Interviews

1. The importance of Japanese American role models in childhood community

2. Avoiding the pigeonhole of stereotypes during school years

3. First learning about the incarceration experience in college

4. Recognizing issues of dual identity in the nisei generation

5. Heightened awareness of identity as a Japanese American

6. Feeling angry upon reading of Supreme Court case, 'Korematsu v. United States'

7. Is 'Korematsu v. United States' still a threat to American civil liberties?

8. Working on the 'case of a lifetime'

Lorraine Bannai

(b. 1955) Lawyer

Recognizing issues of dual identity in the nisei generation

I think also, two, particular to the Japanese American community, there's a real feeling of shikata ga nai. “It just is. What will be will be. There's nothing we can do about it. We need to just go on. That's just life.” And I think a lot of this sublimation comes from that. “There's nothing we can do about the fact that we were in camp now, except for getting our lives back together again and just forgetting about it. It was a terrible thing. We don't need to think about it. We don't need to talk about, and we don't need to tell our children about it because they don't need to be burdened with it.”

But I think at the same time that sublimation is going on, that repression has to come out in some way. Certainly as a result, I think that not only was the camp experience sublimated, but also the culture was sublimated. I think there's very much a feeling that we wanted to be as American as possible. We wanted to have our kids grow up Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. We wanted to have a nice house with two-car garages, wanted to be involved in Lions Club and you know, all of these different, very classically American dream-type of activities, and try to avoid being really, really Japanese.

communities identity

Date: March 23 & 24, 2000

Location: Washington, US

Interviewer: Margaret Chon, Alice Ito

Contributed by: Denshō: The Japanese American Legacy Project.

Interviewee Bio

Sansei female. Born 1955 in Los Angeles, CA. Grew up in Gardena, CA, surrounded by a large Japanese American community. Influenced by father's role in community and politics, and mother's emphasis on education. Attended University of California, Santa Barbara where she became increasingly aware of Japanese American history, issues of ethnic identity and racial inequality. Attended the University of San Francisco School of Law where she honed her commitment to political and social activism.

Only a few years out of law school, she joined a team of lawyers working to reopen the Supreme Court's 1944 decision in Korematsu v. United States. Convicted of violating the exclusion order during World War II, Mr. Korematsu's case went all the way to the Supreme Court where the exclusion and incarceration of Japanese Americans was upheld as constitutional, based on the government's argument of 'military necessity.' Through a petition for writ of error coram nobis (establishing that the case was premised on errors of fact withheld from the judge and the defense by the prosecution), the legal team reopened the case, provided evidence that the factual underpinnings to the exclusion orders were fraudulent, and successfully had the Korematsu conviction vacated, as well as a handful of other similar convictions. In this interview, Ms. Bannai discusses the coram nobis legal team, the support for the effort among the Japanese American community, and personal lessons gained from being a part of this effort. (March 24, 2000)