<Begin Segment 1>

SY: Okay, hi. Today is August 23, 2011, and we're at the Centenary United Methodist Church in Los Angeles, and we're talking with George Nakano. I'm Sharon Yamato, and Tani Ikeda is on camera. So, George, this is the second part of an interview with you and I believe we left off when you made the switch in your career from working at Hughes to teaching, and I'm curious why or how that switch came about, why you made that switch.

GN: Well, I was interested in having a profession where I could have some impact on society, and I felt that one of the ways would be to reach out to young people. And I felt that as a teacher that would be a way of doing it, and so... and it was something that came about as a result of my volunteering with, like the Gardena Pioneer Project, and it was a hard decision from the standpoint that I already had two children and it would mean that I would have to take a cut in pay, going from Hughes Aircraft to going into teaching. And so I had to talk it over with my wife and asked her if she would be willing to work part time to make ends meet, and so that's what we had to do.

SY: That's, and the interesting thing is that you switched to teaching in a school in South Central.

GN: Yeah, it was --

SY: So was that by choice?

GN: Well, I wanted to teach high school. I didn't want to teach junior high school. I think there were other positions open that were not in inner city, but that's the one that came up as, that had an opening. And so I went and had an interview with the principal and I was impressed with the principal. He also used to be a math teacher at one time. He grew up in New Orleans. And so anyway, I made the decision to take the position at Jordan High School.

SY: And what was that like, teaching predominately black students, right?

GN: It was all black at that campus at that time.

SY: Okay, and so, and you were teaching math, and what was that experience like?

GN: They, I had also a regular math class as well as geometry, and so in the geometry class I had the high achievers and so when you have those high achievers it's no different than, I think, any other community. But then I also had the low achievers as well, so it was a good cross section of students that I was working with.

SY: Was discipline a problem? Did you have discipline problems?

GN: I didn't have any discipline problems. You know, I was fair to the students. One of the things that, training that you go through, orientation training for those teachers who are gonna be teaching in inner city schools, and for some of us who have grown up in those poor areas, it's not a cultural shock, but for those who come from the middle class, who have never been in an area like that, they truly need the orientation. And part of the orientation training is that you don't try to be friends at the same level. Otherwise you lose respect. You are the teacher, you are gonna be open, you are gonna be fair. You don't talk down to the students. And those were the important parts, I think, part of the orientation training.

SY: I see, and did you incorporate other things into your teaching other than math, or was --

GN: I did. Since I had geometry, I think of all the math classes geometry is the one that's closest to pure logic, so I incorporated some of the things that I learned in college, logic -- I took a logic course in philosophy -- and so I incorporated some of those fallacies in there for them to be able to identify different kinds of fallacies. And so I did those kind of things.

SY: Made it interesting.

GN: Yes.

SY: So was, was teaching rewarding for you?

GN: Yes, it was. I was totally exhausted at the end of the day, but my mind was clear.

SY: That's nice.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 2>

SY: And then the next step in your career was what, after teaching?

GN: Well, while I was there, actually, the L.A. Unified School District received a large grant to incorporate computer assisted instruction, so we had a mainframe computer that was installed and so I would spend part of the time running that program. And at that time it was a, teletype were being utilized. It wasn't a computer with a monitor and a keyboard; it was actually a teletype. And so those, that was used for basic math and also for English, and what was important with the utilization of the computer is that they would do certain skill tests and they would get instant response whether it was correct or not, and then they would be give the correct answer. So I think in the basic skill those are really important. Technology was used for that purpose.

SY: That's nice, and your interest, 'cause that's way before, this was in the '70s.

GN: Yeah. And then every day I had to download the computer to have a tape of the progress that had been made, and I remember one time I didn't have the time to do that, and I think it was a Friday because there was a game going on. You had to supervise these football games. And so on the weekend I drove back on campus and got inside the building and was downloading, and after I got through downloading the computer I decided to go to the math office, and as I was walking towards the math office this person with a .45 pistol had his gun pointed at me and turns out he was security. And I did not know that the campus had an alarm system, and so when I went into the building it apparently set off the alarm.

SY: Triggered the alarm.

GN: And, anyway, when I saw the security he looked at me and he told me to freeze, and he seemed like he was frightened, so that made me scared when, especially when the guy with the gun is frightened. And I explained to him why I was there and showed him my ID card, then it was fine.

[Interruption]

SY: Okay, so talking about teaching, and then you getting caught by the security guard. [Laughs]

GN: Yeah, so that was an incident that I remember that occurred.

SY: Did you have any run-ins with the students at all? Did you have --

GN: I personally did not. I know in the first segment -- and I don't know, when I was playing it back it seemed like the sound went out when I indicated what had happened, but just to kind of go over that again, near... well, I guess it was the last day of class before the Christmas break, I decided to show the eight millimeter, Super 8 film that I had from world kendo tournament that I participated in, Okinawa. And so I thought I'd show that to the students. I also took some film of the basketball team playing basketball as well, but when I showed the kendo match that I had turns out that the, this one student who the following semester was not in my class but I guess he was ditching school, but he was with a couple other friends, and his friend happened to knock on my classroom door and peeked in. And so his friend told him that, "Mr. Nakano is bad, better leave him alone," and then they quietly closed the door and left. [Laughs]

SY: That's great.

GN: But subsequent to my being at Jordan High School as a math teacher and then also coordinating the, which was called the Model Cities Program at that time, the computer used for instruction, the math department head had left L.A. Unified and had gone to work at Inglewood School District as the project director of the, at that time the Title I SB-90 and early childhood education program for the district. And then they were looking for an assistant director and I got a call from him asking me to apply for the position. I had some reservations in that I wanted to at least teach for at least five years before going into administration, but a lot of times I know that even though you may want to go into administration the positions are just not around. And there were a lot of Asian Americans, I know, in L.A. Unified who wanted to move into an administrative position but never could 'cause it all depended on the openings that were available. Well here was an opportunity for me to move into an administrative position, and I realized that there may not be another position like this for a number of years, so I decided to go in for the interview and they decided to hire me. And so I worked in that position in Inglewood School District.

SY: I see, and the position involved doing what exactly?

GN: It's providing leadership for the schools that's involved, elementary schools, and also for the Title I specialist that they have at each school. They'll have a, like a math specialist, a reading specialist, which'll be part of a pull out program for those students who are, had qualified to be part of that program. And also they'll have a coordinator at each school who oversees the program at that particular site. And so our job is to get the federal and state funded funds and allocate it to each school based on the enrollment of the students that's involved with the program.

SY: And this was for all of LAUSD or just a certain --

GN: No, this was now in Inglewood School District.

SY: Oh, Inglewood, right. I'm sorry.

GN: Yeah, it won't be all the schools. Certain schools would be involved with it. Some schools were located in a higher social economic area and so they were not part of the program.

SY: I see. And what did you learn from that experience? What did you get out of it?

GN: Well, one of the important elements of that program was multicultural education, and so, and it was sort of in the beginning of multicultural education in the education sector. And so there were challenges. There have, there were people who were kind of an expert in that area, and so I would attend their workshops and learn from them and try to incorporate it within our program. And so those are the more interesting parts of it, being involved in anything, is that when it's relatively new they try to incorporate something and find the right kind of program to be a part of the required...

SY: So that was very helpful in terms of your growth later in working in politics?

GN: No, I think the one that was more helpful was eventually I took a position as an assistant principal at an elementary school, and so now you not only have the management responsibility with the classroom teachers as well as evaluating them, but also working with the public, the parents. And sometimes you will have some irate parents come into school, and learning how to handle those kind of situations, I think that was the important part of being in public office.

SY: Managing people.

GN: Yes.

SY: So if you were to do it over again would you prefer teaching or the administration end?

GN: I enjoyed both. And I'm not really answering your question. I think the administration end, one of the other things I did at the elementary school level was I decided to work with the Gates students, the gifted students, and so what I did was -- and I was interested in, like, recreational math -- and so I would pull them out of the classroom and I would conduct the class and do some mathematical recreation with them. I also taught them a little bit about how an airplane flies, why they would fly, just basic things like that. And then what I, another thing that I did was ordered rocket ship models, and there's a big catalog from the educational supply companies and so we purchased that, those items, and I had the students build rocket ships. And then on the multicultural day they would be, they would do the final part of the program, and that is to fire off the rockets in the air. And then this one particular elementary school I was at, Worthington Elementary, it was adjacent to the public park and they had an agreement with the city that while the school was in session the park would be part of the playground for the schools, and so the park had a fence around it to keep the public out so only the students would have access to it. So you had this large area and that is where the rocket ships would be launched, and it would go up in the sky and you won't be able to see it because it goes up so high. And then all of a sudden you see this parachute with a rocket attached to it coming down, but it was exciting for the kids to do that. So those are the kind of things that you could do as an administrator that you can't do as a classroom teacher.

SY: I see.

GN: So there's, both positions are...

SY: Open to teaching.

GN: Yeah, it's new things that you can do that's exciting.

SY: Right, right. So did you notice any kind of interracial conflict while you were in the school system? Was there --

GN: The schools that I was at didn't seem to have that problem. Perhaps it was because at the elementary level. I know at the high school level you could have that kind of problem where you have... and usually it happens when the minority groups happen to be the majority.

SY: And you didn't feel any, singled out as being Asian or any kind of discrimination?

GN: No.

SY: That's great.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 3>

SY: So all this time that you were teaching you were also doing your community work, right?

GN: Yeah.

SY: Can you talk a little bit about when that started and, it started with the senior, the senior citizens?

GN: Yes, it was, it began with the Gardena Pioneer Project, and that program, or that organization began in 1969 and that's when it was incorporated. And there was a number of pioneer projects that were created throughout southern California. There was one in the Seinan area, San Fernando Valley, San Gabriel Valley, I think in Venice, West L.A.

SY: So why did you choose to focus on this particular...

GN: It so happened that I was asked to help out, and that's how I got involved. And, well, aside from that, I was involved in kendo as well, but with the Pioneer Project, it was mainly helping the Isseis. Many of the Isseis, from what I understand, when social security first began farmers were not able to become part of the social security program and so a lot of the older Issei didn't have social security, yet for those who were having difficulty financially had too much pride about being on welfare. And so we wanted to provide a health fair as well as recreational programs for the Issei, and so that was, those were the reasons why pioneer projects were created.

