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LB: What did working on this case mean to you?

EY: Well, I didn't realize it at the time, but it really set a really wonderful course for my life. Perhaps most important, it created the bonds of deep, deep friendship and love among people like you and Dale and Leigh-Ann and Ed Chen and Bob Rusky, Karen Kai, the whole team. And especially Fred and Kathryn and Karen Korematsu, that wonderful closeness and ties of having shared in something so important and significant. That I treasure the most above everything else. It was also important -- and that's helped me to really have a certain source of -- I don't know what the word is -- love, that I can give to other people that I work with, to the students. To be able to work from that place, that this is something so important and deep, this communal sense.

It was also important to me because not knowing what I was gonna do after I left the law firm, I finally realized, "Oh, I think I do want to teach law school." Said, "Darn, I should have tried to be in Law Review. Now it's coming back to haunt me." [Laughs] But so what can I do at this point, right? I made my choices and they were all the right choices, but it's not pointing me to where I next want to go. But I had more time because I wasn't working. I was recovering from a serious sports injury, so I used half of my day to rehab, and I was living in San Francisco, I would run up and down the stairs and the hills and go to the basketball court, and actually, I did rehab my leg really nicely. And the other half of the day, I went to a little tiny cafe on Twenty-fourth Street. It's called the Meat Market, and it's not what you think. [Laughs] I thought it was kind of a strange name. But it actually was the former meat market that had been converted to a cafe. And it had a room in the very back with a window to the outside, beautiful blue sky and trees. And it was way in the back, so no one went there, so I would go there like my little office, four hours a day. And I collected all the litigation materials, but I also went and got all the cases that -- not only that were discussed in the materials -- but other cases about national security, civil liberty historically and whatnot. And so I just read 'em, and I started to form this picture that tapped into my sort of deep desire to have been part of the coram nobis team to begin with, was what's the impact on the future? And I began to realize that this was a historical pattern. That during times of national crisis, government officials, in order to bolster their political standing, will sometimes do the right thing to provide for the security of the country, which was really important, but oftentimes they would go way overboard. That they would find out who's the most vulnerable group and scapegoat that group in order to make people feel better. Whether it's because people feel safer, or their sense for vengeance or whatever it is, is dealt with. And so I realized that this has happened over and over, and that what happened in internment could happen again unless we really learn some deeper lessons that were translated in broader ways. And then I realized that it was the courts that were allowing this to happen over and over again. So I spent that time examining the national security, civil liberties tensions embodied in American law. And so I spent that time in the cafe every day, not only figuring out the more specific legal lessons of the Korematsu, Hirabayashi, Yasuicoram nobis cases, but also trying to see how we could argue that American law, national security, civil liberties, should be altered and why.

And so I spent that time, I didn't have any computer. In fact, there were hardly any computers. So I handwrote on a yellow tablet, and I got my cards, and I wrote notes, and I cut and pasted and did all this stuff. And so I did that for six months, and I came out, I had a manuscript starting with the coram nobis case, Korematsu in particular, but also the national security, civil liberties jurisprudence, and then where it might go into the future. And so I wrote this all up by hand, and I did it just 'cause I wanted to do it. And then someone graciously agreed to type it up for me. It was on a very early computer, I needed a couple drafts. And then it turned out that my law school had an opening for a professor in civil procedure. And that's the one thing I would be qualified for. And, but I wasn't on Law Review. I applied for the position, and they said, "You're not on Law Review, how do we know you can do scholarship? And you were in practice," and I had some really wonderful letters from the attorneys in practice. So I said, "Well, I have this manuscript." I had two manuscripts; one I had written as an undergraduate doing that work, independent study work on Hawaii community and changes and justice issues, and that had won an award, so I showed them that. But then I showed them this other manuscript from the cafe, which was still very rough. But it just happened that Mari Matsuda, who had joined the faculty, was on the hiring committee, and John Mananke, our Con Law professor was on the hiring committee. And they knew what this stuff was about and why it was significant, and that the manuscript, what I was writing about was brand new stuff, and it was very significant for the future of American law, perhaps. And so that opened the door for me, and then I made it to the short list. And at that time, they were hardly hiring people from Hawaii, they wanted people elsewhere. And I was on the short list, even though not having been on Law Review, and I had to give a presentation to the whole law school. That was kind of the test, "Could this guy do it?" And so what did I talk about? I talked about the coram nobis cases, and I talked about the documents, and I talked about the impact. And it was a big hit with the audience. And so it was those two things combined that really got me over this hump that I would not, might not normally have qualified to be a law professor. And so the coram nobis cases and the legal team were just really, were so influential in me being hired. And my first article came out called "Korematsu Revisited," in terms of present-day events. And you know, it got me into working on racial justice issues, human rights, civil rights, and it opened so many doors for me. And I've tied in my civil litigation, civil procedure expertise into that, and it's really meshed really wonderfully.

And for a while I thought, "Well, I need to move on. I can't just do this thing and then sort of live off of this thing." But what I realized is that the coram nobis cases have a life of their own. And because they reflect so much, not only what happened and the importance of correcting injustice, but they also reflect on the future and about how we are likely, if we're not vigilant, to replicate this same type of injustice. And if we do, what do we do about it in terms of repairing the harm through reparations? And so I realized it has a life of its own that continues, especially post-9/11, the significance of all of this work is even more important. And so the Korematsu Justice Center that's opening here at Seattle Law School is so important for that reason. It's not just a historic look backwards, it's a look forward. And so the work that I do now really embraces that Korematsu spirit, at least for me. How do we assure that this kind of injustice or broader injustice doesn't happen to anyone?

LB: This manuscript that you wrote, did you write it because you knew that that might be a way to get into academia, or did you write it because you just needed to?

EY: I just needed to. It was so important, and I had things to say now. And I didn't know what it would do, I didn't know if I could get it published, I didn't know what the purpose of it was, except I just wanted to do it and had the time and energy, and I was sort of consumed by it. In this little tiny room with a window, the Meat Market Cafe. But the interesting thing is that it's still being used and cited because of its relevance right today.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.