<Begin Segment 22>

TI: So, Barbara, do you have any other questions?

BT: Well, I wonder about coming back to, or coming to Los Angeles and beginning a career as a lawyer. Were there very many other lawyers of color?

TN: Oh, yeah. There were quite a few lawyers. I wasn't a lawyer -- we set up a committee, opened up a committee office in Los Angeles, because we figured that --

BT: Oh, you mean the Tule Lake Defense Committee?

TN: Defense Committee. So I wasn't a lawyer until I passed the bar in 1956. Yeah, there were, Mr. Mitsuno was there, Mr. Mitsumori, he's still practicing here, and Mr. Aiso, Frank Chuman, who else? Oh, Tsurutani, there were about ten or so.

BT: Did you all work in sole practices?

TN: Well, most of them were sole practice.

BT: Why didn't you ever think of getting together as a group practice?

TN: You know how Japanese are, they never get together. [Laughs] Everybody wanted to be a general.

BT: But were you able to help each other or support each other?

TN: Oh, yeah, we helped each other.

BT: How?

TN: Well, we have our case, then we have... if it was involved, the other people would have attorney alone, then we'd consult with them and try to settle the case. Like Bobby Osaki, I knew him. It was hectic, though.

BT: Well, the practice of law in the '50s and the '60s was so different. And the courts were all pretty much white. Did you feel like there was discrimination in the bar or on the bench?

TN: No, I don't think so. After the war, they opened it up, yeah. They respected you. But very few people passed the bar in those days. They missed the opportunity to go to school, remember? Due to evacuation, all the people had to change their major or something like that. I came to Los Angeles because most of the renunciants were located in this southern district. We had renunciants all over the United States. I had committeemen in San Jose and San Francisco, Fresno, and Los Angeles, and Hawaii. There were a few in Hawaii. And they went up to Chicago, some remained at Seabrook Farms. Because we were able to make a deal with the Justice Department to close the camp and find a job for these kids to go to Seabrook to work until they were released. Mr. Collins would get on the telephone and negotiate all these things, all by telephone, tremendous.

BT: How big was the San Francisco office that Collins worked out of? How many staffers?

TN: Oh, it wasn't, it wasn't a big office. He was the sole practitioner.

BT: It was a sole practice?

TN: Yeah.

BT: How big was the support staff?

TN: Well, his... well, he had girls there, about three girls. Before that, he represented a lot of these people in the federal courts.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.