SY: I see, so it was educational kind of, wanted to teach them how to...

GN: Yes. And the real highlight of the Pioneer Project was in 1973, and there's always these annual hanami trips that we would take in April when the flowers would bloom in the Lancaster area and 1973, I think, was at its height of the Pioneer Project. There were total of thirty-five buses that gather at Lancaster from the various pioneer projects, and one of the wonderful things that happened was that here you had all these Issei as well as some of the older Niseis who have not seen some people since the war ended. They knew each other in camp, and so by chance they had gathered in Lancaster and they were able to...

SY: Reacquaint?

GN: Yeah, reacquaint each other and see some of their old friends.

SY: That's great. So, and how big was your Gardena Pioneer Project? How many people would you say were involved?

GN: I think at that time we had at least a couple of buses, maybe three.

SY: Good size.

GN: Yeah.

SY: And was it, did you have other people helping you? Was it a --

GN: Well, that's the thing. We had a lot of young people, college students mostly, that were helping.

SY: All volunteer?

GN: All volunteers. And that's where I developed that interest about going into teaching and having an impact on society.

SY: That's great. And so at the same time now, you were also involved in some other organizations besides the Pioneer Project, or did that all come later as far as your community involvement?

GN: I think some of those came later.

SY: So once, you were with the Pioneer Project for roughly for how many years?

GN: 1969 to I would say about 1982, thereabouts.

SY: Wow, long time. And did that, what did that lead to? Did you decide to do other things as a result of that, that particular kind of community focus?

GN: Well, I got also involved with the Torrance sister city program. That was in 1976. And then when I got on the Torrance city council in '84 I was recruited to join the United Way, and so I was on the board of directors up until maybe 1996 or thereabouts.

SY: And the, so the Pioneer Project continued after you left it?

GN: Yes. They had enough people there that would continue on as, in a leadership position, so that was one that was well taken care of.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 4>

SY: Now, going back, when you decided to run for Torrance city council was it, what, did that have something to do with your involvement with the Pioneer Project or was it totally exclusive of that?

GN: I think it was exclusive in that.

SY: And why did you decide to run?

GN: Well, I got a phone call from Vince Okamoto --

SY: He was a judge then?

GN: No, he was an attorney, a law partner of Ron Wasserman. He also owned Pacific Heritage Bank at that time. And I knew him from the time he was in junior high school at, what, Prairie Junior High School in Gardena, because he was the same age as my younger brother Tosh and so they went to school together there. They went to Gardena High School together and both of them end up in the army in Vietnam, and after he had gone to law school and, he had run for Gardena city council in 1976 and he served one term, and... anyway, when I got -- oh, both he and Ron Wasserman were the legal counsel for the Gardena Valley Japanese Cultural Institute.

SY: Which is totally separate from the Pioneer Project. Is that totally separate?

GN: Yes, Pioneer Project was pretty independent. We had our own facility. I think it eventually got involved with the JCI, but initially it wasn't part of it. And Vince called me because the JCI wanted to build a senior housing at the JCI, and most of the land would be in Torrance, but part of the parking area would be in Gardena. That's, it's almost like you didn't have a border between Torrance and Gardena right in that area. And so they have to go to the planning commission of both cities; they went to the Gardena planning commission and it was approved unanimously, and then they, when they went to the Torrance planning commission there were some neighbors that complained that it's gonna bring in traffic as well as some undesirable people. And so when it went before the Torrance planning commission it was turned down, so now it was the job of Vince Okamoto and Ron Wasserman to appeal the decision to the city council and lobby the city council member about the positive aspect of the, having this senior citizen housing. And they did that, and when it went before the city council they overturned the decision of the planning commission and unanimously approved the project. And today you don't have problems that some of the people were saying; you don't have traffic because, traffic problem, because seniors don't drive, and you don't have undesirable people residing there either. But anyway, what it did is sent a message to the board of directors of the JCI that now Torrance had about fifteen percent Japanese Americans in the city, and if there's an issue that's directly related to the Japanese Americans. who do you go to? They felt that they were lucky this time, but there's nobody on the city council, and that's when Vince gave me a call, asked me if I would consider running for the Torrance city council. And I have to say, at that time the only experience I had as far as campaigning was when George Ogawa ran for the city council back in 1976, I think it was. The call, when I got a call from Vince it was 1983, but George was unable to raise enough money to be a viable candidate and didn't do very well in that election. But I did walk some precincts for him, so that was my, my extent of experience about campaigning. So when Vince called me I said, I don't know anything about running for public office, and he said not to worry, he and Ron have experience in it, and he indicated that he served one term on the Gardena city council. He unseated an incumbent in the process of coming in first. And Ron Wasserman ran his wife, Fumi's campaign for the school board in 1980 and she also unseated the incumbent and came in as a top vote getter. And the two of them ran Paul Bannai's campaign for the state assembly in 1972, and he was a moderate Republican running in a Democratic district, and he won. So he told me that they're not professional at it but they have experience and they enjoy it, and anyway, he thought that I would be a good candidate for the Torrance city council. So that's how it began.

SY: Yeah, but it's amazing that they sort of handpicked you. I mean, they must've had an inkling that that would be something that...

GN: Well, I remember Vince came to the Torrance Kendo Dojo to learn kendo for about a year, so I taught him kendo so there was that, I guess, relationship that kind of developed at that point in time, I remember.

SY: But, and for you, from your perspective, going into politics, what was that, was that scary or was it intimidating? Or did it seem...

GN: No, it wasn't. I saw that as an expansion of community involvement, but you're in a much stronger position to implement things and make things happen, and so that's how I saw that position.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 5>

SY: So with no experience you were able to win this election. Now how, what do you attribute that to? Was it their expertise?

GN: Their guidance, yeah. I followed their guidance because they're the ones who had the experience and they knew how to win races.

SY: And what was, what did that entail exactly?

GN: There were three things. Number one, you need to raise an adequate amount of money so that you're able to send out an adequate number of mail pieces to the voters. And number two, get a decent number of endorsements. And an endorsement doesn't win the elections for you; it merely qualifies you as a candidate. It indicates that people endorse you because they feel, there's some confidence that you can do the job, so that's what endorsement does for a person.

SY: And do you remember who endorsed you that, in your initial run?

GN: Well, I couldn't get a single person on the city council to endorse me, so I was a pure outsider. But I did get a lot of the community leaders in Torrance, homeowners' association presidents, to endorse me, and a lot of city commissioners. So that's where the bulk of my endorsement came from.

SY: And the third thing was...

GN: And then the third one is to walk precincts. You need to go face, go out in the community face to face, and in most cases they won't even ask you about issues. It's their first impression that they have of you when they first meet you is what carries over. If it's positive then they would most likely support you on the election day. And so, also, the precinct walking was done very strategically. Number one, Helen and I, my wife and I, walked the precincts where they had the highest number of voters. Areas that tend to be more affluent in general tend to have the higher percentage of people who vote, and also you need to distinguish the fact that there are people who only vote in a national or state election but they never vote in a local city council or school board election, so the focus needs to be on the people who do vote on the city council elections. And there are consultants that have all that information, and so when you do walk precincts you don't blindly just go to one house to another. You handpick those homes that you go to where the people who do vote in city council elections are living, and so you focus on those people.

SY: Very strategic.

GN: And so Helen and I would go where the high voter turnout is, and then we also needed to get the Asian voters to come out, especially the Japanese Americans that live in north Torrance, so we would use the Asian precinct walker for those areas. And I think that election we probably covered about sixty percent of the area in Torrance. There were eleven candidates running; there were three offices that was open, only one incumbent was running for reelection. And at that time we raised nineteen thousand dollars, which was on the higher end compared to everybody else. There were two people, the incumbent and another candidate, who raised more money than I did.

SY: So, and you were what percentage of the vote?

GN: I came, well, when the counts were coming in during the election day I was in the lead, and then when the last count came in, the incumbent, the only incumbent that was running for reelection, he beat me by a hundred and thirty-five votes.

SY: Wow. That's an amazingly successful campaign. We're, I think we're gonna need to take a break --

GN: So it just kind of tells you, even though if you don't have the endorsement, if you do those other things and do it right then you can kind of overcome that.

SY: Very good.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 6>

SY: So what, tell me what the ethnic makeup of the city was at the time, of the Torrance, the city of Torrance. Was it very multiethnic?

GN: At that time it had about fifteen percent Asians, mainly Japanese Americans, maybe about two percent African Americans, Latino maybe about, I would say less than ten percent.

SY: Predominantly Caucasian, then.

GN: Yes.

SY: And so did that have any bearing on the race, do you think? Did you feel that being a minority, an Asian, did that present any problems?

GN: Well, in the old Torrance area there was one candidate was making the Japanese companies an issue, American Honda in particular, because I think there was a small area that Honda had taken up some properties due to their expanded facility. And so that was the only thing that really came up at that time.

SY: But it was something that, it's all, it was very industrial with Japanese companies in Torrance.

GN: Yes.

SY: Even back at that time that you were running.

GN: Yeah, because Toyota already was there and so was American Honda.

SY: And that was encouraged, I would think, by the city.

GN: Yeah, it was.

SY: I see.

GN: It provided a big economic resource for the city. Both headquarters are located there, Toyota headquarters, national headquarters, and American Honda national headquarters.

SY: So once you were elected, can you sort of characterize what the Torrance city council was? What problems did they have? Were there...

