{"id":596,"date":"2025-04-03T03:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-03T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quietamericans.com\/staging\/?p=596"},"modified":"2025-12-16T17:08:39","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T00:08:39","slug":"california-fires-400","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quietamericans.com\/staging\/california-fires-400\/","title":{"rendered":"California Fires 400 Japanese Americans"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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In 1942, the California DMV fired 400 employees because they were \u201cJapanese.\u201d And you thought your DMV was bad.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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April 3, 1942: California Fires 400 Japanese Americans<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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It happened on April 3, just weeks after President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066<\/a>, authorizing the mass removal of people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast.<\/p>

Without warning, over 400 civil servants \u2014 many of them Nisei (second-generation American-born citizens) \u2014 were handed termination notices by the State of California. Most worked for the Department of Motor Vehicles. Some had served for years. Some had spotless records.<\/p>

None were accused of misconduct. None were given a hearing. Their only crime was ancestry.<\/p>

California Governor Culbert Olson justified it as a wartime precaution. But it wasn\u2019t precaution. It was panic, politics, and prejudice, wrapped in the American flag.<\/p>

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February 19, 1942 \u2014 Franklin Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066, setting in motion the mass incarceration of over 120,000 Japanese Americans during WWII<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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California Governor Culbert Olson<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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Mitsuye Endo with coworker<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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Among those fired was Mitsuye Endo, a soft-spoken clerical worker from Sacramento. She didn\u2019t lead rallies. She didn\u2019t carry a protest sign. But she would go on to do something far more powerful.<\/p>

Mitsuye Endo agreed to become the lead plaintiff in a legal case challenging the government\u2019s wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans. At the time, she was already being held in a camp in Topaz, Utah, one of over 120,000 Japanese Americans removed from their homes and locked up without trial.<\/p>

She was American from every which angle \u2014 Christian, educated, fluent in English, and she couldn\u2019t speak, read, or write Japanese. Yet she was imprisoned with all the others, simply because of her surname.<\/p>

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Her case was meticulously chosen and brought forward by attorney James Purcell<\/a>, who knew that the quiet strength of someone like Endo would be hard for the courts to ignore. And he was right. The case became Ex parte Endo<\/em>. It went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

On December 18, 1944, after years of waiting, the Court ruled<\/a> unanimously in her favor. The government, they said, could not detain a loyal American citizen without cause. The ruling didn\u2019t just restore her rights. It undermined the entire legal basis for the incarceration camps. It cleared the path for their dismantling.<\/p>\n

Mitsuye Endo never sought the spotlight. She rarely gave interviews. She once explained her choice to fight quietly and legally by saying:<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just doing it for the good of everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

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James C. Purcell, credit Kathleen Purcell<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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Mitsuye Endo leaving Topaz, Utah, in 1945<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t
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Mitsuye Endo, a loyal U.S. citizen, fired from the state of California without a cause. Her courage helped bring the camps down.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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Mitsuye Endo\u2019s article after her passing in 2006<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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President Joe Biden awarding Presidential Citizens Medal to Wayne Tsutsumi on behalf of Mitsuye Endo<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t
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She was fired because of who she was.<\/p>

But in standing up \u2014 quietly, courageously \u2014 she helped dismantle a system that violated the Constitution and betrayed the very ideals the U.S. claimed to be fighting for overseas.<\/p>

On April 3, 1942, the State of California tried to erase 400 public servants.<\/p>

But history remembers. Her name was Mitsuye Endo.<\/p>

And in the long story of American injustice, she remains one of its most powerful, most underestimated heroes.<\/p>

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Share this article<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1942, the California DMV fired 400 employees because they were \u201cJapanese.\u201d And you thought your DMV was bad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":597,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[20,248,34,8,6,246,30,33,32,10,245,15],"class_list":["post-596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-aapi-history","tag-civil-rights-activism","tag-dmv","tag-executive-order-9066","tag-japanese-american-history","tag-law-justice","tag-mitsuye-endo","tag-never-forget","tag-quiet-americans","tag-racial-injustice","tag-wartime-incarceration","tag-wwii"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quietamericans.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quietamericans.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quietamericans.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quietamericans.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quietamericans.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596"}],"version-history":[{"count":44,"href":"https:\/\/quietamericans.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6380,"href":"https:\/\/quietamericans.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596\/revisions\/6380"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quietamericans.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quietamericans.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quietamericans.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quietamericans.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}