimage route Camino de Santiago, and an attorney and priest panel discussion of their personal journey fighting substance abuse. Earlier this year, STMS celebrated its 31st year of service and ministry with the annual Feast Day Reception. At the annual reception, we awarded the Father McDermott Award for Integrity to Paul Starkey in honor of his support of legal aid and his leadership of the Sacramento Diocesan Council of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. In furtherance of our organization’s stated purpose to further interfaith understanding, STMS members also enjoyed an interfaith prayer service with Father/Justice Rod Davis of St. Michael’s Episcopal Church (formerly, Associate Justice of the California Third District Court of Appeal). In addition, the St. Thomas More Society co-sponsored an annual ethics
Angela Lai and Heather Hoganson presented the 2017 Father McDermott Award for Integrity to Paul Starkey
luncheon with the J. Reuben Clark Law Society and the Brigham Young University Management, an annual tradition that began in 2005. This year, UC Davis Law Professor Gabriel “Jack” Chin spoke on “The ‘War’ against Chinese Restaurants” - the laws and regulations mustered to ward off a different immigrant “threat” in the last decade of the 19th century and the first two decades of the 20th century. This “war,” as was then described, was the result of the “Yellow Peril,” the perceived danger that racially dangerous Asian immigrants, “cheap Chinese labor,” “immoral Chinese women,” and the “fatal lure of Chinese” could undermine America’s basic character.
Ethics luncheon attendees Brian Bowen (President, BYU Management Society), Heather Cline Hoganson (Recording Secretary, STMS), Prof. Gabriel Jack Chin, Angela Lai (President, STMS), & Paul Hoybjerg (President, J. Reuben Clark Law Society)
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SACRAMENTO LAWYER | November/December 2017 | www.sacbar.org
Chinese restaurants were deemed “a serious menace to society,” for two reasons: Chinese restaurants were perceived as morally hazardous to white women, and the restaurants’ employment of Chinese workers competed with “American” restaurants and denied “our own race a chance to live.” The efforts to eliminate Chinese restaurants included riots and boycotts, legislation that banned white women from patronizing or working at Chinese restaurants, legislation prohibiting Chinese from working, legislation prohibiting immigration of Chinese laborers, and discriminatory selective enforcement of laws that placed Chinese restaurants under particular scrutiny. The national movement to eliminate Chinese restaurants through the use of law a century ago has much relevance to immigration policy today. On October 11, the STMS co-sponsored the annual Red Mass at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, with Bishop Jaime Soto presiding. The Red Mass is an annual event at which lawyers, judges, and public officials invoke the aid of the Holy Spirit in their work and deliberations in the year to come. This unique Mass for the Bench and the Bar has been celebrated for many centuries
Administrative Law Judge Plauche Villere, Jr., Prof. Frank Abi Nadar, Nora Quartuccio, Cheri Boyer, Nanette Aubut, & Vicki Jacobs at the Feast Day Reception