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TI: In 1980, you became the executive director of the Asian Law Caucus.

DT: Right.

TI: Explain how that happened.

DT: Well, I spent my three years as a Reginald Heber Smith Fellow, or Reggie, as they called them. And I was thinking, "Okay, what do I do now?" So I did a little bit of criminal defense work, private. I did some civil work, and then I thought, well, I know the Asian Law Caucus, I have a feel that I could contribute. I felt that I could make a difference. And so they needed an executive director, at that time it was Sam Yee, and he was moving on to another job. So I applied and the board named me as executive director. What I didn't know is financially how, what bad a shape the Asian Law Caucus was in. I thought I would be, you know, litigating these great cases and making big speeches and doing all these great things, but basically I became a fundraiser. And that is a job of an executive director, you raise money. But we were literally a few months short of just running out of cash completely. And so I spent a lot of time doing grant writing and fundraising and setting up the infrastructure for sort of a diversified fundraising effort, from individual donors to grants to government funding. And that was, and I did that for the next three years.

TI: So was this really the first time you really had to focus so much on fundraising?

DT: Yeah. I didn't expect it, but you know, that was what I did.

TI: And how did you like that, fundraising?

DT: Well, it was one of these things that I did. It didn't wow me, but it's one of those things that had to be done, so I did it. But what was fortunate during that time is the Korematsu case also came along, which really was the case of a lifetime.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.