GN: Well, the usual problem had to do with development. It always pops up as an issue, especially residential development. The density is an issue. Traffic becomes an issue. Compatibility becomes an issue. And those were the usual things that we had to deal with. Some of the problems that I, we had to deal with one major one had to do with the Mobile refinery, was having a lot of fires and explosions on their facility. And so happened that on the city council I was the only one that knew anything about hydrofluoric acid, because I had college chemistry, and it's a highly toxic chemical. It's, you cannot store hydrofluoric acid in a glass. It'll eat it right through. Usually kept in a wax container. And what happened was at one of the explosions some of the hydrofluoric acid had escaped and so there was a serious public safety issue at the refinery, and turns out that they store like ten thousand gallons there. And there was a test that was done in the Nevada desert and they found that when they exposed a thousand gallons of hydrofluoric acid to the atmosphere it killed almost all living organisms within a five mile radius. And so I spoke up publically about the danger of the hydrofluoric acid and finally the city took a position and we hired a former judge who helped us guide, who helped us in guiding us as to what kind of legal measure we should take. Because a lot of the refinery operation is controlled by the county and also by the AQ&D in the state, that the local city really doesn't have the legal control over them in the way that you would with other type of businesses. So we filed a public nuisance lawsuit and Mobile had to come up with a safer method of refining crude oil. And that's the thing; they used the hydrofluoric acid as a catalyst to refine the crude oil and actually hydrofluoric acid is more efficient than using hydrofluoric, using sulfuric acid. With the sulfuric acid you end up with a waste product that you have to ship out in large volume, and so you have that extra tanker traffic that will go in and out of the refinery. And so anyway, they, as a result of the lawsuit Mobile refinery came up with a safer method of utilizing hydrofluoric acid, and it cost them several million dollars, but at least it made the area much safer as a result.

SY: Right. That's a big impact. Early environmentalist, I guess, 'cause that, that was at a time when people probably weren't as conscious as they are today.

GN: Yeah.

SY: Wow. So that must have been something that made you very proud to have been able to do something.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 7>

SY: Were there other things that, while you were serving Torrance, that you were particularly proud of?

GN: One is the graffiti. That started to pop up in the city. And I happened to be walking a precinct and this lady worked in city of Manhattan Beach, and they have an actual graffiti removal program in Manhattan Beach and so she asked me, "Why can't we have one in Torrance?" And so that gave me the idea of initiating something in the city of Torrance as the way to, an organized way of removing graffiti. So the way it's done is that the police will get a photograph of the graffiti so that you don't just take the graffiti off by painting over it and not knowing what kind of graffiti it is, and the police need to get involved because it could very well be gang related graffiti and the police are the ones that are knowledgeable about following certain patterns and words occurring and those kind of things. And so in the beginning, when we initiated the program, it would take about two weeks before the graffiti is removed, and I think now it's done within twenty-four hours. The policy is that you allow the, if it's on a private property you allow the people to remove it themselves, but if they don't do it within seven days then the city will come and do it anyway, and so that's how the program works.

SY: So that must have been a very popular program, then, at that time.

GN: It was. And then the other thing was in 1991, when they did the redistricting. That year the legislature did not do the redistricting because the Democrats and Republicans couldn't agree on doing the redistricting, and so what happened was, well, you had a, you had a Democratic majority in the legislature and then you had a Republican government. So the Democrats would have control over the redistricting, but usually what happens is that they will have some agreement with the Republican legislature on how the lines were redrawn, but in that year they couldn't agree and so what happened was it went to the California Supreme Court. The law is that when there's, when you can't have that kind of agreement it will go to the California Supreme Court, and the California Supreme Court appointed special masters to draw up the district, and the special masters, when they did the district the assembly district was split in half in Torrance, along 190th Street. And what I saw in doing that was that, from the ethnic standpoint, you have a high concentration of Japanese Americans in north Torrance and they were being combined with the fifty-first assembly district, which would be Lawndale, which is immediately north of Torrance there, and they had very little in common and it was violating the community of interest as I saw it, which is part of their federal voting rights. And so, and I was already working with the Coalition of Asian Pacific Americans for Federal Reapportionment, which was part of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, and the reason why I was already working with them is because at that time, in 1991, Asians constituted ten percent of the state population and yet there was not a single Asian in state legislature. Because what would happen is that whenever some district is drawn up, not just one district, but if you had a concentrated area of Asians it would be divided up into, like, three different districts, so you minimize their viability instead of all that Asian population being in one district. And so that is what I saw.

SY: So what were you --

GN: It was a dilution, and so I talked to the attorneys from CAPAFRA and they agreed with me, and so they worked on the legal brief. And there was a person at UCLA that had the software for redistricting, so he was working with our group as well, and so precinct by precinct I worked with him as to which, what we should do. And that is first you combine Torrance, and then you need to know how much of the population that constituted and that would determine how much we have to give up to the fifty-first assembly district so that it would be even. And then at the same time you want to minimize any impact or change in the African American population as well as the Latino population. So the area that I picked was Westchester, and so we went precinct by precinct and put together a whole new district between the fifty-first and the fifty-third and then presented the legal brief that the attorneys put together. So that year you had, the governor had his proposal for change, you had the Democratic party, they had a proposal for how they would like the district being changed to -- this is after the special master had already done the redistricting -- the Republican party, same thing, NAACP had their proposal, CAPAFRA, which is the Asian group, also had their proposal for the statewide version, and MALDIF had their proposal. And then we had this one proposal for Torrance. Well, I so happened to be watching California channel and they were having the hearing before the California Supreme Court on all these different proposals, and the only one that the justices had any questions was the one regarding Torrance. All the other ones, they listened to their testimony but they had no questions, so I thought that was a good sign. Well, sure enough, that proposal was the only one they approved, so now Torrance was in one district, the assembly district.

SY: Wow. And that's, that's a big accomplishment for just one city council, the Torrance city council. You had that kind of impact, right, on the whole state.

GN: It was because I was involved with the Asian Pacific American Legal Center in their quest for reapportionment, especially where you have an Asian population that's always being divided up into several different districts.

SY: I see.

GN: And so I became very knowledgeable about the elements of the Federal Voting Rights Act, what needs to be adhered to.

SY: Wow. That's an amazing thing. And so consequently there's --

GN: Yeah, nobody else in the city proposed anything, nothing. They just complained about being split. And so I took it upon myself to do something about it.

SY: And that resulted, probably, in a lot of elections of, in subsequent years, of Asians. Would you say that that's...

GN: And at that time I had no idea that I would be running for that seat at one time.

SY: [Laughs] Well that's good. It wasn't self interest.

GN: Debra Bowen ran, Debra Bowen ran in '92, but historically -- and the district was, had three percent advantage in the Democratic registration over the Republican registration -- historically, if a Democrat wanted to win they had to have at least twelve percent registration advantage over the Republicans. And they only had three. But Debra, Debra ran and that was the year of the woman, I think, and so she won and Jane Harmon won her congressional seat that same year.

SY: And so when you decided to run for state assembly...

GN: That was in '98 after Debra Bowen termed out.

SY: Termed out, so that was the reason that you decided to run, Debra Bowen?

GN: No, because my city council seat, I was in my fourth term, but they had instituted a two term limit for city council members and so I got affected by that after I had already served two terms on the city council. So I was in my fourth term and I would not be able to run for city council again, so it was in the middle of my fourth term that Debra Bowen termed out of the state assembly, so I decided to run for the assembly in '98.

SY: I see.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 8>

SY: And then, but there was one other race in between where you ran for state senate.

GN: That was in '94.

SY: '94, and can you talk a little bit about that?

GN: Well, in '92 Katy Geissert, who was the mayor at that time, had asked me to run for mayor and I decided to run for mayor, and so we started making preparations for that a couple years in advance. But then I was approached by Asians about running for the state senate seat that was held by Ralph Dills. And what happened was his senate district, half of it was totally new because of reapportionment, and usually when an incumbent loses his seat it's because of reapportionment because fifty percent or higher the district is not the original district. It's a whole new district.

SY: And was this the reapportionment plan that you had put forward?

GN: No, because that's the senate district.

SY: Oh, I see. I'm sorry.

GN: I didn't deal with the senate.

SY: That's right. This was the assembly district.

GN: I only dealt with it from the aspect that two assembly districts made up the senate district, and so our assembly district was not combined with the... well, let me take it back. The district that we were, we dealt with was the fifty-first district in order to reunite Torrance, and that fifty-first assembly district was not part of the senate district. It was another assembly district that was a part of it.

SY: I see. So the state senate seat was, the incumbent was, you were running basically against an incumbent when you decided to run.

GN: Yes, yes.

SY: And what was the result of that? What happened as a result of that election? Or how can, how do you characterize that election?

GN: Well that, that election, of course he spent well over a million dollars, but being an incumbent you could raise that kind of money. I raised about, perhaps about two hundred and, two hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars at that time. And then one of the things that we did notice that happened is that all of our campaign materials was going out of the Long Beach post office, and normally those campaign materials will be in a bag with a red tag that says political and so they have a priority, and we weren't getting, the mails weren't coming out. So we had our staff go check at the post office and they found that the, all the tags had been taken off, and so to this day we think it was an inside job and so our mail didn't start coming out until about three weeks before the election. A lot of it was just two weeks before. Whereas his mail had been already coming out in abundance from about five weeks, six weeks before.

SY: So just to back up a tiny bit, so Venice, I mean the Torrance city council, you were, then you went back to serving? You were still within your term, term limit?

GN: Yes, I was still in the middle of my term when I ran in '94, yes.

SY: Ran for state senate. And just to talk a little bit more in general about the city of Torrance, does, was it, did you find that it was, because it was predominately Caucasian, was there a tone in the city council that was kind of not as conducive to minorities being there in the city? Or did you feel that it was...

GN: Well, city council as a whole, I didn't get that impression. But there was one councilwoman, when, well, when Katy Geissert was the mayor she had asked me to see, we were in the process of building the Torrance Cultural Arts Center and we had funding for all the buildings. We got donations, for example, for the community hall from Toyota, we got funding for the plaza, and the only thing that was not funded was the Japanese garden. So the mayor at that time had asked me if I would be willing to reach out to some business to see if they would be willing to donate toward the Japanese garden, and I already had a relationship with the, Mr. Kawai, who's the executive VP of Epson computer 'cause I had invited him to, like the kendo tournament, and he donated computer to the kendo federation. He also, Epson also donated a computer to the Gardena Valley JACL. So I took him out to lunch and had a rendering of the cultural arts center and a little blank spot where the Japanese garden is supposed to be, and I asked him if Epson might be interested in undertaking the cost of the Japanese garden. And he said, well, he'll be going to Japan in a couple of weeks and he'll be seeing the president of Seiko watch company, and he said the Seiko watch is the parent company of Epson computer, and so he'll be talking to the president then and he'll, he said he'll propose that to him. And it was about, probably about two months later, we got a letter from Epson computer saying that they will undertake the cost of developing the Japanese garden but they would like to pick the landscape architect, but they will make sure that the landscape architect works closely with the main architect so everything would blend in. And it was Takeo Uesugi they picked.

