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74 Committee. "I've always had the luxury of doing good guy work," Ishimaru said. "It's been work that I both enjoyed doing and I thought was the right thing." And "good guy work" it certainly has been. Over the course of the last four decades, he's had his hand in some of the country's most momentous milestones. He worked on history-changing laws like the Fair Housing Amendments Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Civil Rights Acts of 1990 and 1991. He led hearings on age discrimination in the workplace and voting rights, and he testified before Congress on the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, the Paycheck Fairness Act, and more. One of Ishimaru's biggest accomplishments, at least according to his longtime peer and colleague Wade Henderson, is the role he played in the Civil Liberties Act of 1998, also known as the Japanese-American Redress Bill. "at bill could not have become law without Stuart's engagement," said Henderson, who served as President of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights for nearly two full decades before retiring in 2016. "I know that as a point of fact." As a third-generation Asian-American, Ishimaru knows first-hand what discrimination looks like. And given his family's history— which has long served as an inspiration for his career and professional pursuits, it's no surprise he played such a strong role in the bill's passage. "ree of my four grandparents came to this country as immigrants," Ishimaru said. "ey were Japanese nationals. ey lived in California. Pearl Harbor was bombed, and everyone on the West Coast who was of Japanese ancestry was rounded up, put in camps, and later incarcerated in the interior of the U.S. in internment camps." His grandparents and parents were among those interned. "Even though it didn't happen to me, it happened to my family and to my community," Ishimaru said. "at was an experience that was formative on a certain level, and it had a big impact on me, more probably than I knew. Knowing that could happen to people and to communities based on their ethnic origin or their race was extremely troubling." Ishimaru says it was his family's story, as well as " just growing up in the '60s," that led him down the civil rights road. "Growing up in the '60s, it wasn't that far removed from the end of World War II, and seeing the changes that were going on, seeing the civil rights protests, knowing that things that they were talking about at those protests, and linking it back to how my family and my community was treated less than 20 years before, was really striking," he said. "at, I think, led me to an interest in doing civil rights work." And since graduating from George Washington University Law School in 1983, that's just the work he's done. "Stuart has always affiliated with institutions, individuals, organizations that have promoted civil and human rights," Henderson said. "Even when he works in federal agencies like the CFPB, he brings with him, I think, a commitment to fulfilling the mission of CFPB as he defines it—a positive vision that we share. America is rich and full of opportunities that are made real by the From left to right the CFPB's Rhonda Johnson, Senior Advisor Office of Minority and Women Inclusion; Daphne Felten-Green, Deputy Director, Office of Minority and Women Inclusion; and Stuart Ishimaru, Assistant Director Office of Equal Opportunity and Fairness and Head of the Office of Minority and Women Inclusion.

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