 Good afternoon or good evening. You can go to Germany, but you cannot become a German. You can go to Ireland, but you cannot become an Irish. You can go to Norway, but you cannot become a Norwegian. But anyone from any corner of the Earth can come to the United States and become an American. Welcome back to a Nation of Immigrants, a new talk show program featuring the lives of immigrants, cultural diversity, and knowledge. Brought to you by Sincton, Hawaii, and the Kingsfield Law Office. Today, we have the extreme honor and the pleasure to welcome our good friend, the honorable Justice Paul Anderson from Minnesota Spring Court. Justice Anderson is a native of Eden Prairie, Minnesota, and a graduate of Eden Prairie High School, the University of Minnesota Law School, MacLaster College. He had a very long legal career. After law school, he first became Assistant Attorney General of Minnesota State Department. Then later, he was in private practice with a major law firm in Minnesota before he was appointed to Chief Judge of Minnesota Court of Appeals. Later, he was appointed to Minnesota Spring Court. Then he was re-elected in 1996, 2002, and 2008. And a few years ago, he reached mandatory retirement age. But Judge Anderson retired from Minnesota Spring Court, but he's extremely active in the community and in the state. He continued to lecture globally, writes about law and participant in various boards like Minnesota History Society and Minnesota State Capital Restoration Committee. Welcome, your honor. It is a pleasure to be with you today. And I hope that you asked tough questions. I like tough questions. Doesn't bother me because I know I control the answers. Chang, you know that, right? I know. Thank you, John. You've been asking questions to the lawyers in your court. And I just thrilled to have this opportunity to ask you questions. But my fourth question is, and this is a program about immigrants. And we are so delighted to have you, a native Minnesota, but you are still immigrants. I quoted a paraphrase of President Regan's talk about anybody can come to the United States and become American at the beginning of the show. But there is another quote I want to share that from FDR. Remember, always remember, everybody, including you and me, are descendants of immigrants. So you are also a descendant of immigrants. You are a third generation immigrant, I believe. Yep. And there is a lake in Minnesota called Anderson Lake. And I believe the lake was named after your family. And so you are really part of the Minnesota history. Please tell more about yourself and your family and how do they settle in Minnesota. First of all, I should correct. I think I was listed as Irish-American. I'm actually Scotch-Irish-American. I hate to disappoint some of your viewers who are of the green, because my ancestry is of the orange, tracing back to John Knox in Scotland. But Eden Prairie, Anderson Lakes is where my Scotch-Irish Anderson's, coming from Northern Ireland, settled when they first came here. That was in 1855. And so the southern part of Eden Prairie was basically settled by Scotch-Irish. Dairy farmers. My family was dairy farmers. I tell people is that I grew up milking cows. My color of my tractor is green and the cows were holstein. But I'm very proud of that farm background. But I'm also very proud of my ethnic background, which is the Scotch-Irish. And then the other side is Norwegian. The Anderson, Scotch-Irish, the Holden, the Palsons came from Norway. And both sides came because they were seeking a better life. Not only for themselves, but this is very true of the immigrants. They wanted something better for their children. And Norway was very depressed from my grandmother and my grandfather's families came, as was Ireland. I mean, they had the famine overpopulated. So the opportunity, and this is very key here, they saw the opportunity to come to the United States and be better. And now I'm going to go back to something that's for the time of our founders talking about our country, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Our founders took seriously the pursuit of happiness. It comes from Aristotle. And they saw that their goal of our government was to provide the maximum opportunity for the maximum number of people to achieve happiness. And that is so much a part of the immigrant experience because they believe that mandate. They believe that promise from America's founders. So that's why they came here. Thank you so much. That's a lovely, lovely story about your family history. So what you just said just struck me and we discussed this before. What make American American? And because you're from your ancestors from Norway and Scotland and I obviously from different part of the war and we have so many friends from other parts of the war but there is a shared identity as American. And what exactly, and we have different religious belief. You know my religion, I know your religion, we respect each other's religion but we worship different deities. So what exactly make American American? How do we find the common ground? And how do you, how do you ancestors settled with different people from different ethnic groups and a religious background? You know, we'll come back to this probably a bit later because religion has always played an important role in the immigrant experience in America. And we have our constitution does not, by the way the constitution is not a Christian document as some people say it is. It's designed to accept and tolerate and more than tolerate to accept and embrace other religions. And so that was key that our founders came out of the age of enlightenment and they were convinced that so much pain and suffering was imposed upon the world because of religious conflict. So they said, no, our country is gonna be based on the rule of law. We're not gonna let anyone religion dominate but we're gonna let the people practice the religion that they have. So that was one of the other reasons that immigrants came here is that they were escaping religious oppression in other countries. I mean, in Norway, I mean, you had to be Lutheran and well, my ancestors were Methodists and so they could practice Methodism here. And, you know, as my Scotch-Irish ancestors were Presbyterian going back to John Knox. I like to kid people at the local law school named for Thomas Moore. I said, I can't call him St. Thomas Moore because he killed too