[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 6] [Senate] [Pages 8520-8521] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]TRIBUTE TO LARRY TRIBE Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, most of us in Congress know Larry Tribe as [[Page 8521]] the highly regarded expert on constitutional law at Harvard Law School who has been so helpful to us for decades on the many important constitutional issues we often deal with in the Senate and the House of Representatives. But another side of Larry came to light last month in a very moving front-page article of the ``Scope'' section in the April 16 Shanghai Daily newspaper in China. Shanghai is Larry's birthplace and he recently returned there for the first time for the Harvard Alumni Association's ``Global Conference in Shanghai.'' He was interviewed by a reporter for the newspaper during the visit. As the article states, Larry was born in Shanghai in October 1941. His father was a Russian American who had been living in northeastern China where he had met his wife. When war broke out between China and Japan in the 1930s, they moved to Shanghai to be safer, because the city welcomed Jewish refugees. The Japanese occupied Shanghai, however, and after Pearl Harbor, Japanese soldiers arrested Larry's father and held him in a concentration camp because of his American citizenship. Larry and his mother were not allowed to visit him until near the end of the war, and after the war, the family came to the United States. During those early years in China, Larry attended kindergarten at the Shanghai American school. He remembers that when he finally saw the concentration camp, he was shocked by its harsh conditions, and he says the experience may have influenced his decision years later to become a lawyer involved in fighting for justice and human rights. As the author of the article, Yan Zhen, writes, ``Who would have thought a frightened little boy who once ran through the streets of Shanghai during World War II would go on to become one of the most revered legal minds in the United States?'' Mr. President, I believe all of us who know and work with Larry Tribe will have even greater respect for him because of this extraordinary part of his life. He truly has lived the American Dream. I ask unanimous consent that the article be printed in the Record. There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows: [From Shanghai Daily, Apr. 16, 2008] A Life Spent in Search of Justice--Amazing Legal Mind Forged in Old Shanghai Laurence Tribe is regarded as one of the foremost constitutional law experts in the United States. The Jewish professor's books on the subject are compulsory reading for aspiring--and practicing--lawyers. He was once voted the most admired living alumni of the Harvard Law School where he is a professor while one of his former research assistants was none other than US presidential hopeful Barack Obama. Tribe's life has been filled with achievements and accolades--and much of it may have to do with his early years in Shanghai. He may have lived here for just five and a half years, but all of these years later Tribe readily acknowledges it was a special experience that helped shape his life. After more than six decades, the premier scholar and lawyer recently returned to his birthplace for the first time during the Harvard Alumni Association's Global Conference in Shanghai. It was an incredible return to the city, he tells Shanghai Daily in an exclusive interview. ``It was an amazing homecoming,'' he says with some emotion. Tribe was born in Shanghai in 1941 and remained here until his family moved to the United States at the end of World War II. His father George Israel Tribe was a Russian American who had lived in Harbin, capital of China's northeastern Heilongjiang Province, where he met his wife Polia Diatlovitsky during the war. For safety reasons, the family moved south to Shanghai. But just one day after the Japanese occupation of the city, George Tribe was taken away by Japanese soldiers due to his American citizenship and thrown into a concentration camp. Only as the end of the war approached were young Tribe and his mother allowed to visit his father at the camp which he recalls was located on Suzhou Creek, near a tobacco factory. ``I was quite struck by physical features of the camp,'' Tribe recalls. ``My sense of justice rose . . . he didn't do anything wrong, why should he be in such a place?'' Obviously Tribe was too young to understand what American citizenship meant at the time and, being a little boy, he simply felt it was unfair that his father had been thrown behind bars. ``Maybe that influenced my decision many years later to become a lawyer interested in human rights,'' he says. Tribe, 66, is widely regarded as the leading practitioner and scholar of US constitutional law. He has helped draft the constitutions of countries including Russia, South Africa, the Czech Republic and the Marshall Islands. At Harvard, where he has taught since 1968, Tribe achieved a tenure professorship before the age of 30 and he was ranked the most admired law professor still living in a survey of more than 13,000 Harvard Law School alumni. Tribe, who is also a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, says he has taught more than 25,000 students over the past 40 years. Among them are John Roberts, the US chief justice, and Obama, a current US presidential candidate who worked as Tribe's research assistant for a year. ``Amazing'' seemed to be the most frequent word used by Tribe during his visit to Shanghai last month. Not just because of the extraordinary development of the city but more importantly, because he got the chance to track down the residences where he once lived. While having dinner at a friend's house, Tribe came across a lady who helped his vague recollections of Shanghai when she produced the 1941 Shanghai Directory. The historic document recording members of the Jewish community in Shanghai clearly showed that the Tribe family had lived on Lafayette Avenue (now Fuxing Road) before later moving in to the Picardie Apartments (now the Hengshan Hotel) on Hengshan Road. Records also showed Tribe attended kindergarten at the Shanghai American School at that time--all places he visited. ``It's so amazing to find buildings are still there in a city of such dynamic development,'' the Jewish scholar says after visiting his former residences. ``Some of the things are a little bit familiar, but I was very small at that time (to remember everything). ``Many things have changed at Picardie but I definitely remember the balcony. I remember standing there looking at the street when I was about four,'' Tribe adds, his eyes lighting up. What is even more amazing is that Tribe even managed to find the name of his grandfather in the old Shanghai directory and got the chance to visit his grandparents' former home on Seymour Road (now Shaanxi Road N.), where he would often visit. Tribe says he would have liked to have brought his son and daughter and grandchildren to Shanghai, but sadly their busy schedules prevented them from doing so. Both children are accomplished artists and art theorists. Before coming though, Tribe's daughter gave him a digital camera and asked him to take pictures of the places where he grew up so that he could share the memories with the rest of his family. ``It would still be nice to bring my grandchildren here one day,'' he says. ``I am enormously grateful to Shanghai. I would not exist but for Shanghai. Not only because I was born here but this city welcomed Jews and other refugees at a time when no one else would take them.'' ____________________