Interviews
On the Importance of Role Models
You know, I really think it’s important for someone to have aspirations in order to get somewhere, and unless there’s something real that you can visualize or aspire to, you know, it’s just not part of your thinking. And I really…I didn’t know any judges. It never occurred to me that that was a possibility. You know, it was sort of amazing, I thought, that I was even a lawyer. So, it was not…it was not something that I aspired to. And that’s why it’s important for us to be out there so that young people can say, oh my God, you know, people can do this, you can do all of these things. She did it, he did it. Well, she did it, I can certainly do it—that kind of thing. We—I didn’t really have that. I mean, the people who were there, like John Aiso, I mean, I considered him to be so…sort of, you know, way astronomically up there, so it never occurred to me that I could do something that he did. [laughs]
Date: July 10, 2012
Location: California, US
Interviewer: Lawrence Lan
Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum; Japanese American Bar Association
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