many of my relatives. And so when they came here, they understood the nature of religious conflict and tried, at least my ancestors did, tried to downplay them. They were welcoming to people of other faiths because they thought that that was a big part of this country, which was based upon the premise that the rule of law shall prevail and the rule of law is neutral when it comes to religion. Doesn't always work out that way. A lot of religious oppression in America, but anyway, that's the fundamental premise underlying. Great, thank you for your insights. And I totally agree with you that the rule of law and the non-religious constitution is our sheer value. And, but you too mentioned that the immigrants changed the face of America and your ancestors were settled in Minnesota three years before even Minnesota become a state. I believe our state become a state in 1858 and your ancestors settled here three years earlier than that. And how do you view and the face of the United States has been changed by different influx of immigrants from your ancestors time to today? Well, first of all, I have to start with the premise that America has been blessed. It has been enriched by the immigrant experience because they bring so many of their own cultural experiences in the broad base. So I think as a people historically, we got a few problems right now had tended to be fairly broad minded. They needed to, you know, accept others. And, you know, it's a work in progress, you know, America. And one of the big blending events in American history for immigrants, surprisingly was World War II because the Americans were, you know, engaged in this fight against the oppression from, and I mean, you had an English aristocrat in the fox hole with a Italian baker and a German butcher and, you know, they depended on each other. And they came out of that with a bonding experience of who we are as America. We've lost some of that. We got too much elitism going on, but that is one experience. The Civil War for the North in particular was another bonding experience. So many immigrants came and fought in the war, particularly my ancestors. I mean, they revered Father Abraham. I mean, as that he was a uniting force. And so immigrants came and one of the things that held them together was their belief in their faith and what Lincoln believed in. And so we've had any number of these unifying experiences that have counteracted the experiences that would cause division. And so we got to study those. We got to appreciate them and we got to really relish them because they are so much a part of who we are. Absolutely, it beautifully said. Judge, I think that I feel extremely blessed to be a Minnesotan and very blessed to get to know you and your wife and other great Minnesotans. And I have to say, call myself biased, but I think Minnesotans is very different from other parts of the country. And even United States is a nation of immigrants, but Minnesota is particularly welcoming to immigrants. And they are some other states are not that as welcoming as the state Minnesota. And when we have a previous group of immigrants well-established, well-settled, there is a trend they might oppose to newcomers. But I don't really see that in our state. So what's your general comments of this opposition to the changing face of America and the new wave of immigrants from particular parts of the world? So if I try to pat myself on the back as a Minnesotan for your last statement, I am going to injure my elbow because it's not completely true. I mean, we have our bad moments in history. Minneapolis in the 20s and 30s was one of the most anti-Semitic cities in the country. The most recent mayor of Minneapolis, who is Irish, his mother worked up on Summon Avenue and she would encounter signs that said, no dirty Irish need apply. My Scandinavian ancestors were called the dumb Norwegians because they didn't speak English and Rudy is because they ate carrots and other ground plant. And so there was always this level of, treating people as different and discriminating but there was also something, okay. Now I don't want others to take offense but Minnesota has a strong Northern European background. Northern Germany, Scandinavia, Swedish, Norwegians, which goes with it as a kind of a belief is to let people live their lives. And so we've been very accepting of others because there's just that fundamental belief that others have a right to belong and they would be welcome. And so we were very welcoming to the Vietnamese and particularly the Hmong, they're not Vietnamese, they're the Highland people from Vietnam, we have a very strong Hmong community. And the interesting and wonderful thing about it is, the parents came here and now their children are so much a part of what makes Minnesota better. They're involved in business, they're involved in government, they're involved in education. We've also, we're welcoming to the Somalis. And this is another thing, there's a certain difficult aspect to it because different religion, but that's the history of it. When the Catholics came, the Anglicans were petrified that the Pope would come and be part of it. And then there was the bias against the Jews. And so if you're Muslim, there's still some residual bias to that, but there's a roam up in the state capital where I was part of the restoration. And it's completely devoted to the contributions of Muslim Minnesotans all around the room. There are probably 30 pictures of Minnesotans of the Muslim faith who have been and are still are making contributions to the state. So we put a premium on education and communicating how different people have made us better. So that's the best I can say for it. It's just a little bit of a tradition, but there are a lot of bumps along the way where we didn't do so well. I appreciate your honesty, Judge. I came to this state 19 years ago and I can honestly to say that I think this is the right place and I don't really experiencing racial discrimination and I appreciate the changing faith of America. Let's- Before you leave that, I mean, it's a sad thing that's happening right now is that I do not like some of the current leadership is basically tries to pick out and identify and vilify people who don't resemble them. They know the old Anglican view. And so that's, we can't ignore that, but with respect to yourself, and I think you might agree this, there were people here who recognized that