![]() To top it off, her brother had served in the Army. Endo was the lead plaintiff in a Supreme Court case that successfully challenged mass internment of American citizens during World War II.Įndo had never visited Japan, had attended a Sacramento public school and was a Methodist. (Utah State Historical Society via The New York Times) In an image provided by the Utah State Historical Society, Mitsuye leaves the Central Utah Relocation Center in Topaz in 1945. In a stack of 100 or so responses, one stood out. In looking for the ideal plaintiff to represent the group, he distributed a questionnaire to internees. In the 1940s, the family lived and worked in one of the country’s largest and most vibrant Japantowns, a section of Sacramento with 3,400 residents and hundreds of businesses.Īfter the forced evacuation of Japanese Americans, the Japanese American Citizens League, a national group, hired James Purcell, a San Francisco lawyer, to put together a case that would challenge the government and shutter the 10 detention camps it had opened. Her father was a salesman in a grocery store, her mother a homemaker. Mitsuye Maureen Endo was born on May 10, 1920, in Sacramento, the second of four children of Jinshiro and Shima (Ota) Endo, Japanese immigrants. ![]() ![]() Yet Endo, an unassuming woman, would never seek the spotlight, and by the time of the ruling she had never set foot in court. 18, 1944, that the government could not detain citizens who were loyal to the United States. In Endo’s case - ex parte Mitsuye Endo - the court unanimously ruled on Dec. United States, in which the justices upheld the restrictions placed on Japanese Americans. Three similar Supreme Court cases failed, most notably Korematsu v. Supreme Court case to successfully challenge Japanese incarceration during World War II. “We were given a piece of paper saying we were suspended because we were of Japanese ancestry,” Endo said in the only interview she ever gave, to John Tateishi, for his book “And Justice for All: An Oral History of the Japanese American Detention Camps” (1984).īy then President Franklin Roosevelt had signed Executive Order 9066, ordering the internment of about 120,000 Japanese Americans in camps throughout the country.Įndo, who was interned with her family, would go on to become the chief plaintiff in the only U.S. Their attending Buddhist schools and their ability to read and write Japanese only raised suspicions further. Mitsuye Endo, a 22-year-old typist with the Department of Motor Vehicles, dutifully answered the questions, and that spring she was fired, along with dozens of other Nisei, or second-generation Japanese Americans, who worked for the state.Īlthough born in the United States, Nisei were accused of holding Japanese citizenship as well, a sign to many Americans of potential disloyalty. In reaching that conclusion, we do not come to the underlying constitutional issues which have been argued.Anti-Japanese sentiment was high, and the survey, with its accusatory tone, seemed bent on portraying workers as untrustworthy. Her petition for a writ of habeas corpus alleges that she is a loyal and law-abiding citizen of the United States, that no charge has been made against her, that she is being unlawfully detained, and that she is confined in the Relocation Center under armed guard and held there against her will…įirst. We are of the view that Mitsuye Endo should be given her liberty. On February 19, 1942, the President promulgated Executive Order No. It need be only briefly recapitulated here. The history of the evacuation of Japanese aliens and citizens of Japanese ancestry from the Pacific coastal regions, following the Japanese attack on our Naval Base at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and the declaration of war against Japan on December 8, 1941, 55 Stat. JUSTICE DOUGLAS delivered the opinion of the Court… ![]()
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