<Begin Segment 20>

EY: I can tell you sort of one more story that's kind of related to that but goes further back. The people I worked with, we'd invited Fred back to the, back to Hawaii at the University of Hawaii Law School in particular, on several occasions, and he seemed to really, really like that. The most recent time was when our law students had created a Patsy Mink Fellowship in Congress to honor the recently deceased Patsy Mink, by taking a first-year law student during the summer and sending him or her to do justice work in Congress for one of our congresspersons. And so at the second event -- and it was a really big event -- we invited Fred to come speak. And so Fred came with Kathryn and Karen, and of course he was such a huge hit. People just love Fred, and the students just love him. And his speech was so good in so many ways. He tells a story about himself, but he shifted halfway through about the significance post-9/11 of making sure there's no scapegoating of Arabs or Muslims. Of making sure that we used the lessons from the coram nobis cases to make sure that these injustices don't happen in the future. It was such a wonderful way that he took history to the present to the future. And Fred has such an elegant, kind of sweet way, did that so powerfully. A standing ovation, people crying, and it was his last trip to Hawaii and his wife said one of his last major big, kind of, events in that way, where he gave a really major talk. Ten years before that, the Unfinished Business documentary by Steve...

LB: Okazaki.

EY: ...Okazaki, which had been nominated for an Academy Award, was being shown at the International Film Festival in Hawaii. I'm not sure why it's "International," but International Film Festival in Hawaii. And so they had asked, they were gonna show it and they said, "Well, we have speakers after these major films, can you speak?" I said, "Better yet, why don't you bring Fred Korematsu?" They didn't even know he was alive. So they raised money, the JACL Honolulu raised money and they invited Fred. And then they decided they were gonna make this a big event, so they got the Eastwell Center, the big ceremonial room, and Leigh-Ann Miyasato and myself were on the panel with Fred, and Dan Inouye, the senator, introduced it. It was a big deal. So as part of that, I had Fred come down and talk to my class. And it was standing room only, overflowing. All the local media, the school media, everybody was there. And so I give the little opening about the case, a little background, and so Fred can do his thing. So I said, "Fred, you got about twenty-five minutes. That's a long time." So he starts talking, and he starts out okay, "There was this, and I did this, and my family..." then he gets to he was in jail. So he's only five minutes into his talk, into the jail with the Hawaii jailmate. Then he starts talking for the next almost ten minutes about how they really thought the Hawaii girls were really pretty, and about the food in Hawaii was so great, and how he really liked those, those flower shirts. And, you know, he likes being in Hawaii. And he starts talking about the sun and surf. It's like, "Fred," you know, it's a limited time, the room is packed, you haven't even got to your case in World War II, let alone the coram nobis case. And so then after... I can sense everybody's, like, "Okay," and we all know from Fred, like, he can sort of go -- as Don Tamaki said, it'd be like this plane ride, then it starts to stall and starts heading to crash-land. So, "Is he gonna pull it out?" So I stand up, and he's talking, he's at the lectern, and I whisper and say, "Fred, can you kind of speed it up and get to the real good stuff?" That's all I say, right? So he pauses, and he goes, "Hmm." He says, "You know, my counsel, I always listen to my counsel, the legal team. And my counsel tells me that I'm boring you. That I'm talking about irrelevant things, and that I should really get to the, get to the relevant stuff." Everybody turns to me and starts booing me big time. "Boo, ssss," at me. [Laughs] They're so totally... they're kind of wondering where he's going, all of a sudden he's shifted them back onto him, they're totally behind them, and he totally gets into his case and he totally gets into the coram nobis cases, and he just, like, knocks their socks off, and I'm the villain of this whole piece. And he was so good, and when he left, the lesson about what's going to happen in the future just resonated. And so it was in the newspapers. It was just magnificent. And, of course, Kathryn, his wife, who was so wonderful and who just knows everything about everything, so she's scolding him, "Fred, why did you say that?" But he says, "Well..." it was a very sweet moment. It was so classic Fred, and we all know that from seeing him speak.

LB: So what did it mean to you personally to have Fred go speak to your class, speak at your school?

EY: Well, it was... you know, I love Fred and Kathryn and Karen. He had so much love in him. That was the magnificent thing, you could see that his justice struggle came from a belief in what was right or wrong, but out of something deeper in here. And he conveyed it when he spoke to the audience, he shared that with us. And Kathryn, his wife, they're just so loving, and Karen always carried that forward. So I think the main thing is when Fred was there, for me, I just felt like this sharing of this love, and it was really the love for the whole, the whole coram nobis team. He always talked about us, and we're all part of this, everything he did was part, we were part of what we did. And this deep sense that there was this larger mission that we're on, and that it still had important relevance, and needed to tell the story and do it right. But more so, we're just sharing this feeling that's really important and deep, kind of feeling. So I felt that every time, or when I'd come up. Or when Fred passed away, to come up, and we all were a part of his family and what happened. And it was significant on a bigger way, but it was also just so personal to us all. And so Fred came back, I think, three more times, or four times total, and each time it was that same kind of feeling. So I think that's what it meant.

And what it also meant was the students that I work with that now I attempt to mentor in ways that Dale mentored me, to really bring them along. The students really were impacted by Fred, and impacted by this really humble, real person, but who could do something so extraordinary, and who could speak about it in real humble, ordinary terms, but then extraordinary ways, that I know all of us know. And he had such a way about him that I've never seen in any other -- I've worked with all kinds of people, all kinds of public figures, I've never in anybody else. And so that's sort of is, that kind of feeling is carried forth to my students, too, in very important kinds of ways.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.