Kato is Japanese American; her parents, as children, were among those subjected to internment during World War II.

[2] She earned her Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude, from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1993.

[4] Prior to her appointment as a U.S. magistrate judge, she served on the federal district court's Merit Selection Panel and Standing Committee on Attorney Discipline.

[3] President Biden nominated Kato to the seat vacated by Judge Beverly Reid O'Connell, who died on October 8, 2017.

[6] During her confirmation hearing, Senators Chuck Grassley and Ted Cruz questioned her about a 1995 book review, published in Harvard Civil Rights–Civil Liberties Law Review, that Kato had co-written in law school; in a heated dialogue, the two Republicans questioned Kato about a footnote in the book review that said that Asian-American neoconservatives "internalize the dialogue of oppressors, believing in the values of the status quo and condemning the activism of their group.