As a child, Mariko Yamada, MSW '74, remembers standing up for underrepresented students who would get picked on at her public elementary school. Now, 50 years later, she is still fighting for vulnerable populations as the newly elected assemblywoman representing California's 8th Assembly District.

    Yamada grew up in a modest home, one block from public housing in the "Five Points" neighborhood in Denver. She was the youngest of four children born to parents who spent four years in the Manzanar War Relocation camp following the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Before their imprisonment, her parents and siblings were living a quiet life in a community near Los Angeles. But afterwards, she said, everything changed.

    "It was a challenge for them," Yamada said of her parents' struggle after their release. "They were given a train ticket out of California and a couple of hundred dollars to resettle."

    With little money and three children to feed, her parents began to reestablish their lives in Colorado. When Yamada was born in 1950, times were still hard. Her father held various jobs as a dish washer and factory worker before starting a Japanese gardening service. Accompanying her father as he tended to the gardens in Denver's wealthiest communities, Yamada saw inequities at an early age.

    "It was very clear to me what the disparities were between where we lived and where my father went to work," she said. "And even as a child, it did not feel right."

    Yamada was deeply influenced by the civil rights movement. She remembers the television scenes of the courageous civil rights workers being swept away by the force of water from fire hoses and the images from "blood Sunday" when 600 civil rights marchers in Selma were attacked with clubs, tear gas and dogs by state and local police. She was 12 years old when the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his speech at the Lincoln Memorial.

    The times influenced Yamada so much that she too tried to be a peacemaker. She even "took a few lumps" when she stood up for the handful of white students who attended her mostly African-American elementary school. She also learned collaboration. Yamada offered help with school work to some of her neighborhood's toughest students. In return, a respect and friendship evolved as she became known as the "highest yellow" in the group.

    Yamada's mother also played a big role in her life and career choice. During Yamada's youth, her mother suffered from what Yamada now believes would be considered "profound depression."

    "Having survived the war with three small children, then displaced and imprisoned for four years and later having another baby, it took a serious toll on her," Yamada said. "In the 50s, recognition and treatment for post-partum depression was not on the forefront. There were no food stamps, no social services; we had to make do. She just could not function very well, particularly after I was born."

    Her family's struggles led Yamada to pursue a psychology degree at the University of Colorado, Boulder, with a focus on Asian-American mental health.

    "My joke is I studied psychology to save my family but realized that it would not work, so I pursued social work to try to save the world instead," she said laughing.

    The truth is Yamada would never have pursued her social work degree if it weren't for a group of radical social workers she met in 1972 at an Asian-American mental health conference in San Francisco. Many in the group were alumni of the USC School of Social Work. They were forward-thinking individuals aware of society's inequities and committed to making a difference. They recruited her to apply to the graduate program.

    Professor Bruce Jansson has fond memories of his former student. He was pleased when he learned Yamada was running for the California State Assembly and hosted a fund-raising party for her at his home. Ironically, Yamada's thesis analyzed why Asian Americans had seldom been elected to political offices.

    "She has lived a life of social reform and commitment to social justice from the time I first knew her to the present," Jansson said.

    While doing clinical hours during her two years at USC, Yamada realized she could help families and individuals on a case-by-case basis but grew frustrated that she could not help more.

    "I would see people come into a community center looking for help, and I would see the casualties of the system," Yamada said. "I would see families and individuals who were beaten down by regulations, rules and policies that worked against their self-sufficiency.

    "It made me really angry to see how families can be destroyed by rules and regulations that don't make sense."

    While pursuing her degree, Yamada became the student at the School of Social Work to get an internship in a legislator's office. She worked for Assemblyman Alex Garcia. It was then she realized as a politician, she could help people on larger scales.

    "Once you get that political junkie bug, it's hard to get rid of it," she jokes.

    Before being elected to the California State Assembly, she was chair of the Yolo County Board of Supervisors and helped oversee the allocation of health and human services resources in the county.

    Yamada said although she is in politics, "I will always be a social worker." Her work is in alignment with social work principles and practices, and she continues to fight for the underdogs.

    The underrepresented groups Yamada is currently focused on include the aging, adult services and people with disabilities.

    "The explosion of autism and Alzheimer's diagnoses says we are going to have hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dependent adults that are going to need to be supported," she said. "We are on the cusp of multi-generational services needs, and I don't think we've found a way to integrate those services very well."

    As for Yamada saving the world, it may take some time but the fight will continue.