<Begin Segment 9>

TI: Well, so you kind of grew up in Gardena, you graduated from high school, so what's next?

RI: Okay. After I got out of high school, all through growing up, I always loved taking pictures, and I wanted to become a photojournalist like Alfred Eisenstaedt. I wanted to travel, I figured this is the best ticket out of town is to become a photojournalist and take pictures. And so San Jose State had a photojournalism major. So as soon as I got out of high school in February of 1967, I transferred, or I went to San Jose State, and I stayed there for six months. My high school girlfriend was at Cal State Long Beach, so then I guess... I don't know what happened, but I ended up being transferred back to Cal State Long Beach that fall.

TI: After six months.

RI: So a year and a half at Cal State Long Beach, so we both transferred to UCLA.

TI: And the dream of photojournalism? Did that die?

RI: No, I still enjoy it, but I came to the recognition that photojournalism as a profession would be difficult and, although I did meet some people from National Geographic, and they said, well, it's a great profession, the problem is, if they did a photoshoot on, for example, Micronesia, he said, "I took ten thousand pictures, they used twelve of them." And he said, "The pictures I think are great, the editor in Washington, D.C. at National Geographic may not think so." And so even if you get an assignment, it's a tough thing. It's just like everything in life, if you do anything in the arts, the theater, music, drama, anything that's in the creative field, it doesn't pay, it's hard to make a living. And so those that do it, you really have to appreciate them for their sacrifice and the things that they're doing, because they're giving us gifts back that, in our own way, our daily lives, we're just trying to make a living, but we're trying to be a creative force. So I'm always thankful for that. Photojournalism, unfortunately with smartphones, there is no photojournalism anymore, I mean...

TI: It's kind of like being in a right place at the right time, having your phone and taking that photo.

RI: So, in a lot of ways it's good.

TI: So what did you, at UCLA, what did you major in?

RI: Well, if you transfer enough, for example, from San Jose State to Cal State Long Beach, then I was told because the transfer, I was eight units short when I was going to be drafted into the Vietnam War, said, "You need to pick up eight units," so I went to Cal State Dominguez to pick up eight units, so I was going to two colleges at one time. Got my units back up, so by the time I got to UCLA and sat down with a counselor, I said, "Okay, these are the classes I've taken, how do I graduate on time?" So she went through the entire catalog and said, "Well, I think your major needs to be poli sci, and I think you can graduate on time." So I ended up being a political science major because I wanted to get out in four years, not because of any particular desire about politics.

TI: But that was based on the courses you had already taken, and she just said, "This is the one you can get."

RI: Right. So that's how it ended up, but it was very interesting when I was at UCLA. And the theme throughout, if there was any theme in life, it's who you know. You got to know something, that we understand, but it's who you know that's going to make a difference in your life. And so, anyway, I would go into the poli sci department and take my classes, and there was a woman, secretary to the dean of the school, and her name was Gladys Fukumoto. And Gladys said, "You're the only Nihonjin, Sansei, that ever comes through this program." And so she says, "I'll tell you what. Let me see what I can do for you." So she, in my last two years, was able to have me receive stipends so that I can take additional courses in the poli sci department. And then as I was getting ready to graduate, she made recommendations to the dean, and the dean said, "Okay, as soon as you graduate, we've already accepted you into the Master's of Public Administration program at UCLA, and we'll give you a graduate advancement stipend." And so because of her, I was able to get my bachelor's and master's degree from UCLA. And then I started law school at night, and four years at night at Northrop University School of Law, very interesting. I remember doing the interview at Loyola University Law School, and Judge David Doi, he retired, but David Doi was a law student, and I knew David from growing up. David says, "Do you really want to be a lawyer, Ron, or are you just trying to be like everyone else, pretend that you want to be a lawyer?" I said, "Why?" He said, "You really want to be a lawyer, and based on your grades, you're not getting into Loyola. I don't think you can get into any law school. So you're going to have to make a decision. You will go to any law school that you can get into and study."

