<Begin Segment 19>

Tom Izu: Richard, you're doing service for immigrant, immigrant community, you've talked a lot about them and how that there's always different parts that fit together, your own understanding of a family's histories, immigrants, and working with immigrant coworkers, and fit really well with becoming a lawyer. Another area that maybe you could talk a little bit more about is a lot of the things you've been doing, your involvement with the anti-police brutality work that you've done, and is there a connection with your, as a Japanese American, too, and how did that all come about? Because you're pretty well-known for that in this area, actually, and not just Asians but more groups.

RK: Right. So there was a very sad and tragic incident that occurred in 2003 involving a young Vietnamese American mother who was shot and killed by the San Jose police. And it was a shocking case because she was in her kitchen with a Vietnamese vegetable peeler in her hand. She had some mental health issues, that's clear to me now. She was not having a good day, but she really didn't do anything to deserve to get shot by the police. And so when that occurred, there were just a lot of members in the Vietnamese/Asian community who felt that something needed to happen, there needed to be some change. And so a group of us kind of got together and started to advocate for justice in that case. And again, there's been other instances where we've seen similar kind of instances where I think part of the problem is that the police come onto a scene and maybe the person is not somebody that can speak English that well, or maybe that person has some mental health issues, and the police don't react in the way they should. In other words, they escalate the violence instead of trying to deescalate the violence. And so for a lot of us in the community, we've just been trying to work with the police department and the City of San Jose to kind of change the dynamics when people come into contact with the police, and if deadly force is used, it's always a tragedy for everybody involved.

TI: And what makes you effective in terms of working with, say, the police department? I mean, what works from an outside group trying to make changes with the police force? What have you found to be effective?

RK: It's a challenging area because I think everybody feels like they need the police to, quote/unquote, "protect them" from the "bad people" out there. I mean, there are bad people out there, that's for sure, but I think, from our point of view, we want the police to be "peace officers," meaning that they try to come into a situation and try to calm a situation down, to deal with people the way they would want to be dealt with, meaning that, not talked down to, and to be, to try to use communication instead of deadly force.

TI: And so how do you get the police to make those changes?

RK: It's a challenge. It's not an easy thing to do. I mean, we've been working on this for the last six, seven years, and I'm not sure that we made a lot of progress, there's been maybe small incremental progress around the edges, but it's a challenging area.

TI: And to even make those little incremental changes, what are some things that you do specifically with the police department? Is it meetings, is it... what?

RK: Well, so again, we haven't been involved directly in the lawsuits, but there have been significant lawsuits filed against the City of San Jose. You know, when the city has to pay out millions of dollars, that does impact them in terms of how they operate. There's gonna be a new chief of police shortly in San Jose, and we're hoping that it will change, kind of, the way that officers interact with the community.

TI: And do you then advocate or try to get, become part of the process of hiring a new police chief? Is that part of how change can happen?

RK: So we're, we've been very involved with kind of trying to shape the process for that selection, to suggest different kinds of questions that would be appropriate to ask during interviews, we're trying to get the process to become more transparent. Whether we succeed or not, it remains to be seen, but we're hopeful.

TI: You mentioned one way of getting the attention of the city is lawsuits. What else works?

RK: I mean, the other thing that works is the political process itself. And one of the members of the city council is a young Vietnamese American woman who was elected shortly after that 2003 incident. And I think part of the reason she was elected was because the Vietnamese American community had that incident, death, in their mind, and that was part of the reason she was elected. Now, whether or not she's gonna make a difference or not, that, again, remains to be seen.

TI: And how much clout, political clout, does the Asian American community have? I mean, in San Jose, San Jose is a little unique, I think, in Japanese American politics because you have Norm Mineta, Mike Honda, I mean, on a national electoral politics, they're very prominent. I'm not really clear about the local politics, but how influential, or how much influence does, do Asian American politicians have in this area?