SY: That's a very well-known architect.

GN: And so that's how it happened. And so when we got that letter the mayor asked me to make an announcement at the city council meeting, so I started to make the announcement and this councilwoman interrupts my speech and says, "I don't have anything like that to announce." And I paused momentarily, ignored her, and went on to make my speech. And it was at a budget workshop, I was approached by one of the staff persons from the city manager's office, telling me that the tape did not come out where I made my announcement. And I knew that was a flat out lie, but the thought occurred to me, should I make a big issue out of this or just ignore the whole thing? I decided, hey, I'm the first minority to get elected to the city council, kind of did it on my own. I wasn't part of any coalition. And so maybe it's best to just not make a big issue, so I didn't. And she had asked me, the person from the city manager's office, if I would repeat my announcement at a subsequent council meeting, which I did.

SY: That's nice.

GN: But I should have also realized at that time that this was a result of jealousy, and jealousy has a tendency to manifest into hatred. And so when this woman became mayor she also saw, showed another side of her. When she would describe Asians she would slant her eyes physically, and she's done that on two different occasions. And then in the closed session, in a fit of anger, she makes an anti-Semitic statement. So answering your question, that's the only incident -- and now what has happened is that the city manager who is still there is still trying to cover this up.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<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.

<Begin Segment 10>

SY: So how would you, though, describe the, kind of the political climate when you were running for state assembly at the time? Did you feel that there was, was it very pro-Democratic, was it...

GN: Well, because Debra had served six years in that seat Democrats at least felt like it's a Democratic seat, even though only had a three percent advantage in the registration. And so Republicans felt that it was their seat to be taken, or to take. And so Bill Eggers, who was from a think tank, the Heritage Foundation, had a lot of ideas about how things should be. He ran. And one of the things that -- well, this is the other things I had done in Torrance I forgot to mention to you, and that is, and it was a result of my being involved with Southern California Association of Government, and you have to seek that position because certain, you'll be representing a certain number of cities. And anyway, I was able to get that position and at that, one of the meetings, Governor Rosen had created -- we had a recession going on -- created this California competitiveness, and it was made up of labor, businesspeople, and academicians and they came up with a recommendation how to make California more competitive. And in there they talked about the high tech and light manufacturing industry should be focused on, because they employ the higher paid workers, more skilled workers, and they're the one who have the disposable income. And they, in turn, will be spending the money and help the economy move. So I brought that idea at the city council level, and one of the things that I recommended was to create the Office of Economic Development. And so the charge for the Office of Economic Development is have a place where businesses come to, and what this office did was they had about five different ways of providing financial assistance for businesses that want to locate in Torrance that's high tech or light manufacturing, or even existing businesses in Torrance that want to expand or relocate. There'll be this additional funding resource that will be available. And here's a, and anyway, as a result of this -- this happened in 1992, we're now into 1998 -- there were several companies that had relocated, left L.A. city to come to Torrance for that reason. And then Torrance at that time was the fourth largest city in L.A. County, but it had the second highest sales tax revenue in L.A. County, after the city of L.A.

SY: That's really --

GN: And so here's a real live thing that I initiated, and it's pro-business. So for Bill Eggers, who's at the think tank talkin' about what we should be doing, well, here's a living example of something that's already been done, that a Democrat had done, and so in my election against him I got sixty percent of the votes.

SY: I see. And was the, the governor at the time was no longer Pete Wilson. It was, was Ian Vergosa the governor at that time?

GN: No. Governor Davis won the governorship in 1998, same time I was running for state assembly.

SY: So Davis was the governor, so it was a Democratic governor and so you had the advantage of attracting --

GN: But the incumbent was Rosen at that time, 'cause it wasn't until November election that Davis took this, well, I actually, it wasn't until January that he was able to take the seat, I think, 'cause that's when the swearing in ceremony took place for the governor.

SY: So in this open primary election, did you, what percentage of the Republican versus Democratic vote did you get?

GN: Well, the way you would kind of look at it is... and there were like, at that time, seventeen percent decline to state, so I probably got a lot of the decline to state to support me as well that made up the difference. I think if you, if, I don't remember the exact percentage, but when you say that there were, the Democrat has a three percent advantage in the registration and then when I get sixty percent of the votes, then there has to be a mixture of both Republicans and the independents that supported me. Now, this is not a scientific sample, but I know this one doctor that was involved with the L.A. County Medical Association that was involved with the endorsement, and he's someone that I had talked to subsequent to the election and he turns out to be, not a Republican, but a decline to state. And if he's a sample of what a lot of the decline to state are, people are in the coastal area, tends to be pro-environmental, tends to be pro-choice, but they are fiscally conservative and they can't, and because the Republican party has shifted so far to the right that they didn't feel like they fit in with the Republican party, but nor did they feel like they fit in with the Democrats because their concept of the Democrats is tax and spend, and they're fiscally conservative. But I think philosophically they felt comfortable with me and so I got their support.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 11>

SY: So how were you able to work in the social issues that you were -- or maybe we should back up and say, what were some of the things that you consider to be major accomplishments in the state assembly? What were some of the things that you would, you would look back and say you were able to do as a state assemblyman?

GN: I think on a, well, for one thing, I supported, you said social issue, the first one that I had to deal with, of course, was the AB 222, which had to do with prohibiting discriminating against gay and lesbian students in public school. And I remember distinctly, here's an issue that I haven't even dealt with before so you really don't know politically how it would affect you depending on which way you voted on it, and so my first thought was that it would be negative for me given the spread that they had on the local newspaper. They did it twice, just demonizing me, and then demonstrating in front of my district office with these mothers with their babies in the stroller. And it turns out that I wasn't the only one that was subjected to this. There were nine other Democrats that were subjected to this, mostly the minority Democrats. But many of them were in the safe seats. Here I'm representing the seat that has only a three percent advantage and, but I also felt strongly that I had to take a position in support of the bill. When I came out of camp I had to deal with kids that would use racial slurs at me and I would get into fights. I was not one that would back down. And so I felt very strong about supporting it. I didn't think any gay or lesbian students, or even someone that appears like one, should be subjected to harassment or beatings. And so the day of the bill going before the -- well, by the way, I voted in the, voted for the education committee, and the degree of the harassment that took place by the far right on this was just horrendous. I got, I would say, a total of nine thousand phone calls combined, both at the district office and the Sacramento office, against this bill, but I would say probably ninety-five percent of the calls came out of out of the district, and they probably called the eight other Democrats as well. It was at a very organized event, so when the bill got to the assembly it was two-thirty in the morning still going on with the debate. I spoke up and I made a very strong speech in support of it, and I condemned the people who were against it as being a bunch of cowards, that they had not even had the courtesy to call me and sit down and talk to me, that they had already projected me as evil by putting my photograph in the newspaper demonizing me. And I told 'em I was gonna do the right thing. And so finally that bill came to a vote, four o'clock in the morning, and it didn't pass. It was short one vote. But then another bill came from the senate, I think a few days later, and it had enough votes to pass. So that was a major social issue that I had to deal with.

But there were three other things that I can think of, the social aspect. One is the creation of the Asian Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus, after we had three Asians in the state legislature. I mean, there's a lot more now, but that caucus has a force that people will reckon with, and we're talking about whether it's the media, broadcasting station, people who engage in racial slurs against the Asians. They'll hear from this legislative caucus, and not only that, but the caucus will also contact the lobbyists who represent these businesses and they could be hurt politically. If there's an issue that has to do with, budgetary issue or financial issue that will have an impact on those businesses, you have a caucus that could vote as a block and also have influence in other, black caucuses as well as the Latino caucus. It's gonna have an impact on them.

SY: How did that actually come about, that API legislative caucus? Were there, there were other groups that had their own...

GN: Well. Latino and African, the black caucus already existed.

SY: And so it was sort of your independent that you came up with the idea?

GN: I was just waiting to have enough Asians in the legislature before I could do this. And so what happened was in the year 2000, November election, here I am, the only one from the previous...

SY: Term?

GN: Term. And what happened was Wilma Chan and Carol Lu got elected. So the first thing I did -- and this was in, this was in December -- what they do is they have a big dinner the night before the swearing in ceremony in December. It's always the first Monday in December they have the swearing in ceremony. The funny part is that first Monday in December was December 7th, but we had this dinner on the sixth, okay, and Herzberg was the speaker, so I approached Bob Herzberg, I said, "Bob, we have three Asians now. I would like to create the API legislative caucus." He says sure, and he said, oh, gave me a hundred thousand dollar budget for it. So that's how that happened.

SY: Wow. So it was the, it... and what was your relationship with Herzberg at the time? Were you close?

GN: Oh yeah, very, very close. In fact, what usually happens is that when the person is representing a very marginal seat they will assign somebody, if they could, from the leadership position to be your mentor, and so he chose himself to be my mentor when I was running. So as my mentor he's gonna help me in terms of advising me on politics as well as helping me raise money.

SY: Wow. That was very fortunate.

GN: Oh yeah.

SY: Yeah. So he obviously took a liking to you.

GN: But he wasn't the speaker at that time. It was, Antonio Vergosa was the speaker. He became my mentor when I first ran.

SY: I see.

GN: But then, so I served that one term, and year 2000 now, he became the speaker and so I approached him about the API legislative caucus. And then the other two things that, subsequent to that, is the commission that we created for the API, and the important part of that commission is that they will go to the different API communities in California and hold hearings to find out what are some of the issues, what are some of the problems that the legislature needs to deal with, and so it provides a forum for people to participate, whether it's the Hmongs or the Vietnamese, all the API groups.

SY: And there were similar commissions in other ethnic groups as well on that --

GN: No.

SY: Yours was the first.

GN: The first.

SY: And how did that come about? Why did you decide to take that on?

GN: Well, and this commission was actually suggested by Diane Yuiji -- She was working with APACON -- and also Warren Furutani was also involved in this. And Warren, I think, at that time was working for the speaker, I think as a staff person.

SY: So they approached you?

