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The intersection of First and Judge John Aiso Streets in Little Tokyo opened as Rose Ochi Square on Tuesday, honoring the pioneering Japanese-American civil rights leader.
Ochi’s widower Tom Ochi and lobbyist Darlene Kuba, who proposed the inauguration of the intersection in Ochi’s honor, joined Councilor Kevin de León at the ceremony, who presented the motion to inaugurate the square.
“Rose Ochi was without a doubt an Angeleno and a Japanese-American civil rights activist,” said de León. “While she passed away on December 13th, 2020 last year, her legacy is embedded in the history of our city as well as our state and our nation.”
Ochi was born on December 15, 1938 in Boyle Heights. When she was 3 years old, she and her family were transferred to the Santa Anita Detention Center on the orders of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who approved the detention of more than 120,000 Japanese people.
They lived in Santa Anita for six months before being transferred to Rohwer camp in Arkansas.
Her family returned to Los Angeles after the war. Ochi graduated from UCLA in 1959 and became a secondary school teacher.
The civil rights efforts of the 1960s inspired Ochi to enter law school to put himself in a position to have a greater impact on the underserved.
After graduating from Loyola Law School in 1972, she accepted a Reginald Heber Fellowship at USC’s Western Center on Law and Poverty, where she co-counsel in the landmark Serrano vs. Priest case from the 1970s. the California funding system forced a fairer education.
The case led Ochi to pursue a career in public policy and the legal profession.
Ochi joined Mayor Tom Bradley’s administration as director of the city’s criminal justice office, developed the Los Angeles Police Department’s guidelines on the use of force, and advised Bradley on the Blake Consent Decree, resulting in increased recruitment of women and color officials LAPD led.
Ochi played a pivotal role in efforts to get the 1988 Civil Liberties Act passed, which granted pecuniary payments to internment camp survivors, and declared the Owens Valley Manzanar Camp a National Historic Site.
At the federal level, Ochi was a member of the Immigration and Refugee Policy Commission in the Carter Administration and Assistant Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy and Assistant Attorney General in the Clinton Administration.
She was a member of the Los Angeles Police Commission from August 15, 2001 to June 30, 2005 and then the first female executive director of the California Forensic Science Institute at Cal State University in Los Angeles.
Ochi was both the first Asian American woman to serve as Assistant Attorney General and a member of the Los Angeles Police Commission.
Ochi “led a remarkable life, a life of discernment, honor and grace, dignity and elegance,” said de León. “Our nation is better for its sacrifices and contributions. And the city of angels is proud to call her a cherished daughter. “
She died on December 13, two days before her 82nd birthday.
Small intersection in Tokyo in honor of the civil rights leader was last changed: May 4, 2021 by
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