Gonzalo P Curiel

Judge Curiel, 62, was born in East Chicago, Ind., to parents who had emigrated from Mexico. Raul Curiel said their father, Salvador, arrived in Arizona as a laborer in the 1920s, eventually receiving citizenship and becoming a steelworker. Their parents were married in Mexico in 1946, and their mother, Francisca, became a citizen after joining her husband in the United States. Gonzalo Curiel went to Catholic school, fell in love with music and played the guitar in a band before following in the footsteps of his older brother, Antonio, and turning to law. After graduating from Indiana University’s law school, Judge Curiel worked in private practice in Indiana and California. In 1989, he became an assistant United States attorney in the Southern District of California, a job that immersed him in the war on drugs. Judge Curiel was appointed to the bench in San Diego in 2007 by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican. President Obama nominated him to the federal bench in late 2011, and he was confirmed by the Senate the following year. Judge Curiel, whose parents are deceased, is married to a probation official and has a young daughter.