Jacqueline Nguyen confirmed for 9th Circuit court SAN FRANCISCO

The Senate on Monday confirmed President Obama's nomination of Judge Jacqueline Nguyen to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, where she will become the first Vietnamese American and first Asian-Pacific woman to serve on a federal appeals court.

The vote was 91-3. Nguyen, 46, is a former federal prosecutor and Superior Court judge who was appointed by Obama in 2009 to the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

The daughter of a South Vietnamese army officer, she fled Vietnam with her family in 1975. She helped her mother clean dental offices and worked at family doughnut shops in Los Angeles before winning a scholarship at Occidental College and attending UCLA Law School.

Nguyen is Obama's third appointee to the Ninth Circuit, the nation's largest federal appeals court.