Summary: N ever Give Up! Minoru Yasui and the Fight for Justice (Part One) tells the story of Minoru (Min) Yasui, son of Japanese immigrant parents, born in 1916 and raised in the farming community of Hood River, Oregon. He was the first Japanese American attorney in Oregon, and during World War II, he initiated the first legal test challenging the forced removal from the West Coast and subsequent incarceration of over 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry in U.S. concentration camps. The film documents his and his family’s experiences during the war and his nine months in solitary confinement awaiting his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. This version of the film also contains a brief summary of Part Two – Yasui’s postwar life, including his ongoing defense of the human and civil rights of all people; his leadership role in the Japanese American Redress movement, the reopening of his legal case, and the posthumous award of a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015.
On March 28, 1942, a young lawyer stepped out of his office in Portland, Oregon at 8:00 p.m. He was Minoru Yasui, son of immigrant Japanese parents, born and raised in the farming community of Hood River, the first Japanese American a orney in Oregon. His act was a viola on of the discriminatory curfew proclaimed by General John L. DeWi , head of the Western Defense Command, who ordered all German aliens, all Italian aliens, and all persons of Japanese ancestry to be in their homes between the hours of 8:oo p.m. and 6:00 a.m. Yasui himself tells the story:
I walked for over three hours and during that period, I got tired of walking up and down Third Avenue so I did approach a police officer and being a smart aleck and being an attorney, I pulled out the Proclamation and pointed out that I was in violation of a military proclamation, I had my birth certificate with me and that proved I was a person of Japanese ancestry, and I asked the officer to arrest me and the officer said “Look, you’ll get in trouble, go on, run along home.”
Since that did not suit his purposes, he marched into the Police Headquarters and insisted that the desk sergeant arrest him so that he could ini ate his cons tu onal test case against the government. He wanted a court ruling on the military orders that led to the forced removal from the West Coast and imprisonment in U.S. concentra on camps of over 120,000 Japanese Americans.
Young Min Yasui spent the weekend in the drunk tank. His a orney bailed him out of jail and he returned to his office to try to help the Japanese American community prepare for so-called evacua on which took place all along the West Coast that spring. Min Yasui and over 3,000 other Japanese Americans in the Portland area, were first imprisoned in a livestock exposi on center, which they called the Portland Assembly Center. In the fall, they were all shipped off to the Minidoka concentra on camp in the high desert of Idaho. In November, military guards escorted Min Yasui back to Portland for his trial before the U.S. District Court, which he lost. He spent nine months in solitary confinement in the Multnomah County Jail awai ng his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which also ruled against him. But he never gave up the fight for jus ce. Upon release from the Minidoka concentra on camp, he con nued to fight for the civil and human rights of all people.
On November 24, 2015 President Barak Obama awarded a posthumous Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the na on, to Minoru Yasui, saying:
Min never stopped believing in the promise of his country, never stopped fighting for equality and justice for all. … Today Min’s legacy has never been more important. It is a call to our national conscience, a reminder of our enduring obligation to be the land of the free, the home of the brave, an America worthy of his sacrifice.
In 2016, the Oregon state legislature unanimously designated March 28 as Minoru Yasui Day in Oregon in perpetuity. In honor of that day, N ever Give Up! Minoru Yasui and the Fight for Justice (Part One) will premiere on March 28, 2017 in the Oregon state capital, Salem, being the 75t h anniversary of Min Yasui’s act of resistance during World War II.
The co-directors of the film, Holly Yasui (Min Yasui’s youngest daughter) and Will Dooli le, decided to release Part One of the film in 2017 in order to contribute to the discussions surrounding the Japanese American World War II experience and the issues of immigra on, racial profiling, due process of law.
Never Give Up! Minoru Yasui and the Fight for Justice (Part One) is a stand-alone film that runs 55 minutes, narrated by George Takei, music by Shoji Kameda, featuring recorded speeches and interviews by Min Yasui and comments by his youngest brother Homer Yasui, his youngest sister Yuka Yasui Fujikura, and his a orney, Peggy Nagae. This version of the film uses historical archival material to document Min Yasui’s childhood and youth, through the end of World War II, and contains a summary of Part Two, including his life as a civil rights ac vist in Denver, Colorado and the na onal movement for redress – an official apology and repara ons for the injus ces perpetrated against Japanese Americans during World War II; and his legacy in the ongoing struggle for human and civil rights today.