I know when I got out of law school, well when I was still at Harvard, I remember interviewing for jobs, and nobody would hire me- none of the big firms. And one of the parts is, I talked to someone, “Well,” he said, “Well, we would like to hire you; your grades are pretty good, but our clients would never stand it.” So he said, “I’m sorry, I just can’t help you out.” I wanted to go into private practice, but I could never get a job offer from a private law firm. So it was quite apparent that the reason was racial discrimination. You see, this was of course before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which completely in the years after that changed the landscape on discrimination hiring. But in those days, it was okay and quite well accepted.
Date: July 2, 2014
Location: California, US
Interviewer: Sakura Kato
Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum; Japanese American Bar Association
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