Miné Ōkubo
Artist Miné Ōkubo created more than 2,000 sketches while incarcerated during World War II. Her memoir, Citizen 13660, became one of the most important firsthand accounts of the Japanese American incarceration.
Civil Rights & Activism
Gannenmono
They were called the Gannenmono, the “people of the first year.” They came seeking a better life in Hawaiʻi. Instead, many encountered broken promises, brutal working conditions, and a labor system that punished workers for trying to leave.
Takahashi v. California Fish and Game Commission
California blocked him from citizenship. Then it tried to take away his right to fish. When Torao Takahashi challenged the law, his case reached the U.S. Supreme Court and became a landmark victory for civil rights.
Evacuation Claims Act
They were welcome to file a claim. Compensation was another matter. Although the Evacuation Claims Act offered reimbursement for wartime property losses, many Japanese Americans recovered only a small fraction of what they had lost.
Gordon Hirabayashi
Gordon Hirabayashi refused curfew and removal orders and turned himself in to force a legal challenge in 1942. When the government wouldn’t take him to prison, he hitchhiked. He believed the Constitution would prove him right.
George Takei
Before the final frontier, there was barbed wire. George Takei’s story traces a path from incarceration camps to Star Trek and a lifetime of advocacy.
Fujii V. California
The California Supreme Court struck down the Alien Land Law in Fujii v. California (1952), nearly 40 years after the state first barred Japanese immigrants from owning land through laws rooted in race.
A.L. Wirin
Born in Russia to a Jewish family, A. L. Wirin became one of the fiercest legal defenders of Japanese American civil rights, helping challenge California’s alien land and discriminatory fishing laws in landmark Supreme Court cases.
Mitsuye Endo
After California fired Mitsuye Endo in 1942, she became the lead plaintiff in a case challenging the government’s incarceration of Japanese Americans. When officials later offered to release her if she dropped the fight, she refused. It kept her in camp for two extra years.