TI: His point was that the law degree was important, if you could just get a law school that would accept you, you could just work really hard.

RI: Exactly. He didn't want to say, just because whatever you did in the past is going to hurt you or help you, but this is totally different. Well, I didn't get into any law school, and so I decided, okay, there was a new law school started up called Northrop University School of Law, which was part of Northrop Corporation, the fence contractor. And so it was really aviation, Northrop Institute of Technology was aviation, and they taught airframe mechanics and then they started a law school. So I ended up going there four years at night. But it's very interesting, those people on the board of directors, like a who's who of Fortune 500 companies, one of 'em was a person named Chuck Manatt. Chuck Manatt is, a few years later, he ended up being the chairman of the Democratic National Committee in Washington, D.C. And then Chuck found out that I was, had gone to Northrop University, so he was always very supportive of me and helpful. And some twenty years later, there's this golf club in Virginia called the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club, and at that golf club, Chuck Manatt was a member and I was a member. He goes, "You know, Ron, you've come a long way, boy." [Laughs]

TI: Because you were, like, the first class of that law school?

RI: Right, yes. Well, it's interesting because we started with sixty-something, twenty-one of us graduated, twenty of us passed the bar, and so it was a pretty good result. So we still stay in touch with the small class.

TI: Who you were your classmates? I'm curious about this.

RI: Myself, my friend Ron Anderson, who was African American, and Art Longoria, who was Mexican American, we were part of the Minority Law Students Association, all three of us, that was it. But no, different people from different walks of life, they could be in real estate, you could work for the defense contractors, and a whole variety of people that wanted to go to law school but worked, and so they went at night. I worked downtown with one of my friends, Robert Nagata, who was a lawyer, and I worked as his law clerk for four years, and he gave me a lot of opportunities to learn about law. By the time I finished law school, I knew I didn't want be a lawyer.

TI: That's what I was going to ask the question, so going back to the question your friend asked, "Ron, do you really want to be a lawyer?"

RI: Well, I think the beautiful part about being a lawyer is you kind of understand the process, but being a lawyer, you have to deal with other people's problems. I don't know about you, I've got my own problems. Why do I want to deal with yours? And really, it is tough. More recently I've been doing more litigation, I used to never go to court, and my background is really licensing technology transfer agreements, which is really part of negotiating, which was, to me, a spinoff of civil rights. How do you negotiate an agreement legislatively to get something done? And more recently, and I'm thankful that people call and I refer most of the cases out, and some that really needs my help, I'll do it. I sometimes really don't know what I'm doing, so I'll go to the courtroom and I ask the clerk off to the side, "What do we do next?" But in my heart and my gut -- and this is the problem -- is that I grew up with this whole concept of yamato damashii, you just got to put out 120 percent, you just do everything, whatever it takes. I don't like to lose, I just do not like to lose. And I know -- I don't care what kind of case it is -- I'll think about it all the time. Now, if I was a real lawyer, economically, it would not pay off, because it doesn't work that way. I need to think in a different way, like, okay, I'm going to charge this person x, y, z number of dollars for every minute I think. You can't do that, I wasn't raised that way. Now, should I have been raised that way? Maybe. Next life, maybe, I don't know, but I'm pretty happy with the way I am now, and I just can't do that other people. Sometimes people get in a situation and sometimes you can help them out, if I can, I will. But I'll tell you, it takes a toll, because I don't like to lose and this was a lot of stress. My friends that were, one of my very good friends, Harvey Horikawa who probably litigated a hundred trials to end, went to high school with, passed away last year of a heart attack. He said, yeah, Ron, he doesn't like to lose either. So then you're consumed. So a good litigator, it's a tough life. Plus, going back to the question about being a lawyer, no. If I could be doing something else, yeah, I love to travel all over the inaka Japan and take photojournalism pictures, that's probably what I would like to do, catch these vignettes of life, that's probably more fun.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.