Chinese and white attorneys navigate cultural communication in the San Gabriel Valley — a fraught and changing landscape.
, a region of 2.1 million people largely composed of Asian and Latino immigrants and their families.
But law firm marketing is more about comfort than reality, said Scott Warmuth, an attorney who was one of the first to put up Chinese billboards in Monterey Park about a decade ago. “My Taiwanese friend at the time said, ‘You need to be white.’ There was a big portion of the population that felt it was better to have a white attorney,” Warmuth said.
Wong, whose family immigrated to New York City from Hong Kong in 1969, said she wasn’t very impressed with Warmuth at first. She had no legal background, but she was fluent in Mandarin, Cantonese, English and Taishanese, a Chinese dialect often spoken by residents of American Chinatowns. And she understood the fears and anxieties of recent immigrants trying to navigate a new system. Her hard-nosed, plain-spoken manner quickly made her Warmuth’s point person for the Chinese American community.
One of his Chinese employees suggested that he change it to Hua Ming Sheng. The change brought a sharp and lasting uptick in business, Warmuth said.Wong and Warmuth also co-hosted a segment on Chinese-language radio station KAZN AM 1300 in which they answered legal questions from callers and explained aspects of the criminal justice system.
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