Justice Chin to Speak at Chinese Center Benefit

California Supreme Court Justice Ming W. Chin will be the keynote speaker at a dinner Sunday to benefit plans to build a Chinese Heritage Center in Northridge.

When completed, the center will serve as a meeting place for members of the San Fernando Valley Chinese Cultural Assn., which offers programs that include a seniors club, drama club, Chinese music ensemble, ballroom dance club and Chinese language school, said Jack Chen, association president.

The center will also serve as a spiritual home for all Valley Chinese Americans.

The planned facility will feature an auditorium, classrooms, cafeteria and activities area on several acres of land in Northridge, Chen said.

To raise funds, the Heritage Foundation is holding its second annual fund-raising dinner at Knollwood Country Club in Granada Hills.

“We want to build a Heritage Center not only for our own kids, but because it would also allow us to communicate and interact with different ethnic groups,” Chen said.

The event will feature a social hour, dinner, door prizes, Chinese music and an awards ceremony honoring Chin and Tung-Hua Lin, a UCLA professor emeritus of civil engineering who was elected in 1990 to the National Academy of Engineering, one of the highest professional distinctions in that field.

Chin, the son of an immigrant potato farmer, took the oath as associate justice of the state Supreme Court in March 1996 following a long and contentious confirmation hearing about his views on abortion.

Nominated by Gov. Pete Wilson, Chin sparked heavy opposition from antiabortion forces when he told reporters that he personally favored a “woman’s right to choose.”

Before becoming a high court justice, Chin worked briefly as an Oakland prosecutor, spent several years in private civil practice, and served as an Alameda County Superior Court judge and appellate court justice.

Tickets for Sunday’s event are $100.

For information, contact Chen at (213) 263-6177.