Interviews

1. Early Childhood

2. Camp as a Young Boy

3. “Something ominous in the background…”

4. On Joining the Marine Corps

5. Racial Antagonism in the Marine Corps

6. “I was never an exceptional student…”

7. Being 1 out of 4 Asians at Harvard Law School

8. Asian American Lawyers as Victims of “Overt Racial Discrimination”

9. “I could never get a job offer from a private law firm”

10. Being Denied as a Japanese American Lawyer

11. “The Best Seat in the Courthouse”

12. The First Japanese American on the U.S. Court of Appeals

13. On the Increase in Asian American Representation

14. The Intersection between Internment and Judgeship

15. Leaving a Legacy

A. Wallace Tashima

(b. 1934) The First Japanese American Appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals.

Racial Antagonism in the Marine Corps

But it was very revealing because- the service- first of all, because I was exposed to people from all over the country… first time I had seen a lot of Southern people. A lot of southerners in our unit from, I mean, the Deep South- blacks and whites. And I remember there was a lot of overt racial animosity, a lot of fighting because some white people, most of the white people from the South, didn’t want to associate as an equal with blacks. So it was a very tense relationship between the blacks and the whites, and I noticed it so I learned that. I think in the military there are a lot of life lessons that you learn that I think are helpful and I think inform you- probably color the way people think later in life.

hostility (psychology) Southern United States United States Marine Corps

Date: July 2, 2014

Location: California, US

Interviewer: Sakura Kato

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

Interviewee Bio

Born in Santa Maria California, Judge Atsushi Wallace Tashima is the first Japanese American and the third Asian American in history to serve on a U.S. Court of Appeals. He was born to Issei immigrants and spent three years of his childhood in the Poston War Relocation Center in Poston, Arizona. When Tashima entered his first year of Harvard Law School in 1958, he was one of only 4 Asian American students at Harvard. Nevertheless, Tashima went on to lead a 34 year-long career as a federal judge. In 1980, Tashima was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California by President Carter. After serving 15 years on the U.S. District Court, President Clinton elevated Tashima to the U.S Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which covers the nine western states on the West Coast. As as 2004, Tashima assumed senior status and currently sits in the Ninth Circuit Pasadena Couthouse in Pasadena, CA. (August 2014)

*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.