Asian America 1910-1930: Minoru Yasui, the Constitutionality of Internment

Minoru Yasui became the University of Oregon's first Japanese let alone Asian American law school graduate in 1939 and prior to that a Bachelors with Phi Beta Kappa honors in 1937. After his bachelors Yasui was granted a position a second lieutenant in the Army's Infantry Reserve in 1937 once he completed a Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program in the university. He managed to pass the Oregon Bar making him the state's first Japanese American lawyer. Lack of job opportunities in Oregon forced Yasui to accept take job in Chicago during 1940 as a consular attaché for the Consulate General of Japan. After President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, Lt. General John L. DeWitt, Military Commander of the Western Defense Command, put into place the Public Proclamation No. 3.2the following month later. This would order imposed travel restrictions and curfew for German, Italian, and Japanese nationals in addition to American citizens of Japanese descent. However, American citizens of German or Italian ancestry weren’t included in the proclamation instigating Yasui to challenge these restrictions since he felt they were unconstitutional and racist. March 28, 1942 began the first of many attempts to challenge Executive Order 9066 when Yasui broke curfew violating Public Proclamation No. 3. Yasui’s trial on June 12, 1942 was overseen by Judge James Alger Fee in the U.S. District Court of Oregon. Judge Fee ruled that the proclamation applied to American citizens, including those of Japanese ancestry, was inherently unconstitutional. Unfortunately in the eyes of Judge Fee Yasui was not a United States citizen as a result of his work for the Japanese Consulate in Chicago, and Yasui was stripped of his United States citizenship by Judge Fee. Yasui was found guilty as charged under the premise that he was now an “alien.” Yasui successful appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court who reversed the decision of Judge Fee effectively restoring Minoru Yasui as a United States citizen. In a turn of events they also found the lower court mistaken in ruling the curfew order unconstitutional as applied to United States citizens. The Supreme Court upheld the Judge Fee’s conviction of Min and after his release from jail in 1943, he was sent to an internment camp at Minidoka, Idaho until 1944. Upon his return home, Yasui faced difficulty continuing his career. As a result of his criminal conviction Min was refused admission to the Colorado bar in 1945 despite the fact that he received higher scores on the exam than many of the candidates that sat for the bar examination the same year. Yasui sought aide from the American Civil Liberties Union, and with Samuel L. Menin to represent him in court Yasui successfully appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court allowing Yasui to practice law in Colorado as of January 1946. After his death on November 12, 1986 the U.S. Congress passed the Civil Liberties Act of1988; the President apologized for internment and each surviving internee was paid 20,000 dollars. Yasui is important in Pop Culture because his actions in his youth led up to his eventual victory championing the rights of all ethnic American citizens. He represented an Asian American who wasn’t docile, an Asian American who didn’t fit the model minority concept of a harmless servile worker. When the subject of the model minority is spoken figures like Yasui are examples of why it is just a stereotype, Yasui can be considered one of the earliest progenitors of Yellow Power and the Asian American Civil Rights as he has taken on court cases that predate those of the 1950s. When WWII is taught in school internment is noted as being a mistake done by the government, interment is noted as being unconstitutional since not one single Japanese American was found guilty of a Federal Conviction. Cinema portrays internment has a dreary and harsh existence for relatively loyal Americans instead of the foreign enemy who was suspect during the war, for all of this we have Minoru Yasui to thank.