GN: Yeah, they approached our office about doing this, and so I had this bill and I had funding in it, and it was right around the time when the state started to have some budget problems, right in the beginning. And so I had the Democratic support, but I didn't have the Republican support yet, so I started polling them and they said that they're concerned with it because the money involved, and so I decided on my own I'm gonna strip all the money out of it and just have the bill as a commission. And so what the commission would have to do is raise their own money, and because I didn't want this bill to go to Governor Davis with just a Democratic support 'cause you don't know for sure what he'll do with it. If he vetoes it, then you miss that opportunity. And then also the thought that, okay, we're beginning to have this budget problem. That may last a long time. So I stripped it all out, told my staff I'm gonna strip it out and I want to take this on the floor without the money, so then I approached those Republicans again. I said, "There's no money attached to it at all," so they all supported it. So that's how I got it through.

SY: Very clever. That's great. So then, as a result of that then the other ethnic groups, did they --

GN: Well, once they saw that API commission was in operation then the other groups wanted to have their commission too. But now, when they created the bill, the Republicans says that you have to have language in there that this is going to be a bipartisan commission. Well, for the African Americans, or the black caucus, they don't have a single black Republican, and the Latinos, it was such a handful of maybe one or two Latino Republicans, so they don't want that kind of language in there so they didn't pursue it.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 12>

SY: So to, it's very creative, the kinds of things that you did as a politician. I mean, a lot of it is just thinking these things through.

GN: And then the other one was the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program. I had a bill to extend it for another -- and my original bill had five years extension on it, and the chair of the education committee, well, one of the staff members, approached me and told me that if you make it two years that they will put it on consent, which means that there won't be any discussion. The only way they could have it on discussion is somebody has to proactively say, "I want this to be discussed, pull from the consent." So I had that choice, you want it as a discussion for five years or have it on consent for two years? So I made the decision to have it on the consent for two years.

SY: And since then, well, and so you were able to fund it for two years.

GN: Yeah. And then in the meantime, I think Wilma Chan worked on it so it would be a line item for the governor and so you don't have to deal with this legislatively anymore.

SY: I see, I see. So it was in place, the legislation was in place when you decided that you were gonna support it for this two year, two year term.

GN: Yeah, because it terminated, it was gonna terminate.

SY: I see, it was gonna terminate.

GN: Yeah, year, was it, year 2000, I think, it was gonna terminate.

SY: I see. So these kinds of, and specifically Asian, they're Asian-specific things that you dealt with as a state assemblyperson, were those the thing that you fought hardest for, or did you feel that you were not just representing Asians? What percentage of your efforts went, would you say, toward doing Asian-specific...

GN: I thought those things were far easier than the much broader issue that you had to deal with. Some of the broader ones -- and I'm disappointed in L.A. City Schools, in particular UTLA. I had three education bills and none of them went through, has no negative impact on L.A. City Schools, it has positive impact for everybody. One of 'em had to do with equalization. The formula that's used how each school district is funded is based on an earlier formula that were, it was a disadvantage to Torrance, so Torrance would get less amount per, eighty-eight compared to, like Redondo Beach, and Redondo Beach's money was over a thousand dollar per student more. It was higher such that --

SY: How was that worked out?

GN: Well, so I had a bill to up the Torrance School District and have no negative impact on other school districts, they remain where they are, and UTLA opposed it. And one of the problems that Torrance was having was that, because you have less money coming in you pay teachers less compared to another school district, and so a lot of teachers would leave Torrance and go to Redondo Beach to teach. And so that got shot down. I had another bill to increase the grade level of twenty-eight per classroom from K through 3 to K to 5, for the entire state, and UTLA opposed that.

SY: Increase money.

GN: Yeah, you'll need more money because you're gonna have smaller class size at the fourth and fifth grade.

SY: I see.

GN: But it demonstrated, I thought, that it had a positive impact in student achievement.

SY: So you were at odds with UTLA and they didn't --

GN: Well, there was one person that represented the L.A. City -- I won't name that person, but she wanted something that benefits UTLA. They didn't care about, I mean, L.A. City Schools, they didn't care about the rest of the school district.

SY: Right.

GN: So that was killed. Now, since that didn't work, and in the meantime the person that's lobbying for these things was, Arnold Plack was the superintendent of Torrance School District, and I have to say that I spent more time with him than any other lobbyist in the state of California. And so the other idea was -- and he did a calculation -- how about allowing the K through 3 where you have twenty per classroom, but going to the fifth grade at twenty-three as an option, providing that you don't have to lay off any teachers? And he worked out within his own district that he will not need additional classrooms, there's sufficient classrooms around, and will not have to eliminate any teaching positions by going from K through fifth at twenty-three per class. But the bill will be an option, not a requirement, providing that they could do this within those constraints, parameters. And they opposed that too. So those were the much more difficult ones for me.

SY: The education ones.

GN: And I have to say, L.A. City Schools also don't have evaluation for teachers. When I left Inglewood we had evaluation for teachers, and when we, you had a choice of using, what learning theory you want to use to evaluate teachers and their teaching method. Of course, both the teacher and the administrator need to be trained and understand that learning theory that you're gonna utilize. And the one that I used was Madeline Hunter's, what is it, clinical supervision, and there're certain elements to teaching. And I don't even deal with the test scores, just with the teaching method and whether they're utilizing those, each step as they teach a particular subject in the classroom.

SY: I see.

GN: And I did well in evaluating teachers. In fact --

SY: Using that model.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 13>

SY: So you mentioned lobbying and I'm curious because you had, you took some strong positions on certain issues. Now did you, how effective did you think these lobbyists were? Were you swayed by them? Did you always come forward with a, with your mind set on a certain way of dealing with things? And did you, did you consider, how much did you consider what your electability would be when you dealt with certain, some of these issues?

GN: Well, there are, there are issues that are local to your district, like in our case we're, we have the coastline, so there are environmental issues that has to deal with the quality of the ocean water as well as the beach. You need to have bills that maintain the quality for those areas, and so one of the issues that we had to deal with was storm water runoff.

SY: That's water that runs, what is...

GN: When it rains and it ends up in the gutter and then it drains off --

SY: Into the ocean.

GN: -- to the beach area. And so I was able to get funding for all the cities along the coastline to have a storm water filter, so those, that was important. That one we did on our own. One that came from an organization -- I think it's, can't remember the name of the organization. It has to do with the ocean, but it had to do with gray water being discharged from cruise ships. And gray waters are like dish wash water that's used for dishwashing, shower, and aside from that you could also include sewage water if they are discharging that instead of having some kind of septic tank on the ship, but mainly the gray water, I think that's the one that's being discharged. And so I carried a bill on that.

SY: But at the same time you obviously had an opposition, major opposition on a lot of these issues.

GN: Oh yeah, the cruise line industry, they didn't want to do any of those things.

SY: Right. So how did you balance, what was your approach in terms of dealing with opposition? Or did you just take a firm stand and try to stay very firm on...

GN: Well, you want to, at least you want to listen and find out why they're opposed to it, and a lot of time they would say it's not necessary.

SY: I see, I see.

GN: Because they really don't have a good argument in opposition to it. And so even with that cruise line issue, the discharge of those kind of waters, and of course the photographic liquid that's getting discharged in the ocean as well, but I dealt with the gray water part of it and what ended up initially was that we had to take data down as to how much is being discharged. Just like with the cell phone issue, that's what I had to do initially.

SY: Yeah, talk a little bit about that cell phone issue. That, what exactly was that about in that particular...

GN: Well, I was rear-ended by someone that was on a cell phone, but it just happened to be in a residential street that's very slow in traffic in Torrance and so there was no damage to my car nor injury to anyone, no damage to the other car as well. And I felt that there needs to be some kind of restriction on the use of cell phones while driving, and so I initiated a bill, and I thought one of the ways that -- well, so I had that and wanted some kind of fine associated with it. And then you ought to see the, all these lobbyists that represent the phone companies just converged into my office and opposed to it, and of course, they said you don't really need it. Why do you have to have restrictions? And because in my case there was an accident, but I also noticed that when I'm driving, if this car is not, appears like it's not paying attention to the road, sure enough, if you go around the car someone is on a cell phone. And so anyway, what ended up was taking data down as to what causes accidents. Well, so what we did is I had a bill, and I think it was AB 660, year 2001, the CHP will collect the data from all the different police departments in California that gives a list of the accidents and what caused the accident, and so they did it for six months. And sure enough, the number one was using a cell phone. Okay, so now you got the industry convinced of this, but the next thing is the fine and how much, and so one of the ideas that I had initially was you make the fine, have it only in the areas where you have construction going on. And even that I couldn't get it through. They had lobbied other assembly members in opposition to it.

SY: I see. So the bill never made it through.

GN: Yeah. So at least by year 2004 there had been, I think, two accidents by a bus that had people in it because the driver was on a cell phone, so I was finally able to get a bill passed prohibiting the use of cell phones for bus drivers before I termed out of office. Now, subsequent to that they were able to have a fine for people who were driving cars, but I think the latest bill now they have is to make the fine greater. But that's how long it has taken.

SY: Amazing.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 14>

SY: And it's interesting that they, it all, the work that you did comes, came from your own personal experience too, so that, so as a person who came out of the concentration camps you used that as a motivating factor for a lot of the work that you did in the, in the legislature. You were successful in getting funding for some major groups. Can you talk a little bit about what that procedure is like, what prompted that, how you were able to get it?

GN: Let's see, my first year, 1999, I was able to get a million dollars for the Japanese American National Museum. It's too bad that they don't remember that. [Laughs] Not only that, but George Takei publically said that I was not responsible for that, getting that money, that it was Mike Honda. And he never apologized for that.

SY: So what, describe how it happened, how it came to be.

GN: I have no idea what brought that to mind.

SY: Comment on...

GN: Yeah.

SY: But the, the case for the money --

GN: But that money came from the committee, budget subcommittee that I chaired.

SY: I see.

GN: And it was, I think, under the California Arts Council category that, the million dollars that I was able to get for the Japanese American National Museum. And then, you know, I had to explain to George Takei that, look, part of the reason why I'm able to do it, number one, came out of my committee, number two, I represent a very marginal district and it's in the speaker's interest to help those people who are in the marginal district. If you're in a safe seat they don't really have to worry about you because you're going to get reelected anyway, but in the marginal seat they have to watch out for you.

SY: And this, and the speaker at the time was...

GN: Was Antonio.

SY: I see, so he really sort of watched out for you.

GN: Oh yeah.

SY: And the, you were also, talk about some of these positions you served in congress, 'cause, head of the budget committee, you were also, what other positions did you hold?