RK: I think there's a fair amount of influence. Again, I think it depends on the nature and type of issue that's involved. Unfortunately, when it involves law enforcement, that's a real tough one for everybody, I think, and change in law enforcement is a real challenge. But in some other areas in terms of, there's a lot of, there's actually a lot of different Asian American organizations in the community that I think have benefitted from the influence of Congressman Honda, Congressman Mineta, and others.

TI: Yeah, I'm curious, this is sort of out of the blue, but just realizing that someone like Norm Mineta, a former mayor in the area, former Congressman, does he stay involved locally in terms of some of these issues? If you ever, if the community ever needed to get him involved, is he available to help out on anything?

RK: I'm not sure, actually. I don't know that I've asked him. I suppose he would be if something came along.

TI: So I guess the question is, when someone locally goes off into national politics, I'm just curious in terms of the connection back to the, his local community. Is there much, or is he just now into a whole different, sort of, realm these days?

RK: To some degree, I guess, but I think there's still that connection with him.

TI: Was there anything special about San Jose that allowed a Japanese American to become a successful politician locally and then to be launched nationally?

RK: Well, my understanding of the way that Mr. Mineta got involved was that there were some influential people in the community who, after the internment, felt like if they had had somebody elected at a level, maybe it could have been stopped, or maybe things would have been different. And so there was an attempt to kind of groom some people to move up the ladder. And so that's my understanding of how it happened.

TI: So are there similar groups or similar thinking happening today in San Jose? Thinking if we had elected officials who were like-minded, that would be a good thing? And are there people trying to make that happen?

RK: Well, there are groups called Asian Pacific American Leadership Institute, which Dr. Michael Chang is very involved with. It's trying to groom people to become kind of leaders of the future.

TI: And is that just Asian American, or is it more like a particular belief in terms of whether, just simply more liberal versus more conservative? Is that part of that process also?

RK: You know, it's... my understanding is actually APALI includes not only Asian Americans, but Latinos as well. There's like an institute that combines those communities together. And so I don't know that they look for any political, specific political background. I would say that a lot of people that are involved with that tend to be more on the liberal side, just because of the nature of the organization, but, yeah.

Tom Izu: Richard, I was thinking that the development of Asian Law Alliance when you were talking about the development of Asian American or Asian Pacific American consciousness and political consciousness, it seems like your life and your career has kind of, corresponds with the rise of that in San Jose in particular. I'm not sure about the national scene. But like when Mineta became Congressman, I don't necessarily know how much he was into Asian Pacific anything, really. But since that time, people like him and Honda and all these people who followed, them, I think they're really looked up to in terms of Asian Pacific American political circles. Or when they gained prominence, they were seen as role models. 'Cause I've heard other people who, Chinese Americans, Filipinos, other people, Latinos, too, who look up to these people and this history in this area of San Jose. So is there, is there something that... I mean, it seems like your life kind of fit into all that stuff. 'Cause we've been talking about how it's been a difficult thing, and the different groups, Japanese Americans, Chinese Americans, and there's been conflicts, and then you unite together on certain things, but things have changed quite a bit in the last twenty or thirty years. How do you, have you thought much about that in your career?

RK: Only that I was fortunate to come to this area at a time when things were developing in the way that they did. I mean, I can't say that I had this master plan or anything, but, I mean, in addition to the Asian Law Alliance, I was also involved with the Nihonmachi Outreach Committee in the early stages. And some of us got together, 'cause we were concerned that what happened in San Francisco in terms of redevelopment might be happening here. As it turned out, it never really happened here, but at the time, there were some studies about, you know, was Japantown gonna die or not. And I can remember us doing these newsletters and trying to get people involved and informed about what the City of San Jose was planning. And then eventually transitioning into doing a lot of redress work and Day of Remembrance work. And again, I was there with a lot of other people who had similar kind of interests. I can't say that I was a driving force, I was kind of one of a group. And same thing with the Asian Law Alliance, I was kind of one of a group of people who helped kind of get it going.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.