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AI: Well, I wanted to ask one more question about your high school years. That was the time where you mentioned your father became active in city politics, and I was wondering if you'd tell a little bit about the impact on your family and you yourself. How were you involved in his campaigning?

LB: We were very much involved in his campaigning. I remember sitting in open cars at little Veterans Day parades or something, going down the street with him and posing for press campaign photos, and we canvassed door to door in the community for him, asking people to vote for him. So we were very much involved in it, working at campaign headquarters, stuffing envelopes, and he had little fortune cookies that had little messages inside that said, "Bannai for you in '72." I think we still have some of those fortune cookies around. And I remember packing them all up into plastic. So we were very involved in both his city council race and then later on during his assembly races. It was a good experience. I learned about the political process. I met some interesting people. I remember meeting S.I. Hayakawa and Ronald Reagan.

So I suppose one lesson I've always thought about is that that was really good for me because it really made me feel like I need not be intimidated by famous people, and in fact, famous people may not necessarily be anything more than regular folks who somehow achieved some particular office. I think that's served me well in my life, to put all that in perspective. So it was very exciting for my family that he did this, but it was also really very difficult. Suddenly -- well, he had always been very active in the community. Certainly his political office put our family very much into the public light and public scrutiny. And I know that that was really very difficult at times. People instantly thought we were very wealthy. For some reason people seem to think that when you have a parent in political office you must be a rich person. And so I did, at times, I felt that it was a disadvantage. We were still in school. We were still pretty young, still very conscious about how our peers thought about us. And so I think sometimes it was a disadvantage.

I remember I got a job at the UC Santa Barbara Bookstore when my father was in the state legislature. I recall someone telling me that someone thought I might have gotten that job through nepotism. That my father, in the California State Legislature in Sacramento would have any influence in what happened at the UC Santa Barbara Bookstore, I can't imagine, but I think there was certainly that self-consciousness that we all carried with us, that people would think that somehow we were successful because my father intervened or had someone intervene. And in fact, I really felt strongly that I didn't want to go to Hastings, and I'd rather go to a private school because I just didn't want people thinking for the rest of my life that I got into a UC school because my father got me there. Certainly when I was in high school and college and starting law school, my father was well-known in the Japanese American community, and that was a great source of pride for me. Obviously, I was very proud of him and what he had achieved. But it also could be difficult at times when you grow up being Paul Bannai's daughter and not who you are, Lori Bannai. And I think all of us experienced that in one way or another.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2000 Densho. All Rights Reserved.