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TI: So today is Wednesday, February 8, 2012. We're in Seattle in the Densho studios. Our narrator today is Judge Mary Murphy Schroeder. The purpose of this interview is actually twofold. One is to get your perspective of -- as a key player -- an important legal case pertaining to the World War II Japanese American exclusion from the West Coast, and the second purpose is to really try to highlight or discuss some of the broader issues and themes that we can derive from the Hirabayashi case. That would, in some ways, think about in terms of adding to a discussion in a high school civics class. So that's the purpose. Why don't we get started, and so Judge Schroeder, why don't I just start with, to get it on the record, can you tell me when you were born and where?

MS: I was born December 4, 1940. I was born just before, the year before Pearl Harbor, and I was born in Boulder, Colorado.

TI: And what was the name given to you at birth?

MS: My name was Mary Barbara Murphy.

TI: Any significance to that name?

MS: No. By absolute coincidence, I was born on St. Barbara's Day, which is December 4th, but my parents had no idea.

TI: And just tell me a little bit about your parents. What did they do, where were they from?

MS: Well, my parents were both academics. They met at the University of Pittsburg, they both were debaters, debate coaches there. And my mother was Jewish and my father was not Jewish. His father had been a Catholic who bolted the church to marry a non-Catholic. So I came from a religious background that was very mixed, and I think that may have given me a little sensitivity. I think my parents tried to implant into me some sensitivity to racial and religious prejudices and how they can impact people's lives.

TI: So growing up, what religion were you raised?

MS: I was raised in no religion.

TI: Okay. Growing up, did you learn about or know much about the Holocaust?

MS: Yes, I did know about the Holocaust because of my mother's Jewish heritage and because my father thought it was such a dreadful chapter. I was much aware when I was very young of World War II because there was a Japanese language school in Boulder, Colorado. And my father was a member of something called the Stretcher Bearers, because everyone in the United States at the time thought that they were living in a possible target for Japanese attack. And for some very strange reason, people in Boulder, Colorado, thought that they might be subject to a Japanese attack. My father thought it was absolutely ridiculous, but he enjoyed mountain climbing, and carrying stretchers up and down the mountains was great fun for him.

TI: And what time period was your father a Stretcher Bearer?

MS: Oh, this was 1942 to 1945.

TI: Okay, so during the war.

MS: During the war. It was a wartime...

TI: So they thought there might be some kind of attack...

MS: Everyone thought, apparently, that there might -- there was great fear, I think. My sense is, although I was very, very young, but my sense is that there was great fear throughout the country of Japanese attack.

TI: And you mentioned the Japanese language school.

MS: Yes.

TI: And so did you have any connection with Japanese or Japanese Americans?

MS: No, except that there was Japanese spoken all around me. I don't remember any personal connection, but young children developed imaginary friends, and my imaginary friend was a Mrs. Hayakawa.

TI: And so you said your imaginary friend would speak Japanese?

MS: Yes, we would speak imaginary Japanese, and imaginary English to my imaginary friend.

TI: Going back to the Holocaust, was there any family connection to the Holocaust?

MS: No, no. My family left Europe in the 19th century.

TI: Growing up, is there any -- before I jump to the Japanese American experience in World War II in terms of your involvement with case work, I just wanted to ask, are there any stories or highlights about growing up that paint a, had a great deal of influence in terms of who you are as a person? Anything you can think of?

MS: Oh, my goodness. Well, of course, everything growing up affects how you are as a person. In terms of how it would affect my outlook on the law, I think that my parents, because of their religious diversity, were very sensitive to injustice. My father was a professor who was always very active in the American Association of University Professors and I think he was very involved in their Academic Freedom Committee. So that the importance of free speech and of being able to express your views freely, and not having your occupation or your life jeopardized by your views was something that I grew up with because of my family's concern with academic freedom.

TI: With that kind of outlook, did your father ever have difficulties during the '50s when, oftentimes when people were striving for academic freedom, came to, when I think of the McCarthyism, and was there ever a period where your father had difficulties with that?

MS: No. My father never had any difficulties during the '50s. It was a family kind of a legend that there had been some difficulties during the '30s. That was rather pretextual because there weren't enough jobs to go around. He had some problems because of some associations he had with newspaper reporters who had friends who worked for the Daily Worker. It was all a very association-linked story, but I don't think it ever lasted beyond the '30s. We never had any problems in our family. Although I was very aware of the McCarthy era and what was happening. And my family was greatly outraged by Senator McCarthy's antics.

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