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AI: Well, I'd like to ask you, you mentioned earlier that you didn't really talk religion in your family. That wasn't really a topic of conversation with your parents and within the family. What about politics? Did you have many political discussions with, in particular your dad, since he was so active, or talk about issues, political issues?

[Interruption]

LB: In my earlier years, I don't recall that we really talked about politics per se. My early recollection was really more in line with the kinds of things that he did, like somebody has a problem with a dog next door that's too loud and he would do something to intervene. And so I had this sense that when you're in office, you do this thing of helping other people, which was obviously very, very separate from traditional party politics or positions on the death penalty or anything like that. So my earliest recollections really were much more in the way of what he did on a day-to-day basis to help people within our immediate community.

When he went into the California State Assembly, then he certainly got involved in issues of much wider impact and much more politically-laden issues. For example, I think he was involved in the decision to reinstate the death penalty in California. He was involved in issues of law enforcement and things like that. Both of my parents are Republican. I am not a Republican. And so, I think, as I went to college and started taking Asian American Studies classes, started learning more about the political process, our political views started to diverge. And I guess I can explain it this way: I think that my parents are indeed very progressive in many, many ways when it comes to issues of race, when it comes to issues involving discrimination, civil rights, they are, are quite progressive, and we agree very much so on things. When it comes to perhaps issues involving crime and punishment and the power of the police and things like that, then our views start to diverge. I attribute that very, very much to a difference in generation.

Their concerns have always been necessarily for protection of community, protection of family, and it certainly doesn't escape me that Roosevelt put the Japanese Americans into camps, and there certainly may be some suspicion of the Democratic party for that reason. So my father's been very active in the Republican party, but I think that he's actually perhaps a bit out of the mainstream in that party. So no, we did not discuss politics when I was growing up. We discuss politics from time to time now. We do disagree, but I think that it's a very respectful disagreement. I think certainly both of them have come to realize that their children have very different views than they do, but they're really very proud of us and what we've accomplished. So it's a kind of respectful disagreement.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2000 Densho. All Rights Reserved.