GN: Well, my last three years I was the chair of the Democratic caucus, which is one of the leadership positions. And so I got that position when Herb Wesson became the speaker, and so I'm the first Asian to ever hold that position.

SY: And what did that give you? What kind of additional power did that give you?

GN: Well, you're part of the, now you're part of the leadership team. You're engaged in discussion at the leadership level. You also work out certain strategy. Being the caucus chair you have a caucus meeting once a week and so you chair that meeting. In our case we had, what, forty-eight assembly, Democratic assembly members, so there's forty-seven people that you're dealing with.

SY: Did they bring issues, did you all bring issues before the caucus and then you decided sort of uniformly what you were going to pursue?

GN: Yeah, and a lot of time what, a lot of times what happened is that the people who do bring issues, they'll talk to the speaker first on a personal level to at least get support for it, if they need some support. And then, and then that will subsequently be discussed among the leadership team, how people feel about it.

SY: I see, so very influential position it was.

GN: Yes.

SY: And so during that period you were able to do more?

GN: More relative to what happens in the caucus.

SY: I see, I see. So other things that you are proud of in terms of what was done for the Asian community during your tenure?

GN: Yes.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 15>

SY: Can you talk a little bit about what some other things that you...

GN: Well, one of the things was the 100th Battalion, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, and the MIS were never thanked or recognized by the state legislature, California legislature, and so in 2002 we organized an event for them to come to the state capitol and to be recognized. And so we had this elaborate program that took place in June of 2002 to do just that. And I was very proud that we were able to do that, and the ceremony was very touching in that many of the people who were in the audience, in the gallery, were in tears as the program proceeded.

SY: And you had a family member in the, in the 100th or 442nd?

GN: I have an uncle in Hawaii that was in the 442nd in the E Company. Actually, he served with Bob Ichikawa that recently passed away. Senator Inouye was in the E Company as well.

SY: And did you have a relationship with this uncle? Do you, have you met him since he, he lived in Hawaii? He's no longer living, I assume?

GN: No, he's still living.

SY: Oh, he's still living. So when you...

GN: Yeah, so when we have our reunion or when we go to Hawaii for a visit we get to see him.

SY: Talk about it, how nice. And you were able to get funding for the 100th also? Was that another...

GN: In 2000, yeah, it was in year 2000, I was able to get five hundred thousand dollars for the 100th, 442, MIS Memorial Foundation. That was the name of the organization, the foundation at that time.

SY: And that was responsible for building the memorial in Little Tokyo?

GN: No, no. It had to do with the education program. The memorial was already built.

SY: I see.

GN: And then they changed their name to Go For Broke Education Foundation, and this time I was able to get a million dollars for them. Now, had they kept the same name I don't think they would've gotten the million, but they changed the name and so...

SY: [Laughs] I see. And some other things that had to do with names, talk a little bit about the changing of the highway sign in, from the, well, it's the...

GN: Sadao Munemori sign?

SY: Yes.

GN: Yeah, well, there's four signs at the 105-405 interchange, altogether there's four signs. And it says Sadao Munemori Memorial Interchange, I believe is the name, but nobody knows who he is except for a few of us who have some history background about the 100/442. And so here, one day we're, my wife and I went on vacation to Hawaii, we called a cab to go to LAX, and the cab driver sees that sign and says, "Oh, another politician," so I had to explain to him that's not a politician. So in the meantime I got a, we got a call from Carl, who was part of the Sadao Munemori chapter of the veterans' organization about putting a sign underneath, and I had the same idea about putting the sign underneath that says, Medal of Honor, World War II. So I had organization support and we put in a written request to have that sign put in, and you probably saw the letter in that album. I thought I'd keep that. And we got a letter from Cal Tran indicating that they're gonna put that sign up, so they did.

SY: That's great. And so really at no -- it was, it was an expense to Cal Trans that they put in that sign.

GN: It is, yeah. I did other things that was no longer, well, the other thing was making the State Highway 1 within the L.A. County Vietnam Veterans Memorial Highway, and so those signs are privately funded, so Cal Trans said okay 'cause they were having budget problems too. And so that one we working with Jerry Yamamoto, who's the president of the Vietnam Veterans, Vietnam Veterans Association for the South Bay area, and so they were able to raise money for the signs. So the first one that went up was the one -- and what happens there is that it's a state highway but you want to put the sign at a public property, 'cause you can't put those signs on a private property. Well, it turns out that where Best Buy is located right now, the land actually belongs to the city of Torrance but the building is privately owned, and so we were able to put that sign right off of the PCH in Hawthorne. You'll see that sign. That was the first one that went up, and subsequent to that we put one in Hermosa Beach, there's one in the Marina Del Rey area, there's another one in Wilmington, there's another one in Hermosa Beach. I don't know how many we have now, but it's all off of Highway 1, Pacific Coast Highway.

SY: That's great. And this, and Ted Tanouye, that whole process, what was that about, getting the...

GN: Well, there's a National Guard army armory in Torrance, and Ted Tanouye was a Torrance resident. He graduated from Torrance High School, he was a star athlete there, he was also a scholar. And he volunteered to join the army from Jerome camp, and so we felt that he should be recognized and so we thought that the National Guard armory would be an appropriate place for that. And given that I was the chair of the budget subcommittee on state administration, which is the largest of the five subcommittees, I had the military department under my purview, which is the National Guard. So the adjutant general of the National Guard would come and see me at budget time, and so I asked General Monroe, "What are the chances of renaming the National Guard armory after Ted Tanouye?" And I explained to him about Ted Tanouye. He's the only Torrance resident to ever receive the Congressional Medal of Honor, and we thought that it'd be an appropriate place to rename that armory. And so his response to me was, "It's done."

SY: Gosh. That's, how does that make you feel, though?

GN: It felt great, I mean, to get that kind of response.

SY: But also --

GN: There's no question asked after I provided all the information, the reason why.

SY: But in terms of your kind of a legacy, really, that you've, had you not been in office when you were there probably would not be these permanent markers.

GN: And I tell people that, "If you're not at the table you're not gonna be heard." I mean, that's kind of a generalized statement. You could get certain things done, but it makes it more difficult and sometimes you can't get it done if you're not at the table. But the first time was, relative to something like that was, and I had to run for it, and that is to become the representative of several cities -- actually, there were twenty-two cities -- to be the alternate on the MTA board. And when I became the alternate of the MTA board -- and we had yet to run for that position like you're running for city council, and I came in first, but you have to have more than fifty percent of the votes in order, and so what happens is that you got to confer with people who come in second, third or fourth and gain their support. So the person who came in third I had already talked to ahead of time, and she told me that if she comes in third and I'm first that she'll throw her votes behind me, so that's what happened. I became, had enough votes to be the representative for these twenty-two cities that we're supposed to represent.

SY: And when was that? That was...

GN: 1997.

SY: Okay, so before your first --

GN: And so when I became the alternate board member, before I was sworn in, Yvonne Brathwaite Burke invited me to a committee meeting that she hosted, and that committee meeting -- and I told her I'm not sworn in yet, but she said that doesn't matter, "I want you to attend this meeting because you're gonna have to know some things that go on at the committee level before you're sworn in, anyway" -- so the CEO of the MTA just in passing mentioned that they're gonna eliminate the station, at that time they were gonna put up the red line above the rail, the light rail, that will go to East L.A. The plan has changed a lot now, but at that time it was the rail line, light rail that would be running from East L.A. to downtown L.A., but they said that they're gonna eliminate the station at Little Tokyo, and she just said that in passing. And so what happened was we got this booklet that has all the home phone numbers of the MTA board members as well as the senior staff members, so I called her that night and said, "Is it true that they're gonna eliminate that?" And she says yes, and I say, "I have a problem with that. A station such as that means so much economically for Little Tokyo." And so she said that, well, it can be brought up at a subsequent meeting, which I think might've been the board meeting, but I don't remember exactly. Might be another committee but a bigger committee. But in the meantime I contacted senior staff members that, "You people that have not even presented this issue before the Little Tokyo people and you're making this unilateral decision," I said, "that's all wrong." And so we organized people in Little Tokyo to send letters to all the board members on the MTA board and set up a meeting in Little Tokyo, so the JACCC, we held a meeting there and then invited the two senior people from the MTA to testify. And anyway, one of the guys that was testifying was kind of dancing around, wouldn't respond to questions, and so I piped in. I said, "That's exactly what's wrong with MTA is that you don't give a straight answer to a question. You're just dancin' around it, and that's why MTA has such a bad name." And so anyway, what happened was, as a result of that meeting and all the letters that went out, MTA took a position to have the Little Tokyo station.

SY: That's great.

GN: And that was in 1997.

SY: Yeah, that's really great.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 16>

SY: So, this, I get back to how rewarding it must have been to be a member of the state assembly at the time that you were.

GN: And I happened to be there, it's like the planets lining up the right way in that state had money at that time, I happened to represent a marginal district, and it was a time where Asians started to get elected to the state legislature, so there were a lot of things that could be done right at the beginning. So it was exciting.

SY: Really amazing. And then after your, were you terming out of the state assembly, is that...

GN: 2004, yeah, my last day was November 30, 2004.

SY: And the decision to run for state senate was made when? What did you --

GN: I already knew that that seat was gonna open up in 2006, so...

SY: I see, so you just, you spent the following years thinking about your next political campaign.

GN: Yes.

SY: So, and can you talk a little bit about that race? 'Cause it was kind of, it must have been challenging for you.

GN: It was.

SY: After serving. And then can you talk a little bit about that particular race?

GN: Well, the political consultant that I had is one that works for California Teachers Association. She does a lot in terms of proposition for or against education, and so that's their bread and butter. And there were three people who had told me not to have her as my consultant and I should have listened, three prominent people. But I did. I kept her. I felt like there's a certain thing about loyalty that, so you want to stay with that person. And when she had a poll done I was twenty points ahead of my opponent, and when I went through the endorsement process with CTA, and UTLA controlled it because they had a greater portion of the senate district, San Pedro, Venice, West L.A.. You also have Carson. That's part of, that's part of L.A. City Schools. Alameda. And so when they set up the -- and I had the endorsement of all the smaller local teachers' unions, Torrance, Redondo Beach, Manhattan Beach, El Segundo, Centinela Valley Teachers Association; they all endorsed me. And I'm a former L.A. City Schools teacher. My opponent isn't, not even a teacher. What happened for the endorsement interview is that UTLA set it up two hours before the interview's to take place and called these other school district unions when the meeting's gonna be. Well, none of them could make it within two hour notice, and that was by design. So I went to the interview and the only teachers that were there were from L.A. City Schools and Long Beach, and I have no problem with the outcome, but don't corrupt the process. And that's what, exactly what they did, is they corrupted it so that the outcome would be guaranteed for them that my opponent would get the endorsement.

