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MN: Okay, let's go back to when you were, you were a gym teacher, and the same time you were a gym teacher, the massive student walkouts were going on. From a perspective of a teacher, did you support the students or did you think they were just wasting their time?

RO: Well, I have to tell you, having gone to Stevenson and Roosevelt, I understand what the issues were. They were fighting for equal educational opportunities, and clearly there was disparate availability of programs, educational offerings to East L.A. and perhaps other parts of the city. So I understand the issues, having experienced it at Roosevelt myself, and at Stevenson. And I, among a lot of the faculty, we embraced their ideas and actually wanted to help them. I decided, instead of going after a PhD, I'd already gotten my master's, that instead I'll go to law school.

MN: And is it because of the students walkouts that that influenced you to go into law instead?

RO: Law rather than a PhD, and I'm happy that I made that choice.

MN: Now, in law school, you read the Korematsu case. Is this something that they were teaching in class, or is this something, is this an independent thing that you came up with?

RO: Oh, it's probably, after I had the class on legal research, it was probably one of the first things I looked at. And I talked to my father, probably that's the first time we really talked about internment. And he essentially said something to the effect that shigata ga nai, meaning, "It can't be helped." And that was something that planted in my mind, you know, that I'm, this is wrong. Later on, we can talk about how I was a part of the redress effort. But that, too, the walkouts and all, and I think that not only the students, that whole political movement that affected a generation of faculty members, people who went on and became administrators and people like myself that got involved in educational law reform, that movement had a lot of positive fallouts.

MN: Now, as a teacher, did you ever feel threatened by the students when they were doing the walkouts?

RO: No, no. If you're a gym teacher, you have to do the yard duty, and you have to do the... you know, it's actually easier to teach in a place like East L.A. if you know who you are and the students respect you. It's easy. It was easy.

MN: So let's talk about law school, then. You got into Loyola law school, 1968. What were the demographics of your law class?

RO: Oh, probably just a handful of minorities, Asians, probably not even a handful.

MN: And because there were not many minorities, did you feel any discrimination?

RO: You know, it's like you don't go there to make friends, you're just going, at this point in your life, you're just going to get an education. But yeah, there are silly people. Well, actually, I don't know necessarily whether some of the Jesuit fathers that were there were necessarily comfortable with the new students that came in with the Legal Opportunities program. We do, we did things like start legal aid, and we have actually poor people and children running around in the hallway until they gave us another old building they owned.

MN: Tell me a little bit about this Legal Opportunity program.

RO: It's called CLEO, and it has s pretty remarkable history of picking people, educating them, and there's a roster of 'em that have made significant contributions to society.

MN: And then you opened a... you mean on the campus you opened a place where the poor people could come and get legal aid? Is that my understanding?

RO: Well, we had a legal aid program that the students volunteered, that we created, and we didn't make administration necessarily at that time comfortable about our clientele.

MN: Now, how about being a female? I mean, was that, were there females in the class?

RO: Well, it was interesting. One time, in Constitutional Law, this old professor, in real law school traditional fashion, he was a stern master here. And he said, "Mrs. Oki?" I said, "Ms. Ochi." And anyway, I proceeded to answer questions, and there was a Japanese American classmate from Fresno and he says, "How come you could talk to him like that?" And I says, "Why?" And he says, "Well, I'm from Fresno. We all go to one high school, the rich farmer kids, the middle-class farmer, and then the farm workers', you know, children and all. And that we have a hierarchy, and we wouldn't dare step out." I said, "I'm from East L.A., and we didn't have a hierarchy. We were all, we're all similarly situated and all." And so I realized that there's, it was quite a blessing in a way, because we were all pretty much poor and immigrants' children. And we feel pretty empowered.

MN: Now, you clerked for the U.S. Attorney's office in Central District of California. Were you the only female and the only Asian American?

RO: Well, probably, yeah. For then, in terms of a student, and, but I was offered, Robert Proseo told me to apply. And after I had, I had two student assistant research positions, and it didn't seem like the right place for me, but I think I may be, at that time, could have been the first woman and first minority.

MN: Did you feel awkward in the office?

RO: No. You know, there's a powerful layer of women there, and these are the Japanese American women who were the legal secretaries. Probably in another generation, they or their daughters could be lawyers. These women are sharp. They had college-educated, and they're always, you know, cheering me on.

MN: So it sounds like you had a sort of indirect support that way.

RO: Yeah. Well, I think so.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.