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(interviewer) You mentioned Senator Inouye.
How did you come into contact with him?

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Growing up, I always remember
when I saw him

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at the ‘68 Convention in Chicago,
with all the turmoil and everything,

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I remember him speaking,
I remember this just short,

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or small in stature Asian-American,
I thought, “Who is he?”

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Gave this beautiful speech and everything,
so that was my first exposure to him.

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Then obviously, when he served
on both the Watergate

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and the Iran-Contra special committees
and everything, I saw him perform there.

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You’d see him, just, he was always
so controlled and insightful,

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and very inquisitive in the right way.

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I thought,
“Wow, this guy’s pretty impressive.”

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Obviously, his voice.
You would always kind of remember it.

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So that was kind of
my first exposure to him.

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I had been in Washington,
as I mentioned, since ‘70,

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going in and out,
and had met a lot of senators.

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Even Tom Harkin,
we attended school together,

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and Tom is now retired.

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There were a number of other people
who served in the Congress

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that I had either met
or went to school with.

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Larry Pressler,
who was from South Dakota.

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Larry and I, we were at University
of South Dakota at the same time.

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When I was there
at University of South Dakota,

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that’s when Tom Brokaw was there.

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So that dates me in a sense of--
I didn’t know him,

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because it was a small school,
but I was on the basketball team

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and we had teams that preceded us
who were very good.

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We weren’t that good,
but it was just a life experience.

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I had spent a lot of time
around Senator Kennedy

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and even Chris Dodd and John McCain,
what have you.

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But when I first met the senator,
he just…he was just different.

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Very…he would listen and it was just,
he didn’t see himself as the show,

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so to speak,
to walk into a room and “Here I am.”

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He may have thought that,
I’m sure he did,

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‘cause I think all politicians
had to have a big ego.

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But he…it was remarkable
and then when he asked me through Patricia

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to organize this gathering
of tribal leaders, which I did,

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and coincidentally it turned out that was
the day Mandela got released from prison.

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It was coincidental,
here we were just finishing our meeting

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and that was the news of the day,
and that started my relationship with him.

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(interviewer) What was the nature
of your first contact with him?

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It was pretty much at that meeting
and it was to really try to provide

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a gathering of tribal leaders
for him to interact with him.

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I had seen him in D.C., but never really
until that particular time

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where, in essence,
we really started to work together.

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I mean, not me working
for the federal government,

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but I was the person that he asked
to bring these people together.

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After that meeting,
he wanted more meetings,

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and he wanted to, in essence, really go
to different regions of the country.

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He wanted to go to reservations.

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So no one will ever touch his schedule
and all the traveling,

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but I think he really enjoyed it.

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So I think the more I saw him
embrace that,

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and we were skeptical of any politician
expressing an interest in our issues.

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Okay, so you’re interested,
but let’s see what you do.

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He made believers out of us.
He made no promises.

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He would be candid when he had to be.

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Nothing was sugar-coated, and so
he was a fantastic teacher in that regard.

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I thought if you’re going to be
around a public figure,

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I mean, here’s the person to be around,
because he admitted

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or suggested to people,
“You don’t know who I am

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and you don’t know why am I doing this,
you have questions about me.”

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And some people did.

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But he, I think, over time overcame them
with his sincerity

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and his just legitimate effort
to make a difference.

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(interviewer)
That was skepticism in Indian country?

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Oh, yes.
I think skepticism because we’ve--

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At the time we didn’t have the,
prior to me going to D.C.,

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‘cause I didn’t see things,
not being there before then,

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I just didn’t know how people interacted,

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tribal delegations of tribal people
with political figures.

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My sense is that it was always
you try to be respectful,

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but you sometimes don’t talk about
what you want to talk about.

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So I think the senator
kind of created an atmosphere

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of “Talk whatever you want to talk about…”