<Begin Segment 16>

RO: You know, I was talking about that "crabs in a barrel." One of the things, I've never been a joiner. I can't... and the whole thing about the JACL, I don't like to spend my time jostling on the kind of internal politics. It just keeps you from moving forward. So I'd like to help groups as a pro bono counsel and all, but I don't want to be immersed in the dynamics within an organization. But part of it, I think, pretty unique to the Japanese American community is they spend a lot of time taking each other down. And it's just, just senseless and fruitless, and I think that people have to recognize that this is a vestige of our incarceration, and that then we need to as a community speak openly about that.

MN: And you actually are very unusual because you, you kind of help people come, rise up. And so that's very unusual within the Japanese American community because I do know that we do like to keep people down. I know what you're saying. But I see you and you go somewhere and you go into the Clinton administration or whoever, and you're just --

RO: I'm a bootstrapper.

MN: You keep...

RO: One thing I do is I work very hard and I get in, but I hold the door open. And I just bring 'em in, and many folks, Ron Wakabayashi is now the director of the Community Relations Service, doing a phenomenal job here in Los Angeles. Byron Wong, he's now still at Justice Department. Wherever I am, in the mayor's office, in Justice, White House, I'm somehow, I'm having a good time. "Come on, come on."

MN: That's very unusual.

RO: I think power shares, power grows. And I think the reason why I've been able to -- I collect back, you know. There's always, there's somehow, it's family. And there's some reciprocal responsibilities. So if you work for me, I adopt you, actually, almost.

MN: Just like you're adopting a lot of the East West Players?

RO: Huh?

MN: Like you're adopting a lot of the East West Players people here?

RO: [Laughs]

Off-camera voice: I think that you should, when she retired from the city, there was about five hundred people there, and a lot of 'em they know, they aren't all Japanese community. They're United Way, they're the Mexican American political people.

RO: African American.

Off-camera voice: African Americans, you know, and they come from different areas. They didn't know each other, but they didn't know that they're connected to her. She spreads herself --

RO: Well, actually, actually, a lot of my work is not in the Japanese American community. Immigration took me to Latino, I was a champion for amnesty. Cruz Reynoso, they were voted out of the California supreme court, and he was looking at a district court federal appointment. So I told him, "I'll be the bad-ass and I'll champion amnesty." And I climbed all over, again, when Reagan administration took over, then the mood towards amnesty became very negative. There was a day where they said, "If you break residence, you will not be eligible." And I just stood up and I said, "Okay, are we saying we don't want any Mexicans to participate in the amnesty program?" I said, "You know they're gonna break residence, 'cause they're in the nature of seasonal work, their closeness to the family, the proximity to the border." I said, "Is that what we want?" And then, you know, I think I mentioned that before I went off to the Immigration Commission, I was intimidated, I know that these are the real senators and the congressmen, but I read in Kenny Han's office that, "With courage, you're the majority." And I just believe that. And so I, I just spoke out. and, you know, when you say the truth, people back off.

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