<Begin Segment 9>

SY: So now why then, after... well, first of all let me, I'm sorry, let's back up. Can you sort of characterize the kind of politician you were? How would you describe yourself as a politician?

GN: First and foremost I try to make myself accessible and also responsive. I think those are the two important parts. And all of that needs to be tempered with integrity. If people want to see you about an issue you need to be open. And so in my case, I attended a lot of events, because a lot of times if you're there they will ask you about something, whereas they're not gonna bother to call you or write a letter to you. Now, for that same reason there's a lot of politicians that would avoid going to places, but...

SY: Now, it's interesting that even though you lost the state senate seat earlier on you decided to run for assembly. Is, you had no...

GN: Yeah, then I ran for reelection to the city council in '96, two years later, after the senate race.

SY: And you had no hesitation about doing that?

GN: Oh, no, not at all.

SY: And was there encouragement for you to run for state assembly at that particular time? Did Debra Bowen, did you have endorsements from the incumbents? Or why did you, what prompted you to do it at that point, other than the fact -- oh, you had termed out.

GN: Yeah, I was terming out.

SY: Now, and you had other endorsements, right? For that state assembly seat?

GN: That one I did, but one of my Democratic opponents had a lot more than I did, maybe by two to one. He had already started early in terms of the endorsements.

SY: So you obviously thought that you had a fairly good chance, though, when you decided to run?

GN: Yeah. I thought I did, from the standpoint, a couple of things. When you look at all the cities that's within the assembly district, Torrance was the largest city that was wholly encompassed in the district. Part of L.A. that's in there is a big part of it, probably bigger than Torrance, which would be the Marina Del Ray, Venice and West L.A. that's in the district. In fact, Mike Gordon didn't win any of the beach cities or Torrance, but he won in the West L.A., Venice, Marina Del Ray area, which allowed him to win the seat. Betsey Butler, who just ran not too long ago, last year, she didn't win any of the beach cities nor Torrance or Alameda, but won in the Marina Del Ray, Venice area, and that's how she won that seat.

SY: I see. Now did you have, but why did you feel that you had a fairly good chance in this election, in this particular election?

GN: In '98, the assembly?

SY: Right, your first assembly.

GN: There were two things. One is, as I mentioned, Torrance being the wholly encompassed in, it was the largest city that was wholly encompassed in the district, number one, I felt like I had a strong base there. And number two, that year we had open primary, which meant that Republicans who had voted for me in the city council races in Torrance were very likely to vote for me in the assembly. And so that, I think, actually happened. In fact, that same year, '98, Steve Kuykendall was running for the congressional seat because Jane Harmon that year decided to run for governor, so that seat opened up. Now, Janice Hong was chosen by, well, essentially chosen, she was backed by Jane Harmon to run for her seat. So this is what Janice told me and I, she said she would go to Torrance and she'll find a Kuykendall sign at a Republican household and then she'll find a Nakano sign in the, that same Republican household, even though I'm a Democrat. And so she said, kind of jokingly said that I brought out too many Republicans to come out to vote in Torrance and that's how she lost the race.

SY: Now how, how do you figure that you were able to do that? What was it about your approach that Republicans might favor?

GN: Well, I think as a city councilmember I was fiscally conservative, so that probably was a plus, and then all these other issues I probably was on the right side as far as they were concerned from the local aspects. And I was always approachable and responsive. Regardless of what party or how angry somebody might be, I would listen and at least try to find a solution to it.

SY: And did your being Asian, do you think, have anything to do with your position on issues, any kind of issues?

GN: I didn't find that when I was running. The only Asian aspect, I would say, was that, I don't know if I mentioned this in the earlier interview, is the kendo part. Did I mention about that?

SY: You did. You did, yeah, that people really responded positively to that.

GN: Yeah, in retrospect, as a result of the focus group that we did for the assembly race, reflecting back on the time when I ran for the city council, the brochure where we had one part showing where I was teaching kendo, I think, had a positive effect, even though I didn't have a single person endorsing me.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.