Bruce Yamashita speaks at PAR Event

APABA's Practicing Attorney Resource, together with several other voluntary bar associations, sponsored a screening of A Most Unlikely Hero, the story of Bruce Yamashita's fight for justice. Hosted by the law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman with light refreshments from Cafe Asia, the screening was followed by a question and answer session with Mr. Yamashita and a signing of his memoir, Fighting Tradition: A Marine's Journey to Justice.

A Most Unlikely Hero tells Mr. Yamashita's story of discrimination and his long struggle for redress. Joining the Marines after finishing law school at Georgetown University, Mr. Yamashita reported to the Corps' Office Candidate School where, for a period of nine weeks, he was belittled, ridiculed and subjected to racial slurs by the officers who trained and evaluated him. Eventually, Mr. Yamashita was disenrolled from the OCS for failing to demonstrate leadership qualities, a common criticism levied against Asian Pacific Americans.

Returning to his home state of Hawaii, where his grandparents emigrated in the 19th Century, Mr. Yamashita soon began to seek redress. Receiving encouragement from many, including the surviving veterans of World War II's highly-decorated, Japanese-American 442nd Airborne, Mr. Yamashita began his long fight for justice.

He spoke candidly of the difficulties he encountered in his personal life for the five-year period he spent fighting the Marine Corps, which contended that when his OCS instructor spoke to him in mock broken Japanese, he was doing so only to "make [Yamashita] feel more at home."

Mr. Yamashita received encouragement from strangers in the street after his story made national news in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Good Morning America, and 60 Minutes.

Most of these events took place in the late-80s / early-90s. With the election of Bill Clinton in 1992 and the change in leadership at the Department of Defense in 1993, Mr. Yamashita's case finally began to see progress. Frederick Pang, an Asian American and the new Assistant Secretary of the Navy, was instrumental in settling the case by offering Mr. Yamashita a commission in the Marines and the rank of captain.

Mr. Yamashita's inspiring story visibly moved those in attendance at the event, and many took advantage of the opportunity presented by the book signing to share a few words with the guest of honor, who practices law in the Washington, DC area.

In all, close to 50 people attended the event. Thanks go to May Lee and her PAR Committee for putting the event together, and to Tony Lin for securing facilities at his firm.