The WWII defiance of Min Yasui (OR)
BY JOHN SOWELL
JUNE 17, 2016 2:26 PM
... Minoru Yasui, a Hood River native, was in his third year of his Portland law practice when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order on Feb. 19, 1942, that imposed a curfew and eventually led to the forced incarceration of more than 120,000 Japanese Americans.
Yasui, a graduate of the University of Oregon Law School and the first Oregon attorney of Japanese descent, believed the law was unconstitutional. He intentionally broke the curfew and ordered Portland police to arrest him. He was jailed, convicted and later sent to the Minidoka Internment Camp north of Twin Falls.
Yasui fought valiantly for his cause with virtually no support from anyone in power, said Matt Stringer, the center’s executive director. His conviction stood for decades before being overturned by a federal court in Oregon in 1986, the .. year he died ...
“In today’s world, where we are so concerned with homeland security, how do we take information from our past and carry it to the future so that we do not make mistakes? How do we make sure Donald Trump doesn’t imprison 120,000 Muslims? How do we ensure that the Mexican high school valedictorian who moved here when she was 3 because her mom was getting away from an abusive husband but lives in fear every day that she will be kicked out of the country gets to stay? How do we protect homosexuals who are murdered in the space they consider the safest?” ...
http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/article84450467.html