you were a person of talent. And so, I mean, there was a certain self-interest in being good to you, Chong, because a lot of people recognize, hey, this guy's got something to offer and we're gonna take advantage of it. Am I right? Well, I appreciate your confidence in me, Judge, but when I walk in the dogs, I don't think anybody can know what I do to make a living, but Minnesota has been called the Canada in the United States or the Northern Europe in the United States. I think we all agree it is a very good place to live and it is a very good place for immigrants. Well, some say that we're all Canadian wannabes. I don't agree with that. There's some truth to that. They are, definitely they are. And next question is about your global travel. You are a global traveler. You travel to China four times to lecture. You travel to a Republic of Georgia or Salvador, the Philippines, Russia, Tunisia, Libya, there's so many countries. You travel, you lecture about US constitution, criminal law, appellate procedure and all of these different travel in the past decade or two. My question to you is the more you travel, do you feel like the more people are the same or the more you see people are different? First of all, confession, all right? I probably took more away from those foreign experiences being those foreign countries and learning about then I gave. I mean, I can say unequivocally my experience internationally has enriched me in measure. Now to your question. Oh my gosh, that's a simple answer. We are all human beings. There is a certain sameness about us. Now the sad thing is that in some countries they have less of a democratic experience than we do here in the United States and less of a commitment to the rule of law. But most of the people that I engaged with in those countries who wanted that, they wanted their country to be fair and equal with respect to all people. They wanted there to be opportunities. And that's what they hope to gain from me is some insight into what has made America the way it is and what it is. And one of the things I tell them, what we tell them, tradition, you got to establish the traditions that value what's important in a free and open society. And you've got to value the rule of law. And there's a difference between the rule of law and the rule of law. You know, many people, you know, they want to be controlled and controlling of others. Merrick Garland, our attorney general said something that is very much encapsulated as what we are. No one in America is above the law. No one, absolutely no one. You are not allowed to act with the impunity. Now, sometimes we're a little slow about getting it right, but I have faith and confidence that our democracy with its traditions are strong enough that it will carry in. There will be any number of people who want to put themselves above the law. But I think in the end, those traditions and that commitment is going to carry us through even what I consider some current difficult times. That's what makes us better. That's what sets us apart. And the sameness is that most of the people I encountered in all these other countries wanted the same thing. And they looked to the United States for basically, you know, tell us how we can get there if we're not there now. Thank you, Your Honor, very well said. We are waiting for attorney general's next announcement. Don't wait. We are short on time, but I do want to ask you one very important question. You are a little bit- The other questions haven't been important. They are all important, but I don't want to miss the opportunity to ask the question I really want to ask before we conclude our program is you are a little bit older than me, I believe. And I always ask myself what I would do differently and in my 20s. And I'm going to ask you this question to you as well. And if you were to give some advice to younger self of you in your 20s, what would you say? Easy for me to answer that. I really truly believe that our country, America is a land of opportunity. Not as good for some as others, but you could. And so my advice to young people is show up. Look for these opportunities that life presents you with. Show up for those opportunities and you'll get an experience. Now the experience in each case is not always good. I showed up for a school board and served and then I got defeated in an election and I was devastated. But as I look back on it is that I learned from that election and that defeat that there's life after defeat. And the thing that is important is you do what you believe is right regardless of the consequences. So that's a lesson I took with me when I served on the Supreme Court. I said, I don't care what the public repercussions for me personally will be as long as I am convinced that I am doing the right thing. I'm making the right choice. And so you show up for opportunities. You got to be lucky. But then Seneca said, no luck is when preparation meets opportunity. So the other piece of advice is prepare yourself for opportunity. Get an education, get experience. So when the opportunity comes you can show up for it and you take advantage of it and you'll get these lessons. Now here's the interesting thing is when you take those lessons away it helps you spot other opportunities that you can show up for. And the thing about that is that when you keep showing up it's not a circle. It's not a box. It's an upward expanding spiral. You keep showing up having experience lessons. So what can happen? This farm kid who grew up milking cows out in the rural community eating prairie can wind up on the Supreme Court be respected nationally, internationally and lecture. So my thing is look for opportunities, be prepared for them and show up and have the experience that they give you and take those lessons onto your next opportunity. Blend it. Thank you so much your honor. We are extremely honored to have you here on our show and your advice. And being show up and be prepared is definitely something I will pass on to the younger generation. Well, we have the great privilege and honor to have Justice Paul H. Anderson from Minnesota Supreme Court, global traveler, third generation, Scott Erich, Norwegian immigrants. Very proud, very proud. Very proud, absolutely. And proud Minnesota and most importantly, thank you judge, really appreciate your time. It was indeed a pleasure, sir. Thank you. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.