<Begin Segment 9>

BN: Then I want to kind of go back a little bit, and have you tell me about your, kind of the journey that eventually led to your career in going to law school, and how that came about.

NN: Where do you want me to start?

BN: Maybe just how you got to law school, how you discovered this program?

NN: Let's see. I graduated law school in '80, so during the '70s, when I was working full time at the Yellow Brotherhood House, that one of the kids at the house, that he got arrested at the Crenshaw Square Carnival. Yeah, he was arrested at the Crenshaw Square Carnival, and what happened was that at the Crenshaw Square, there was an alley between Crenshaw, to get to the parking lot, and to get to the parking lot, you have to go through this alley where there used to be Tag's Liquor there, Yoko Sushi, there's a real small alleyway, about the size of this right here, ten feet or whatever. And he' not supposed to be driving because he's a minor, and he has his younger sister there who's even a minor to him, right? And they're both little kids from the 'hood, so he's driving. And he's driving through the alley, like the Nisei Week, the Asian Task Force were providing security for the carnival, and they saw -- his name was Carl -- they saw Carl behind the wheel, and then one of the task force members who was wearing one of these happi coats, they go up to the driver's side window, which, Carl's sister is sitting there. And he's banging on the window, "Hey, open up, what's going on?" And then the sister says, "Keep going, keep going." So Carl keeps going slowly. And then the task force guys put his hand on the door handle trying to open it up. And when he does that, he kind of opens up his happi coat and then the sister, her name's Iris, sees a gun. And she says, "He's packing, book!" And Carl steps on it and he takes off, and then this guy, task force guy, he's holding on, he can't release his hand from the handle, and he's kind of being dragged. And all the other task for guys that are there, they're seeing that, and I think they start shooting. And then anyway, finally, the guy releases his hand, and Carl gets away, right? And then I guess the kids come to the YB House maybe the next day, and they're kind of telling us what happened. And the word is that the task force is looking for this guy driving this car. So we're going, oh, shit. So I think one of my... anyway, it'd be like, you know what? We kind of know these task force people, because they're all, like a lot of 'em, from the neighborhood. So we'll just straighten this out.

So we called the guy that they knew, we knew, and he went down to Carl's house over there in the 'hood, on the avenues. And you came in real friendly, and said, "Okay, don't worry about it, thanks for letting me know, everything's going to be okay." And then the next minute, they come by to arrest Carl. And they didn't handcuff him and all that, but also Carl has a court date, and figure we better get Carl a lawyer. So we take Carl to the... they had an Asian Law Caucus at that time, and it was people like Mike Murase, Tom Ono, Tom Takenuchi, Marion Faye, I think... I can't remember her first name, but Lily Kurahashi's sister, Lily Yanagita now, Eileen, I think. Anyway, so we kind of explained to him what happened, and Carl needed some representation. And Marion Faye, who just passed the bar, she was married to Mike Murase at the time, that she said that she represented Carl. So I think their office was on Temple Street. So on the day of the trial, anyway, I hooked Carl up with Marion and Marion included me in everything, so I get to listen to her preparing a defense. And everything that she did, she really did it like, in a very caring way, but professional.

The day of the trial comes, that we go down to Eastlake Juvenile Hall and you have all the Asian Task Force, they're sitting in the hall, and then we'd go in. And then I guess Marion has to judge, because it's supposed to be a closed hearing, if it's okay if I stay in the court, I was an investigator or whatever, right? So I go. So I'm getting to watch the trial, and then the Asian Task Force goes up to testify, and they were so terrible that they contradicted each other. They should have been out there getting their stories straight, right? But by the third witness, I guess after Marion was doing her cross examination, that the judge said, "I heard enough," and he dismissed the case. So, "Oh, cool." So we go back to the Temple Street Law Office, and I'm thanking Marion, and then I'm kind of like, well, you know, "How can I do what you're doing?" And she's kind of like, "You know what? I know a school, and it's a non-accredited law school called People's College of Law. And what you need is you need a AA, and that's like ninety units. And I had that when I went to junior college in Fresno or Visalia, that I got enough where I got an AA.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.