Inspiring Women Magazine Spring 2017

Inspiration from a FAWCO Committee Member
My name is Judith K. (Judy) Furukawa and I’m from
Sunnyside, Washington (the Yakima Valley in south
central Washington State). Currently I live in Dubai,
United Arab Emirates.
I have had several careers. After college, I remained
in Oregon (except for teaching English as a Second
Language in Guadalajara, Mexico for six months)
and I have worked in various capacities with migrant
farm worker education – day care, elementary
school and secondary school, for a total of almost
ten years. I also taught junior high Spanish for a year.
I went to law school at the Washington College of
Law at the American University in Washington, DC. I
worked in the admissions office my first year and later
was a legal assistant with Migrant Legal Action and a
Legal Aid office on the Maryland Eastern Shore for a little more than two years.
After law school, I worked for a private immigration attorney in Minneapolis, Minnesota for a
year, and then returned to Washington, DC in 1990. I practiced immigration law In DC for two
different small private practices. I am a member of the DC bar.
My husband’s law firm transferred him to Belgium in early 2000. Our three to five year stay
ended up being just over fourteen years. I was still working in the beginning, finishing up a
couple of cases long distance with the help of my former office colleagues. I started
volunteering with my daughter’s Montessori school and organized the parent group. When
she transferred to a Belgian school, this was more difficult, so I started volunteering more at the
American Women’s Club of Brussels. We moved to Dubai,
the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in early April 2014 and are
still here.
My husband, Richard King, and I met in law school and
were married in August 1990. He practices International
Trade law. We have one daughter, Sarah. She graduated
from a French-speaking Belgian secondary school June
2013. She is now a senior at Lewis and Clark College in
Portland, Oregon. Her major is Foreign Languages
(Japanese and Spanish), and she will graduate in May
2017.
The UAE government restricts fundraising activities for clubs
in the country: any charitable monies raised must remain
inside the country. Accordingly, the Dubai American
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