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Rising Up To A Challenge

What I did is I wrote a letter to the Supervisors in Inyo County, to say that let’s sit down and talk about creating this historic designation. I got a phone call from the newspaper, Inyo County reporter saying that this board member threw my letter on the floor and said, “Never going to happen over my dead body! Never happen!” So I went up, the board members all arrived—the town only has maybe two restaurants— I walked in and said, “Which one is Keith?” The reporter told me this Keith Bright was the one who was angry. I said, "come here." I pulled him outside and I said, “Okay, tell me what you don’t want.” He said, “I don’t want any embarrassment…” Let me just add there was a lot of strife, racial conflict, as a result of the handling of the state historic designation. It was not one that required congressional or even legislative action at the state level. It was by a commission. It was a friendly process from the government’s side. But the way it was handled, there was a lot of division and racial hostility towards Japanese Americans. That was the backdrop we needed to address. And I asked Keith and all of them to come together and asked, “What don’t you want?” He said, “We can’t have all this racial conflict. We cannot have all this antagonism.” And so I said, “Okay, tell me what you need.” I said, “You need economic development. You need to bring tourists here. You need people to buy gas, people to stay at the motel, people who are going to eat.” I said, “This site will draw people. What other choices do you have? Mining? Fishing?” He’s a wonderful man. He said, “Well, let’s get to work.” And this man helped— you know, I had with the mayor, and connections with all the democrats. Keith is a Mr. Republican from Inyo County.


California concentration camps governments Inyo County Manzanar concentration camp politics United States World War II camps

Date: July 17, 2013

Location: California, US

Interviewer: Sean Hamamoto

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum; Japanese American Bar Association

Interviewee Bio

Rose Matsui Ochi was born in East Los Angeles, California on December 15, 1938. Following the outbreak of World War II, young Ms. Ochi’s family was rounded up to live in the horse stables of the Santa Anita racetracks before being railroaded to Rohwer, one of America’s concentration camps for Japanese Americans at the time. Upon release, her parents were subjected to deportation, but were rescued by civil rights lawyers. Her family’s tragic experience taught her about injustices and about the power to right wrongs.

In order to fight for rights and social justice, Ms. Ochi decided to go into law. After earning a B.A. from University of California, Los Angeles and M.S. from California State University, Los Angeles, she earned a J.D. from Loyola Law School. She began her career as a ‘Reggie’, a poverty lawyer, at U.S.C. Western Center on Law and Poverty and served as the co-counsel of record in Serrano v. Priest, the landmark educational law reform case. Ms. Ochi has since served on the state bar and Legal Services Commission, has worked as a Disciplinary Referee, and was the first AA Board of Trustees member for the LA County Bar Association.

Recently, she helped to rescue Tuna Canyon WWII Detention Camp by getting Council approval for Historic Designation. She passed away in December 2020. (December 2020)

*This is one of the main projects completed by The Nikkei Community Internship (NCI) Program intern each summer, which the Japanese American Bar Association and the Japanese American National Museum have co-hosted.

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