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FA: Grace, you're an attorney. Do you think that... why do you think... do you think you became an attorney because of anything having to do with your father?

GY: Oh yes, very much so. My dad was a lawyer in Japan. He graduated and became a lawyer -- never practiced law, but was a lawyer. So we had a background of either teachers or lawyers in our family. But there was a lot of indoctrination on the part of my father, I think. And one of the things that we always talked about was the Constitution of the United States, and what it meant to be an American. He said -- he used to tell me -- he said, "You know, I'm a Japanese national and I will die a Japanese national. I will never change my citizenship. But you and your brother are American citizens, and you have the Constitution, which is the most wonderful document that has ever been made, and you have to live with it and uphold it." And my legal career started out -- I did many things in the '70s with regard to a lot of the civil rights issues that were taking place in those days. It's a long time ago, but I have always felt that the deprivation of one human person's rights, civil rights, whether they be Japanese, black, gay, is the deprivation of anybody's rights. And I think that that is a prevailing theme in my philosophy of life, as well as my -- and my legal career is influenced by that very, very strong belief that I have.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 1993, 2005 Frank Abe and Densho. All Rights Reserved.