Mitsuye Endo (1920-2006) was detained for being of Japanese descent during World War II. She became the lead plaintiff in a Supreme Court case which was uniquely successful in challenging the mass imprisonment of Japanese Americans.
Mitsuye Endo (1920-2006) was detained for being of Japanese descent during World War II. She became the lead plaintiff in a Supreme Court case which was uniquely successful in challenging the mass imprisonment of Japanese Americans.
You’re probably familiar with rebels without a cause, but what about rebels with a cause? This month on Womanica, we’re talking about women who broke rules that were meant to be broken. From the “Godmother of Title IX” Bernice Sandler, to the most prominent figure of the People Power Revolution, Corazon Aquino, to the “Queen of Civil Rights” Ruby Hurley, these women took major risks to upend the status quo and create meaningful change.
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Hello! From Wonder Media Network, I’m Jenny Kaplan. And this is Womanica.
This month, we’re talking about Rebels WITH a cause: women who broke rules that were meant to be broken. These women took major risks to upend the status quo and create meaningful change.
Today, we’re talking about a woman who was detained for being of Japanese descent during World War II. She became the lead plaintiff in a Supreme Court case which was uniquely successful in challenging the mass imprisonment of Japanese Americans.
Let’s talk about Mitsuye Endo.
Mitsuye was born on May 10, 1920 in Sacramento, California. She was the second of four children. And she was considered Nisei, a term for American-born children of Japanese immigrants.
After she graduated from Sacramento Senior High School, Mitsuye attended secretarial school, which led to a job at the California Department of Motor Vehicles. Nothing about her life was particularly extraordinary.
That changed in December of 1941. That month Japan launched a surprise attack on the Pearl Harbor naval base near Honolulu, Hawaii. After Pearl Harbor, anti-Japanese sentiment rose and suspicion of Japanese people was not only common among fellow Americans, but became a federal stance.
Within a month Mitsuye, along with other government employees of Japanese descent, were mailed a questionnaire. It asked whether these employees spoke Japanese, if they had visited Japan, and whether they belonged to any Japanese organizations. She answered the survey honestly and that spring, she and other Japanese-American employees were fired from their positions.
This kind of explicitly prejudiced practice would not be acceptable today. But at the time, Mitsuye was informed that her expulsion from the job was tied directly to her ancestry.
Mitsuye was frustrated by the unjust circumstances of her firing. So, she reached out to the Japanese American Citizens League. With their assistance and the hiring of a lawyer named James Purcell, Mitsuye and her colleagues challenged their firing. Unfortunately, before any decision could be reached, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 which authorized the incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans.
In the wake of this order, Mitsuye and her family were forced to leave their home. They were first taken to a temporary prison camp called the Sacramento Assembly Center and then to the Tule Lake Internment Camp. “Internment” is a word you’ll often see when talking about these camps. But make no mistake, they were incarceration camps. The camps were surrounded by barbed wire fences and guarded barracks.
In the course of his work, one day the lawyer James Purcell visited one of the camps where Japanese Americans were detained. He was appalled by the unlivable conditions – James’s father worked at Folsom Prison. And what he witnessed at the camp was worse.
So, James started working on a case to challenge the legality of the prison camps, with the goal of shutting them down. Similar to the initial questionnaire Mitsuye had taken, James distributed a survey to detainees containing personal questions in search of the ideal plaintiff. In reviewing the responses, he noticed one in particular.
Mitsuye had never traveled to Japan, she had attended a public school, rather than a Buddhist school that many Nisei attended, and she was a Protestant. To add to her ideal “American” profile, her brother had served in the U.S. army. James and the lawyers working on the case felt that Mitsuye represented the symbolic loyal American. Of course, it’s alarming to think that anyone should have to prove they’re American enough, in order to not be imprisoned. But that’s what James needed to highlight in order to make the case. At first, Mitsuye was hesitant to be the plaintiff. But she agreed to it with the notion that it would serve the greater good.
In July of 1942, James filed a writ of habeas corpus which argued that detaining people without trial or charges and solely on the basis of nationality was unconstitutional. The District Court took a year to decide the case, and eventually denied Mitsuye’s freedom. The government offered her release with the condition that she did not return to the West Coast. Mitsuye denied the offer and remained detained. She risked her own safety to continue to fight the case.
At this point, Mitsuye and her immediate relatives had been forcibly moved again to the Central Utah Relocation Center, also known as Topaz. At Topaz, food was limited and armed guards loomed overhead.
At last, in October of 1944, the case made it to the Supreme Court. The Court heard oral arguments in Mitsuye’s case and in December, they ruled unanimously in Mitsuye’s favor. They described her as a “concededly loyal” citizen.
Ultimately, the court opinion found that the government could not detain people who were deemed to be loyal. But, the decision fell short of condemning or defining the internment policy as racial discrimination. In interesting timing, the day before the Supreme Court ruling, the Roosevelt Administration announced that Japanese Americans could start leaving the camps in January 1945. Mitsuye finally left the camp in May of 1945.
Unfortunately, release from the camps did not mean that Japanese Americans could simply return to society as normal. Prejudice and discrimination were still very widespread. Mitsuye had initially been intent on returning home to California, but she no longer felt safe or welcome on the West Coast. She moved to Chicago instead. There, she found a job, got married, and had three kids. She didn’t talk much about her important contributions to history, or her experiences in the camps.
On April 14, 2006, Mitsuye died of cancer at the age of 85. Her case continues to be relevant and has been invoked in other Supreme Court cases related to the detention of individuals.
All month, we’re talking about rebels with a cause. For more information, find us on Facebook and Instagram @womanicapodcast.
Special thanks to Liz Kaplan, my favorite sister and co-creator.
Talk to you tomorrow!