Interviews

1. Incarceration, Deportation, and Lawyers

2. On Challenging Institutions

3. Proud to be Japanese Americans

4. The White House Will Have to Wait

5. Nikkei Pioneers in the Legal Field

6. “…Put Me In A Cage”

7. Preserving Manzanar-Chutzpah and the DWP

8. Rising Up To A Challenge

9. Congressional Hearings

10. “A Low Tolerance For Injustice…”

11. Pop and Balls

12. Fifty Years and Going Strong

13. Message to Aspiring Japanese American Lawyers

Rose Ochi

(1938-2020) Japanese American attorney and civil rights activist

Pop and Balls

When I was growing up, my father always would say, "You're a girl. You're supposed to get married." You know, and tell my brother, "You got to go to college. You got to do this and that." And I just said, "Me! What about me?" and he would always say, "No, you're a girl. You're a girl." And he does that every time. You know, he's teaching kendo and I said, "I want to do it too" and he says, "No, you're a girl." Everything was... Anyway, one day I came home from school and I had won some class office or whatever and he, he turned to my mother and he said in Japanese, "It's a shame this child does not have kintamas." Do you know what that means? Balls. What he meant is, it's a shame that all these attributes are on a girl child. I heard, that one day when I was charging, I heard that Senator Kennedy turned to a fellow commissioner and said, "Where'd they find that woman? Boy, does she have balls." And so, when I give speeches, I like to say, "Well, my father would be so happy, finally." Yeah.

families identity

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.