SY: And that's a really significant endorsement.

GN: It is.

SY: And so it --

GN: In fact, CTA is the biggest lobbyist in Sacramento. They have the most money and so a consultant that's making their living off of them, of course, is going to change their position. And turns out that my opponent never got a degree from college, and that's a killer in an election. If you lie about your education, she would've, she would've lost the seat, but my consultant refused to use that issue at all. And the three major mail pieces that were sent out had not given her their approval, and they were beautifully done, but number one was a walking piece. Instead of Jane Harmon in there, should've had Barbara Boxer in there because Jane Harmon was having trouble in the West L.A. area. When I went precinct walking there I saw all these Mark C. Winters signs on the lawns, and you're not gonna walk there with a sign that has a photograph of an endorsement of Jane Harmon. Barbara Boxer would have been the more appropriate one. It was already done. It was a done deal. She also sent the mail piece, a women's piece, without a single African American, and it had Jan Perry's endorsement. See, these things came out after the --

SY: Election.

GN: I didn't get the, no, after I didn't get the endorsement.

SY: I see.

GN: So I'm paying her to do something to defeat me.

SY: That's... yeah.

GN: And then another piece was accusing my opponent of not having any kids in public schools. Well, she never had any kids to begin with. You don't send out a mail piece like that.

SY: So was this, it wasn't deliberate. It was just her ignorance?

GN: No, no.

SY: It was just --

GN: She's not that stupid. She knew what she was doing.

SY: Wow. What a shame.

GN: You don't compare apples and oranges. That's what you're doing here.

SY: I see.

GN: Every newspaper criticized that mail piece. She's an experienced person, been around a long time.

SY: Wow.

GN: And so the three people who told me not to have her as my consultant were right. She, in fact, two people that I know that were -- well, one of 'em is still the speaker pro tem of the senate -- because they didn't take a position in support of what CTA was advocating, she puts out anti, one was Don Perata, the other one was, is Steinberg. Put an anti Steinberg sign in the city, and so Steinberg dropped her as a consultant for the Democratic caucus. So if she'll do that, you think she's going to get me elected?

SY: These kinds of things that go on --

GN: But, but those are the kind of things that go on.

SY: Yeah, but these kinds of things that go on, is that, so was that, did that have any bearing on your, in discouraging you from continuing in politics? Or was that just, did that give you more...

GN: Well, I'm a fighter, so I'm not gonna quit and go away.

SY: Right.

GN: I'm gonna raise these issues publically. Well, for one thing is, what I see is that a union like UTLA is destroying public education, and it's not the only one. That's why mayors throughout the nation, when they deal with these large school districts you'll find that they want to take over the school district because of the strength of the union. And I support unions, but I think it's too strong to the extent that they could select who the board of trustees are going to be and they don't reform the education system. Such, with the L.A. City they don't have evaluation process for teachers.

SY: Right, right. And that's not something that's --

GN: They are, it's a profession. It's not a blue collar job.

SY: Yeah.

GN: And let me say one other thing. And I won't say what year it was, when we had a caucus meeting it had to do with L.A. City Schools, and not one assembly Democrat wanted to send their kids to L.A. City Schools. Not one. If they wanted to their spouse didn't them to. Their spouses won't let 'em.

SY: Right. And yet there's nothing that they can, that you're capable of doing at that level to help change the district. Yeah, it's sad. It's very sad. So, so those --

GN: See, like at Chicago, Mayor Daly is a Democrat. He took over the school district. New York, same thing. Washington, D.C., same thing.

SY: Yeah, and most of the kids go to private school.

GN: No congressperson sends their kids to Washington, D.C. schools. They all go to private school.

SY: Right.

GN: And it's a sad note how, where public education is in the bigger cities. Now in the suburban area, in the rural area it's different. You have more quality teachers, more quality education taking place.

SY: Yeah.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 17>

SY: So you really, though, given all of this, the self interest in politics and the kinds of things that go on, you still would advocate people getting... I mean, what kind advice would give to people who are wanting to go into that, into that field? What would you, what would you say to them to encourage them to continue in this?

GN: Well, it's important that you do the right thing.

SY: Being what you believe in.

GN: Yeah.

SY: And not be swayed by what everybody else is...

GN: Well, unfortunately many, many people are swayed by what personally benefits them.

SY: And you try very hard not to be.

GN: There's self-serving opportunists. There are a lot of them.

SY: And that's, that's something you've consciously tried not to do.

GN: Yeah, absolutely.

SY: And you also, though, are involved in helping people run for office, right?

GN: Yes. And you can't always determine whether that person has those values or not, and many times it isn't until after they are in a position of power that you find out about their values or lack of values.

SY: So, but if, let's take Asian American potential candidates, do you, is there anything specific to them that you would advise to try to get them to, or to give them some direction in running? Or do you just, you base it all on your own experience?

GN: I have to base it on, most of those on my own experience.

SY: And you continue to do that with people who are running for office. That's great. So after the state senate and the loss, then did you make a conscious decision, "That's it for me, I'm not doing politics anymore"? Or what, what was your reaction to that?

GN: Well, part of it had to do with my discussion with Helen, because she, we also spent a lot of personal money in this last race, and as you get older you can't be taking those kind of chances. And so...

SY: Yeah.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 18>

SY: And so what, so what is your focus now in your life?

GN: Right now I am involved with, actively involved with six different nonprofit organizations and trying to help raise money for them, most of them. I may have taken on a little bit too many, especially after I became chair of the Go For Broke. There's a lot of work to do there.

SY: And what is your hope for Go For Broke? What do you, what would you like it to be? What would you, what does the work entail?

GN: Well, there's a lot of things. One is professionalism that needed to be instilled within the organization. Needed to be managed better as an organization. They have to raise money. And one of the changes in direction, I would say, is -- and we haven't taken an official position, but it's something we're still exploring -- and that is instead of building a new building from ground up, my preference is to look for an existing facility that could be refurbished. For two reasons, number one, the veterans are dying off. Why have a building that's gonna be completed once they're all gone? Why don't we get something decent going before they're all gone, you know? They should be able to see something built. And so we're exploring that now and hopefully one facility we looked at will come about. And then the other one is the amount of funding that you have to have for a new building versus refurbishing an existing building. When I say refurbish I don't mean just cosmetic, but it would probably take a certain amount of detail work that needs to be done too, but I think it's a better choice than starting something from the ground up.

SY: And so in small ways how do you feel you can impact, other than the building? And do, are there other ways that you feel you can impact organizations like Go For Broke? I mean, what are some of the issues that you fight for, that you continue to fight for?

GN: Well, I think the issues that you have to deal with, one is, like, educating, education. I think there's an extensive amount of oral history that's been recorded now that's, but those things need to be properly catalogued, digitized, you need to work with the local university so people could do some research, and then providing workshops for teachers to teach the subject matter at local schools. Those are the things that the organization needs to do.

SY: What would you consider one of your priorities in your life now, in terms of what you want to be doing with... I mean, would you say you want to prioritize these Asian American organizations? Is that something you really want to use your time for now?

GN: Well not necessarily Asian American. This one with the Go For Broke is one that has a legacy that I feel very passionate about that needs to be, the information needs to be spread out so that people know about it. And just like the Holocaust, it can't be just one time only. It has to be constant in order for people to remember what happened. And so, and then when we talk about like a museum or exhibit museum, on a long term basis you have to know how you're gonna sustain it, and so it may not be just the 100/442, MIS exhibit museum. You may have to become more inclusive about other ethnic military groups. And I think even the people at the Holocaust, like the Museum of Tolerance recognized that it can't be just about Holocaust, that it has to also deal with tolerance or intolerance, and so in that respect there are other ethnic groups that are engaged now at the Museum of Tolerance.

SY: I see. So, and then what, what are some of these other community things that are on your agenda now, besides the Go For Broke Foundation?

GN: I've been involved with the California Retired Teachers Association, also with the El Camino College Foundation -- their focus there is on scholarship -- and also with HELP. HELP is a senior citizen resource organization.

SY: So, it's interesting, so over your, really over your career you've really had certain areas of interest, education being one, the whole Japanese American experience being another, so are those, those are consistent with you right now where you have continued to do work in those same areas. And I imagine you feel a certain, it sort of motivates you, I guess.

GN: Yeah, there's that connection.

SY: Right.

GN: And I'm also involved with the Japanese American Historical Society, and the Japanese Chamber of Commerce as well. Japanese Chamber of Commerce, I've been involved with them since 1993, and I'm happy to see that they're not strictly about business. They, many of the members there, board members, are involved with social service, volunteering and raising money, and it's really nice to see them engaged in that way in the community.

SY: That's great.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 19>

SY: So I'm coming back to this whole issue of your always taking a strong position on certain issues, being willing to fight for what you believe in, so if you were to characterize what you would fight for in the Japanese American community, what would, what would be the things that you think are the most important? What would you fight for? Where would you not -- in other words, there's probably division within the community too, as to what is important and what is not, so what are some of the issues that you fight for?

GN: Well, one of the issues that's out there, you know, redress has been pretty much accomplished, although those from Peru that'd been kidnapped, that's still out there, but one of the things that we have to deal with is the terminology, the euphemism, the word "internment." And some of the older folks, they don't get it 'cause they've been so conditioned to it. But I was using the word internment for a long time until I was educated about it. When you intern someone you intern an "enemy alien." You don't intern an American citizen. It doesn't meet event the legal definition of interning someone. And I just saw a letter to the editor to the Pacific Citizen by this older Nisei saying that to intern means to confine. No, it's more than that. It's "enemy aliens." Two-thirds of the people that went to camp were U.S. citizens, and what people have to understand -- and this is all part of education -- is that the federal government at that time tried to project all of us as being a bunch of foreigners. They didn't say that we were Americans. They didn't say that we were U.S. citizens. No, they said we were non-aliens.

