PAINFUL LESSONS
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PAGE 3
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JUSTICE
Four years older than his sister, Michi, Minoru Yasui also attended the University of Oregon as an undergraduate and continued as a law school student. When he finished in 1939 at 23 years old, he was Oregon’s first Japanese-American law school graduate. Though his graduation broke one racial barrier, many others confronted him as he sought employment. He was eventually forced to seek work elsewhere, moving to Chicago.
After the outbreak of war he rushed back to the Northwest to report to his Army regiment. He had been commissioned into the Army reserves in 1937 after completing the ROTC. However when he reported to Fort Vancouver, he was told he was not to be activated as no “American” soldier could be expect to follow a “Jap.”
Faced with an uncertain future, Minoru set up a legal office to support the approximately 3,000 residents of Japantown, a neighborhood near downtown Portland. In a large step towards the imposition of exclusion order that would wipe away Japantowns and Little Tokyos throughout the West Coast and commence the internment, the federal government in March, 1942, issued a curfew for all persons of Japanese ancestry, restricting them to their houses after 8 PM.
Minoru, confronted with a facially discriminatory law, took action. On March 28, 1942, after sending a letter to the local FBI office and U.S. Attorney announcing his intent to violate the curfew he felt was unconstitutional, Min walked into a Portland police station on Second Avenue and demanded arrest.
For nine months, Minoru was confined to a cell in the Multnomah county jail. Denied contact with anyone but his lawyer, denounced for treason in the press, he learned of the round up of his family and 110,000 other people as he waited for his case to work its way through the legal system. At one stage, his citizenship was stripped away by a federal court even as the same court concluded that the curfew was unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court eventually restored his citizenship.
After the outbreak of war he rushed back to the Northwest to report to his Army regiment. He had been commissioned into the Army reserves in 1937 after completing the ROTC. However when he reported to Fort Vancouver, he was told he was not to be activated as no “American” soldier could be expect to follow a “Jap.”
Faced with an uncertain future, Minoru set up a legal office to support the approximately 3,000 residents of Japantown, a neighborhood near downtown Portland. In a large step towards the imposition of exclusion order that would wipe away Japantowns and Little Tokyos throughout the West Coast and commence the internment, the federal government in March, 1942, issued a curfew for all persons of Japanese ancestry, restricting them to their houses after 8 PM.
Minoru, confronted with a facially discriminatory law, took action. On March 28, 1942, after sending a letter to the local FBI office and U.S. Attorney announcing his intent to violate the curfew he felt was unconstitutional, Min walked into a Portland police station on Second Avenue and demanded arrest.
For nine months, Minoru was confined to a cell in the Multnomah county jail. Denied contact with anyone but his lawyer, denounced for treason in the press, he learned of the round up of his family and 110,000 other people as he waited for his case to work its way through the legal system. At one stage, his citizenship was stripped away by a federal court even as the same court concluded that the curfew was unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court eventually restored his citizenship.