Racial discrimination prepared her in becoming the first transgender trial lawyer

I mean, I kind of look at Japanese American legacy and heritage as I'm really lucky. Those challenges that were put front of me were almost perfect in terms of sequence. If I was going to represent a community of Japanese American lawyers a generation of us really, I would take whatever came from that and I would use that experience to be the first transgender trial lawyer. That's a lot more lonelier position as there’s nobody else like that anyways so I guess in a way I look back on it because I sometimes do nowadays. It's almost like being hated because I was Japanese American, in the wake of the war and all of that and being discriminated against my whole career starting at the beginning was a perfect prelude being hated because I was trans they've got me ready for it in way that that's probably much more calm and deliberate because I sort of experienced that, and I was able to live in my own shoes and that incarnation. And respond to it in that way.

Date: July 14, 2020
Location: California, US
Interviewer: Matthew Saito
Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum; Japanese American Bar Association