SY: Right. So some of this position, the strong positions that you take with that, can you relate it back to perhaps having been incarcerated at Tule Lake where people were taking a stand? I mean, how would your, how would your parents react to the way you've decided, the way you fight your battles? What would you, how would you think they would react?

GN: I don't really know because a lot of these things I had done in the past they don't even know about. And I know, like my father passed away, what, back in 1972, I think it was.

SY: But they clearly took a stand that was not real popular, right?

GN: Yeah, they did.

SY: And was that a role model for you, or do you just...

GN: I never looked at it from that perspective.

SY: So it was just --

GN: Because they, my parents were never engaged in community organizations or community service, so I didn't, I don't think I really followed their pattern in a way, to speak.

SY: Even though they took a --

GN: I was pretty independent.

SY: From early on.

GN: Yeah.

SY: And, and this idea, though, I mean, do you, so who were, as a child who were your role models? Who did you sort of want to be? Or did you emulate anybody?

GN: I guess when I was younger, before you start thinking these intellectual things, when I was engaged in track I guess my hero at that time was Jackie Robinson. He was a star athlete, very athletic in every sport, whenever I would read about an athlete. Then I had far more respect for him when I found out how much he fought racism, and he did it at a time where he didn't have organizational support. He was out there alone in many cases.

SY: So you did, you were very aware at an early age.

GN: So if there was a role model I would say Jackie Robinson is probably one of the role models.

SY: Yeah, so there were people that you probably considered heroes to you that, there must've been some sort of direction that you got as you were fighting your battles. Or was it just all purely from your own, you don't, not wanting to be pushed around? I mean, it is interesting to me that you're really very strong about your feelings about things and you're willing to fight for them regardless of what other people might say.

GN: Well, I think, like during the Civil Rights Movement there had been different leaders that led certain issues and were able to accomplish what they started off to do. I think those are the kind of the motivating factor, that if you organize and strategize you could get certain things done. And one of the interesting comments that was made to me when I was at Inglewood, when George McKenna was the superintendent -- he's the one that they had a docudrama on TV that had turned around the Washington Preparatory High School in L.A. city, and when I was talking to him about racism he said that you can't change the person's attitude but you could change their behavior.

SY: That's great. And you, and so that's --

GN: That really stayed with me, what he said.

SY: That's very good.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 20>

SY: And you, do you, when you, I still keep thinking about the fact that you would never back down when you were a child and someone confronted you, physically. Is that the same attitude you took into the assembly? I mean, do you feel that those are sort of the same kinds of...

GN: Yeah, and you don't always want to butt heads. You kind of take a half a step back and think about how you should deal with it. One of the issues that had to be strategized was Howard Coble, who, a congressman from North Carolina that made a statement that Japanese Americans were put into camps for their own protection. That and then I think he also said something about the... yeah, I think that was the main one. I think that he said for their own protection. And so anyway, we wanted a resolution from the state of California, because he was the chair of the subcommittee on, what is it, security, and wanted him to be removed from that position. And I think he might've said something about engaging in espionage and sabotage as well. So we put this resolution together. The first part of the resolution had about asking President Bush to facilitate, help getting him removed as the chair of the homeland security committee, second one was asking Speaker Hastert that was the speaker of the House at that time, and the third one was just outright asking him to remove himself. And turns out that -- I don't know, did I talk about this at the first one?

SY: No.

GN: Because of the layout of the assembly floor in the state capitol is set up that you'll have, you could have two Republicans behind you or two Republicans in front of you, and so happened that during one term David Cogdale sat right behind me. He eventually became chair of the, I mean vice chair of the rules committee. He also became, I think, the minority leader for a short time since I left, so he was one that was a potential leader. So I got to know him personally, but I also found him to be a very straightforward, honest person. And so when we put this resolution together, and it was in the rules committee, and he approached me and he said that he had some concerns with the resolution. And so at that time I told Wilma, 'cause I couldn't attend the meeting, "Why don't you propose, after they have them say their position first, and then respond by eliminating the first two paragraphs but sticking with the last one as a strategy." And so that's what happened, and as a result of that, what happens with resolutions and bills, you'll get a Democratic position on all the different bills and resolutions, you get a Republican position. The Republican positions came that they would support this resolution, and it's encouraging a Republican congressman to remove himself as chair of the subcommittee on homeland security.

SY: And it was done just with the wording and the putting together --

GN: What also helped was this -- this is another situation where all the planets lined up a certain way -- the staff person to Cogdale on the rules committee was a staff person to Nao Takasugi at one time, so he was very familiar with the whole incarceration that took place.

SY: I see.

GN: So that, so that's one small, another piece of it. The other piece is that Alan Nakanishi, the Republican assembly member from Modesto, well, he was in Tule Lake and he agreed with the resolution from the beginning to the end.

SY: Right. So there are certain things that are not party line.

GN: Yeah. And he's a Republican, and so all those little pieces kind helped.

SY: Interesting. Yeah, I also remember reading about your stand on Earl Warren, which I think was an unpopular one. Can you talk a little bit about that?

GN: Yeah, Merv Dimely was advocating for a statue of Earl Warren at the state capitol. It was being pushed by a Caucasian guy. And so I took Merv aside, I saw him in his office and I said, "Merv, I have a problem with Earl Warren, what you're doing." I said, "This guy never publically apologized for what he did," and I explained to him what he did. He used his position as an attorney general to advocate for evacuating from the Japanese Americans and he used that issue to propel himself to become governor. And I recognized the fact that what he did was desegregate the public schools, but he never apologized. So he found, so he dug up some information and says, no, he apologized. I said he apologized in writing after it was, he was dead. It was in his memoir. I said, if I did something wrong I want to be able to apologize when I'm alive.

SY: It's ironic too, because Merv Dimely was one of the big supporters --

GN: Yeah, supporter of redress. Yeah.

SY: So it, so what was the outcome on that?

GN: He withdrew his, what happened was the API caucus, he said he didn't want to buck the API caucus. So now we had Judy Chu and I think a few other people there.

SY: Interesting. Yeah, but you probably got some flack from others for that, right? That, that was not a popular stand that you took there.

GN: I didn't hear anything, though.

SY: Good. Very good. And certain things are above criticism for you. You don't really, what would, what do you do for people who come out strongly against, say, that position of not having the statue? Would you, do you confront them with it?

GN: Oh yeah. Yeah, I'll say the same thing to them as I, what I said to Merv.

SY: That's really something. Now it's, is that, do you think, is a requirement of being a politician? Is that important, an important part of being a politician, is just being able to fight for what you believe in, take a stand on certain things?

GN: Yeah, and then you don't always get exactly what you want. You have to compromise sometimes, and that's the reality. And you have to do that with budget.

SY: Very good.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 21>

SY: So looking, just in closing, looking back on your life, is there, like, one or two things that you're most proud of? Are there things that are the most memorable, or moments in your life that you, that stand out in your career? 'Cause it's been a very illustrious career.

GN: Well, one would be being able to recognize the 100/442, MIS veterans at the state capitol. That would sort of stand out.

SY: That's great. That's really great. And, because their service was above and beyond is what, is how you would characterize that, just completely, I mean, without them the Japanese Americans probably would not be seen in the same light. Is that --

GN: Right, right.

SY: That's nice.

GN: And also when there's a situation where I feel that there's an unfinished business and that something needs to be done, and the contrast with the 100/442, MIS would be Wayne Collins, because I don't think he has ever been thanked by the Japanese American community as a whole. I think they had some thank you dinners by the people who benefitted from him, but not by the JA community as a whole.

SY: So you're still fighting, I mean, that's an ongoing...

GN: Well, so my, what I wanted to do was in a way do that and then also use it as an educational thing, and so I wanted to thank him through his son at the state capitol. So when you do it at the state capitol other people are gonna see and hear what's being done, but it's okay, he wanted it at the Tule Lake pilgrimage, so we were able to do that at the Tule Lake pilgrimage.

SY: So that, you...

GN: To present him with the assembly resolution.

SY: So that was offered to Wayne Collins's son and he chose to receive his commendation --

GN: Yeah. Robert Takei was the one that was communicating with him as to the details, where, and he preferred that it was done at the Tule Lake pilgrimage, which is fine with me.

SY: Yeah, and you were there. Just describe that experience for you.

GN: Yeah, and that year we had some budget problems, so normally I would be able to join people on Thursday for the pilgrimage, but we had a late Thursday night budget session and it finally passed so now I was able to fly out Friday morning. And so I caught one of those propeller planes from Sacramento Airport and landed in Klamath Airport, and luckily one of the guys that drove a pickup truck to the pilgrimage picked me up and brought me to the, to the place where people were meeting. And so that evening I was able to present the resolution to Wayne Collins Jr.

SY: It's interesting 'cause it's really definitely two opposite sides, your support of the 100/442 and of Wayne Collins.

GN: And you wrote the article in the Rafu Shimpo. [Laughs]

SY: [Laughs] Well there's, yeah, it's really nice to have the kind of impact that you have that's, it's so important. I'm just really amazed at your career. So I don't know, are there any, is there anything in closing that you'd like to say? Like maybe what your hopes are for the future, for your future, for educating people, for... you've covered a lot. You talked a lot about the 100th and the whole purpose and the future for them, so that's kind of the direction you're going in.

GN: Well, I'm just hoping that as a nation we don't have to deal with a lot of the things that we had to deal with and find solutions for as time goes on. In some areas it's still around, other areas there's improvement. And one of the interesting things that's taking place right now is that the Japanese American population is diminishing in the United States, by reason of a number factors. One is that, due to interracial marriage. And there's nothing wrong with that; it's just that when you have people with similar values and being part of the same culture that's, that exists at that time, those things are going to take place. And then the other is that you don't have an immigrant population that's replacing those who are dying off, and that's why it's getting less and less.

SY: But, so having gone through what you did as a child, even though it was, you were still a child, having gone through the whole incarceration, concentration camp experience to now, you've, is that something that you are glad that you can use that to fight for a bigger, bigger issues? I mean, has that helped you in your life?

GN: It has. Absolutely.

SY: Giving you a place to start from.

GN: Right.

SY: Very, very amazing, the accomplishments that came out of the Japanese Americans having gone through that. So very good.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.