<Begin Segment 17>

MC: So, what did you do right after you graduated from law school besides take the bar exam?

DM: Well, you know, my father wanted me to come down to Gardena. And he wanted me to talk to his friends who were lawyers. He had a couple of friends, or friends of friends who were district attorneys. Well, in those days, police and the district attorneys were the most hated people you could ever think of. 'Cause of course you were doing all kinds of illegal things, but that's another story. But I didn't want to be a DA. I didn't want to go back to Los Angeles. So I wanted to stay up there. And in my third year with working with the Asian American students, a lawyer named Ken Kawaichi, who's a judge, and the second-year students, or the year before me, had started a little group. And they didn't have a name, but they wanted to call it like, was it Asian Commune or something, Law Commune or something. The idea was they wanted to form an organization to serve the poor, poor Asian Pacific Americans. And so I was the first one out. The older attorney, the one attorney who was practicing was with a firm. And so I would be the first of that group to graduate. So, their idea was to give me a job. And I always wanted to teach. So they got me a job at Berkeley teaching subject A English, bonehead English. So I was in Asian American Studies. And then I got a job by myself because that one didn't pay enough to support myself, at Mills College, which is a small, private, used to be all-women's college at the time, teaching Introduction to Ethnic Studies. And Warren Furutani from Los Angeles, who was a heavyweight at the time, he was the most well-known political Asian American figure around, whom I grew up with, I said, "Warren, I need some help. Write a letter?" Of course Warren wrote a letter. So he helped me out. And then...

MC: So your first jobs were teaching jobs?

DM: Teaching jobs.

MC: Out of law school.

DM: Right. And, because there was a gap between the time you take the bar, 'til the time they announce your results. In those days it wasn't in November like it is now, it was in January of the next year. So I was, I would be out of a job. I took the bar in August but I would be out of a job for four months. I had to make a living somehow, 'cause I didn't have enough money to support myself. So I took, I studied for the bar at the very same time I put together three different classes. It was, and it was at that time that everything my middle brother taught me came through. I had every hour, honestly, every hour of the day was scheduled. I couldn't afford to be sick, I couldn't afford to do anything 'cause, you know, I had to learn, I had to learn all these new subjects to teach it. So I really, I knew exactly what I had to do every day. And so then, starting in September, I started, well no, actually, yeah, starting in, that was '71 so starting in September I started teaching. And...

MC: And they were ethnic studies classes?

DM: Ethnic studies courses.

MC: At both places?

DM: Yeah. Yes. Asian American Studies in Berkeley.

MC: Specifically.

DM: Yeah.

MC: Uh-huh. And did you, so did you teach about the internment?

DM: Yes, absolutely. I taught about the internment, we talked about the land grabs against Mexican Americans. We used a book called To Serve the Devil. There were no books about this stuff in those days. This is before multicultural history and Ron Takaki and stuff like that. So...

MC: There were a couple of readers that came about in the early '70s. Roots was one of them, I think.

DM: Roots we used. I used lots from UCLA. I used lots of Xeroxed articles from there, or copied articles. Yeah, 'cause we had to put together our own readers in those days. There weren't, stuff, so you just lift stuff. They didn't have Race, Rights and Reparation, which of course I would have used over and over, 'cause it's such a wonderful book. That's a plug. [Laughs]

MC: Well, what did you use you use --

DM: That's a plug. [Laughs]

MC: [Laughs] What did you use, though, to teach the internment? Because when I taught it, when I taught Asian American studies in the mid-'80s I used organizing materials that people had put together.

DM: I used the case itself.

MC: Oh, okay.

DM: And there was... if I recall right it was one of the early Roger Daniels, Harry Kitano books, or one of the chapters. I think that's what I used. That's, I mean there was hardly anything there. Oh, I know, the other thing I used, no, what I used was Jacobus tenBroek, Prejudice, War, and the Constitution. And then I used, you know, there were a few of those, few of those tracks, and then I used, at one point I think I used the criticism of the Korematsu decision by one of the first, in 19-

MC: Dembitz?

DM: Pardon?

MC: By Nanette Dembitz?

DM: Not Dembitz, it was the one, the one right about, just before Dembitz in 1946. There was a...

MC: Rostow?

DM: Rostow. Eugene Rostow. Yeah.

MC: Who was Dean of Yale Law School and...

DM: Oh, see, I didn't know that.

MC: Yeah.

DM: See, I didn't know about the Dembitz or her connection to the exclusion until much, much later, which was a fascinating story in itself, 'cause of the apparently public -- well, that's another story to talk about.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.