Judge Aiso
Reading of the tragic death of Judge John F. Aiso (Metro, Dec. 31) brought back a memory of 63 years ago. Le Conte Junior High opened in 1923. John and I were among the original students. I in the eighth and John in the ninth grade. When student government was started, he ran for student body president and was easily elected.
A small group of parents were upset at having a Japanese as student body president and protested loudly to the school. The outcome of the protest was the school’s decision to have no student government.
When you consider John’s further education at Hollywood High, Brown University and Harvard Law School, his rise to lieutenant colonel in World War II, and his distinguished career as a judge in municipal, superior and appellate courts in California, it seems that the students were so right and the parents were so wrong.
WM. OLIVER FRICK
Pasadena
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