But I tell you what we did in those early days of JABA (Japanese American Bar Association). In those days, it wasn’t the—there wasn’t a commission on…a JNE1 commission, the judicial…the evaluation committee. Instead, the members of the state bar Board of Governors were the people who vetted all the judge applicants. So it was very important to get to know those people. And so Ed [Kakita] was very strategic about all of those things, so every time we had a big meeting—our installation, for example—he invited…or we invited all the members of the State Bar Board of Governors as our guests, and they would come. They would come. There were a few minority members at the time, of the state bar Board of Governors—those were basically the governor’s appointees. They were people who were not lawyers, generally. But we became very friendly with the state bar Board of Governors. We invited them to events that we had, and that made a significant difference in our access. And if you look at the appointments early on, you’ll probably be very surprised at the number of Japanese Americans who were appointed, and I know that it was a direct result of that kind of effort that Ed Kakita started. Note 1: Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation (JNE, “Jenny”)
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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