[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 9 (Wednesday, February 2, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E155]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     IN MEMORY OF K. PATRICK OKURA

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. MICHAEL M. HONDA

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, February 2, 2005

  Mr. HONDA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to remember and honor the life 
of K. Patrick Okura. Pat, as he was known to all who were fortunate 
enough to know him, led a long and accomplished career in the field of 
mental health and civil rights advocacy. My condolences go out to, 
Lily, his wife and life long partner who stood at Pat's side for more 
than 60 years.
  Pat's own life spanned more than ninety years and was certainly 
intertwined with the historic events of those years.
  Pat went to UCLA where he earned his a degree in psychology in the 
early 1930s. At UCLA he also played varsity baseball, which was unheard 
of for an Asian American at that time. He faced harsh protest from his 
teammates the entire two years he played at UCLA, but he became the 
first Asian American to play and letter in a major sport at a West 
Coast college or university.
  Pat and his wife Lily had been married for just two months in 
December, 1941 when our government gave them just four days to pack 
only what they could carry and sent them to live in an internment camp.
  While in an assembly center at the Santa Anita race track, Pat and 
Lily were able to avoid going to an internment camp when Father 
Flanagan of Boys' Town convinced federal officials that his orphanage 
in Nebraska needed someone with Pat's psychology background. Pat worked 
at Boys' Town for 18 years, providing counseling and administering 
psychological tests.
  After Boys' Town, Pat was appointed chief probation officer of the 
Douglas County Juvenile Court and helped establish a separate juvenile 
court system for the state of Nebraska. The Nebraska Psychiatric 
Institute later recruited Okura to head up the Community Psychiatric 
Services division, where he became the state planner for mental health 
and launched five successful mental health centers in the state.
  In 1970, Pat's work in Nebraska prompted then-National Institute of 
Mental Health, NIMH, Director Bertram Brown, to recruit Pat to become 
his executive assistant in Washington, DC. Pat saw this position as 
giving him an opportunity to help minorities and children and address 
delinquency. Pat worked at NIMH for 17 years, retiring in 1985.
  In 1988, when the U.S. government paid the Okuras and all other 
former internment camp prisoners $20,000 each, Pat and Lily used that 
money along with personal savings to start the Okura Mental Health 
Leadership Foundation, which helps Asian Pacific Americans overcome 
racial, language and other barriers.
  Pat's lifetime involvement with the Japanese American Citizens 
League, JACL, was filled with major accomplishments as well.
  After joining the JACL at the age of 25, Pat moved up through the 
leadership ranks, gradually assuming greater and greater responsibility 
in this civil rights organization. In 1937, at the age of 26, he served 
as the Executive Director of the Los Angeles JACL Office. Pat founded 
the Omaha JACL Chapter in 1947.
  By 1962 he became JACL National President and remained in office for 
three years. As JACL national president, Pat had the JACL march with 
Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1963, resisting opposition from some JACL 
members, who did not want to get involved.
  Even into his 90s, Pat was an active member of the Washington, DC 
chapter of the JACL.
  Mr. Speaker, I have only touched on the eventful and accomplished 
life of K. Patrick Okura, but clearly this was a man whose life 
represented a large part of our collective history.

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