When he was 9 years old, Robert Takeo Matsui turned to one of his friends in downtown Sacramento and said, "You know, I really don't like being Japanese." Matsui hated that he and his parents had been forced into internment camps along with 120,000 other Japanese Americans branded "enemy aliens" by the U.S. government during World War II.

And he hated "the teasing, the characterization of Asian Americans with buck teeth and slanted eyes that he would run into in the post-World War II era," recalled Norman Mineta, his longtime friend and colleague in Congress.

The Sacramento boy who once said he didn't like being Japanese grew up to be one of the most influential Japanese Americans in U.S. history and a champion of all those who suffered as he did.

Matsui successfully fought for a formal apology and cash reparations for Japanese American internees and defended underdogs regardless of race, ethnicity or gender.

"Bob had a long history of working with civil rights groups, and he was very conscientious about creating opportunities for women and minorities," Mineta, now U.S. secretary of transportation, said in a telephone interview Sunday.

Matsui had a rare ability to build bridges between Japanese Americans and other racial and ethnic groups, said his old friends, Sacramento civil rights leaders Jerry and Dorothy Enomoto.

Jerry Enomoto was chair of the national Japanese American Citizens League's redress committee when the Japanese reparations movement picked up steam in the mid-1980s. He said he and Matsui took heat for pushing the JACL to play a more active role in the battle for civil rights, particularly for African Americans.

Some older Japanese American leaders said " 'It's not our problem,' which stuck in my craw," Enomoto recalled.

Dorothy Enomoto, who is African American, said before she married Jerry, she asked Matsui if they'd be accepted by Sacramento's insular Japanese American community.

"He said, 'Those of us who love you will accept you, and those who don't, we won't worry about.' "

Matsui regularly met with African American leaders in Sacramento. At an NAACP banquet in November 1989, Matsui ticked off injustices against African Americans, noting black university enrollment was at its lowest point in a decade, and that 369 young black men had been been murdered in southeast Washington, D.C., so far that year.

"What does all this mean to us as American citizens?" he asked the hushed crowd.

Matsui emerged as a pioneer willing to incur the wrath of local Asian American leaders who felt he was devoting too much energy to other groups at their expense.

Maeley Tom, a prominent Chinese American politician and member of the state Personnel Board, said, "quite frankly, he helped me understand that we cannot just fight for our own causes as Asian Americans - we need to pursue goals and issues that impact all Americans."

In 1971, Matsui became the first Japanese American elected to the Sacramento City Council. In 1978, Mineta persuaded him to set his sights higher, donating $100 to Matsui's as yet nonexistent campaign for Congress.

Matsui became one of the first Japanese Americans in Congress in 1978, the same year the national JACL passed a resolution seeking an apology and cash reparations for Japanese Americans interned during World War II.

At first, Matsui thought there was no chance of getting cash reparations through Congress. But he and Mineta successfully authored a bill establishing a commission on wartime relocation and internment of civilians.

By the time Matsui testified before Congress in 1986, he argued that making cash reparations was the only way to vindicate Japanese Americans who had lived under a cloud of shame for 40 years.

His voice breaking, Matsui tearfully described how his parents - U.S. citizens born here - lost their family produce business and Sacramento home when they were sent to the desolate Tule Lake internment camp.

"My parents' citizenship and loyalty suddenly meant nothing," he said.

Matsui and Mineta - himself an internee - authored the historic bill that in 1988 gave $20,000 apiece in cash reparations and an apology to the surviving Japanese American internees.

"It's a very emotional day for us," Matsui said when President Reagan signed the bill into law. "At the same time it's a very important day for the country. It demonstrates that we as a nation do believe in the Constitution and the rights of individuals."

Mineta called Matsui a quiet but forceful lawmaker who "didn't have to pound the table to get his point across."

But his reserved demeanor in Congress contrasted starkly with his days as a rabid Cal football fan, said lifelong friend Alan Oshima, his classmate at UC Berkeley.