Assistant Attorney General Michael A. Nisperos Sr., his wife Eleanor, also an assistant attorney general, their daughter Marlo, a deputy district attorney in California’s Alameda County, and their son, Michael Jr., a third-year law student share a passion and love for the American justice system.
Nisperos Sr. heads the white-collar crime unit of the Attorney General’s Office and is one of two CNMI government attorneys tasked to handle the extradition case of murder suspect Kazuyoshi Miura.
Growing up in the U.S., the Nisperoses have made their mark as second generation Filipino-Americans on the mainland.
Loving husband
Nisperos Sr. became a lawyer out of love for his wife who earned a law degree from the University of California Berkeley’s Boalt Hall, School of Law.
The two met at a Christmas party in 1971 after Nisperos Sr. took a leave from his tour of duty in Vietnam.
“She encouraged me to take up law,” said Nisperos Sr., who is the first member of their family to earn a college degree.
He traces his roots to an interracial family that struggled to make ends meet.
“I came from a poor white family,” he told Variety.
His biological father was a farmer from Leyte, a central Philippine province, who sought employment in Hawaii after World War II.
His mother was Scottish-Irish who worked as a waitress and then as a cook.
Nisperos Sr. was born in Mississippi. His parents later divorced.
Nisperos Sr. earned his law degree through the G.I. Bill and it took him 20 years to pay his student loan.
In 1978, he became deputy district attorney for Alameda County and later established his own law firm while teaching in various colleges.
In 1982, the Judge Advocate General’s Corps assigned him to the U.S. Air Force on Guam, where he got to know the neighboring Northern Marianas.
Looking back, he said education, knowing where he came from and giving back to the community, were the keys to his success.
Mrs. Nisperos
Mrs. Nisperos was born in Manila and raised in Davao City, in the southern Philippines, until she was eight.
She later spent most of her childhood in Honolulu.
His father was among the Filipino scouts who served the U.S. military during World War II.
Mrs. Nisperos said Hawaii is a friendly state to people of color like her. She only felt the discrimination when she entered law school in 1968 which was then a predominantly white-male field.
“It was hard,” said Mrs. Nisperos. “They were teasing me — they said I didn’t belong there.”
Her determination to become a lawyer paid off — she was hired as legal counsel/hearing officer at the State of California’s Department of Benefit Payments after passing the bar.
She moved up as deputy attorney general at the state’s Department of Justice and later worked for the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board where she retired as presiding administrative judge.
In 1979, she became one of the founding members of the Filipino Bar Association of Northern California, an organization she headed for a year.
With the Philippines as one of the leading exporters of manpower globally, the Nisperoses believe that the country would someday rise above poverty.
“The human talent in the Philippines is everywhere,” said Nisperos Sr. “There’s still hope for the Philippines.” But getting rid of corruption, he added, is key to changing the country’s system.
