<Begin Segment 21>

TI: Why did you decide to go to law school? After you finished your undergraduate, you decided to go to law school. Why law?

JN: I think the one guy, he was a 442 guy, he was a friend of my brother-in-law, Jiro. And I remember that when we were here yet, in Hawaii, that this guy came back. And he was, I think he went through law school, but he was a 442 and he was in Italy for a long time, after the war ended and everything, then he went through law school and he dropped over at the house, I remember, at Jiro's house. I was living with them. And he came back from law school and he was talking about the law and every other thing. It somehow must have caught my imagination. So when I got out at University of Illinois... by this time, as I said, I'm putting an effort to study, and I'm getting good grades. So I'm not sure where, how... somewhere I decided that's what I wanted to get into. I wasn't sure I wanted to be a lawyer, and I didn't even have the slightest idea what lawyers did. But it's just that, all right, I don't know what to do with what I... I think I majored in economics, only because they told me to be practical. Because I love history, any kind of history. I love history. But they told me to be practical, so I took economics but I took as many history courses as I could. Then when I -- then after I got out of Illinois, I decided, okay, I don't know what else to do. I didn't like sciences, so that left out... if I want to continue school, that left out going to dental school or medical school. My classmates from MPI were in dental school, medical school, that didn't interest me. So I said, all right, then I guess I have no choice, go to law school. So that's why I ended up in law school. It's elimination.

TI: Okay. So you started law school at the University of Illinois, then you transferred to Northwestern.

JN: Yeah, I finished my first year there, and frankly, I did well. But, oh, I decided I wanted to move back to Chicago because my whole family was there. My other brother, Bill, had come back from the army, Henry was there, too, Bert was there. Sumi had moved up there, so my whole family was in Chicago. So I said I want to live with my family down in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. So I moved... so I transferred to Northwestern because they had the reputation of being a better law school. But Illinois, at that time, when I went there, the University of Illinois, they had a whole bunch of new young law professors and they were good. I didn't realize how good they were. I didn't realize how good of a law program they had. And then I went to Northwestern because they had the reputation at this point in time. They were the oldest school and they were well-known, so I transferred. Of course, I didn't realize I'm using my father's money, right, it's going up every time I go to a private school, right? But anyway, I went to, I went there. And the thing I recall was my disappointment. I mean, I made good grades, but it was, it wasn't as good as Illinois. It was really a disappointment. And then I think I was also running out of gas, I didn't know what else I wanted to -- and I didn't know what the hell a lawyer did. And I decided I think I'm going to take a break. And I think I was also worried about using up my dad's money, too, at this point in time. So I then joined the, I volunteered for the draft. In those days, the draft was for two years. And that was a good two years of doing nothing, idleness, enforced idleness. And I thought, "Gee, this is just what I needed." So for two years... I was hoping they'd send me to the Far East or two Europe. [Shakes head] Two years in Fort Riley, Kansas. But that was... as I said, a good period of time of doing nothing. Of not striving for anything, being forced to do nothing, idleness. And I thought, "Gee, this is good."

And then in the meantime, I met my ex-wife in Chicago, she came from Hawaii. She was a friend of my sister-in-law, and I was old enough, and I said, "I think I better get married," so I got married. And then...

TI: And how did you meet your ex-wife? So you said you met in Chicago but she was in Hawaii? What was she doing in Chicago?

JN: She went, she herself, I think, got, wanted to get away from her family in Hawaii, and so she went up to work in Chicago because her friend, who was my sister-in-law, worked in Chicago. So she came up here to work in Chicago for, temporarily then. So while she was there, I met her. And I think at that point I just wanted to get married, felt like I should get married. I don't know why, I just got married. So she didn't -- after we got married, she went to Los Angeles and started working there in an insurance company. So I decided, okay, I've been to Illinois, I've been to Northwestern, so I figured I better go to UCLA. [Laughs] I wanted to go back to L.A. to finish my school, I didn't want to go back to Illinois or Chicago. So I started bargaining with the people at UCLA, and the guy at UCLA said, "We can't give you a degree unless you... why don't you go back to Illinois and get your degree, and then you can come to UCLA for a year, but Illinois will give you the degree." I was kind of back and forth. Finally, I said, "Why don't you let me go, I'll go there for two years, which means I'll go two and a half of law school instead of, I mean, three and a half years of law school instead of the regular three." He said, "Okay." So I said, "Okay, I'll go two years." So I went there and graduated there. And for one year, I took classes that nobody else would take because I fulfilled all my requirements already, after the first year. So I'm taking classes in international law and all this other kind of, fun kind of classes. But anyway, I graduated from UCLA. And the luckiest thing happened to me, I guess I'm just lucky. I went looking for a job.

I graduated in February of '61, that's when my father died. I went looking for a job, and then in 1960, Nixon lost to Kennedy in the campaign. The guy who was his manager, I guess, was a guy named Bob Finch. And Finch came back to Los Angeles after they lost, and he decided he would open a law office, but it was just a cover to do his political thing. For some reason, I applied there, and I'm not quite sure why. I'm sure it was through UCLA. Why he hired me, I haven't the slightest idea. I think I was the first Asian hired by a white firm. I think somebody told me that, because he said, "I don't know of any other white firm hiring an Asian." In those days, they didn't hire Asians, certainly not a lawyer, because what are you gonna do with an Asian lawyer, right, in a white law firm. But he hired me because he was in politics. I think he foresaw in the future that race is going to become a political issue. And this was before, what was it, Watts? Was it in Watts, in '63 or somewhere. So he, I think he foresaw that that was gonna happen, that race was gonna become a problem, I guess. In any event, he couldn't teach me anything about law, because he didn't know anything about law himself, he was a politician, basically. He graduated from SC law school. So I was goofing around and doing all kinds of funny things. And one of the things I did was I went down to Watts because he would send me down to Watts. And they had these black organizations that were successful black businessmen after Watts had erupted, trying to find, trying to help the other blacks get out of Watts, basically, go to school. And so they had this organization set up, and for political reasons, he sent me down. I was the only guy on the board who was not a black. I was the only, obviously, I was the only Asian down there. So I was in that organization for a while. That was an interesting experience. It's scary, frankly, going down to Watts in those days.

TI: And how did the blacks treat you when you're the non-black there?

JN: I guess, I don't recall exactly but I think they treated me like something of, kind of a funny little interesting guy kind of a thing, no threat. I'm not a threat to them and so... but, "What the hell are you doing here?" kind of thing. There was one black guy I knew that I went with, guy named Norm Hodges. I don't know why I remember his name. But he was a black guy that went into the group and I went with him, basically.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright ©2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.