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AI: Lori, I was just about to ask you about your mother, if you could tell us a little bit more her and her influences on you.

LB: Uh-huh. My mother's a really exceptional person. She is a good mother. She maintained a really wonderful home life for us. Probably one of the most important influences she's had on me is to teach me about the importance of education, the importance of doing well. I remember just how she worked with me on my homework all the time, and worked on my sentences, and made sure I learned how to write really well, and all the corrections she made to all of my drafts of my homework.

But probably the most significant thing to me, aside from her everyday role as a mom, is that after I graduated from high school -- and I was the youngest, so after I graduated from high school, we had all left, she decided to go back to school, to go to college. And she started out at a community college, the local community college in Gardena, and got her AA, and then went on to the local state college and got her BA, and then went on to get her master's, and then went to USC to get her Ph.D. And she ended up teaching at USC in the Department of Education. And it was such -- it's always been such an amazing feat to me that she decided to go back to school after her children had all grown, to go back and get her Ph.D., and I think a move that really took a tremendous amount of courage and individualism and independence for her to do. Certainly, I can't think of other people of her age and generation who decided (to) do the same thing, to go back and get an education and to go on and start a whole career after their kids had left. And that certainly has always been a model for me, as far as knowing that you can decide that this is what I want to do, and everyone might think it's crazy, but it's what I want to do, and so I'm going to pursue it. And I've always admired her a great deal for that decision.

AI: Do you think she might have faced some skepticism or some negative attitudes from some of her peers or others?

LB: Oh, I don't know. Certainly I don't think they would have been criticisms or negative comments as much as perhaps raised eyebrows, why she would be pursuing this at a point in time when most people aspire to retire and to not work anymore, that she was starting this brand new career, and she actually continued to teach English as a second language up until just a year ago. So she retired much, much later than many of her peers. My father was very supportive, I think. I think perhaps he didn't know what to make of it, but I know that he's always spoken quite proudly that his wife has a Ph.D. and is involved in all of these different activities. So she's a very interesting combination of traditional Nisei housewife and modern career woman.

AI: Is there anything else about her that you recall, anything that stands out in your mind that she may have either verbalized or just through her actions impressed on you as the way to be, either as a Japanese American or as a girl, as a young woman?

LB: Oh, I think obviously, for young women, their mothers have tremendous influence as far as teaching them the right way to go through life and the kind of person that you should be. In so many different ways, I mean, in the obvious ways, as far as the value of education and studying hard and doing the best job that you can. In other ways, what I would identify as kind of traditional Japanese cultural values. Certainly I learned a lot of those from my grandparents because they lived so close. But simple things like gift-giving, like if someone brings something over to your house, you take something over to their house. Like how to conduct yourself in public, and I suppose some of it's good, and some of it might be characterized as not so good. She certainly was very concerned about me, and any of us, making waves.

While my parents both encouraged us to be leaders and to exercise leadership skills and to say what we believed, certainly probably my mom, more so than my dad, was very concerned that that type of outspokenness not disadvantage me and not create a situation where I would get hurt or criticized or anything. When you put yourself out there in the public limelight, and I think we really learned this from my father's experience, when you put yourself out there in the limelight, you're certainly more apt to get hurt. And like every mom, I think to this day she's just being a mom and concerned that one of us will get hurt, perhaps not physically, but hurt because we've put ourselves out there before the public. Certainly in some of the political activities that I've engaged in as a lawyer, she's always been the voice of caution for me to say, "Well, I'm really proud of you that you're doing this, but are you sure you should be doing this? Do you think that it may hurt your career? Do you think that some people may criticize you?" But I've never looked at it that she's discouraged me. I think she's always, though, been concerned for my welfare.

So I suppose my answer is that she has taught me to be aware of my surroundings and know what I might be walking into. And perhaps in some ways, that's really not a Japanese American cultural value, but maybe it is. Maybe it's a matter of listening and observing and speaking when it's the right time to speak.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2000 Densho. All Rights Reserved.