Mitsuye Endo, 1920-2006
Mitsuye Endo, 1920-2006
Mitsuye Endo was born in Sacramento to first generation Japanese immigrants. When Endo was 22 years old working for the California Department of Motor Vehicles, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Within weeks of the attack, the California State Personnel Board moved to dismiss all Japanese American state employees. Of the up to 500 Japanese Americans dismissed, Endo was one of the 63 employees who challenged the firings with the help of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL). President Franklin D. Roosevelt had signed the Executive Order 9066, ordering the internment of about 120,000 Japanese Americans in camps throughout the country. Endo and her family were interned at the Tule Lake concentration camp near the Oregon border, one of ten detention camps. The JACL hired James Purcell, a San Francisco lawyer, who selected Endo as the plaintiff to challenge the incarceration because having been raised a Methodist and with a brother on active duty in the US Army, represented the best example of a model citizen. Endo went on to become the chief plaintiff in the only US Supreme Court case to successfully challenge Japanese incarceration during WWII. The Justices unanimously ruled on Dec. 18, 1944 that the government could not detain citizens who were loyal to the U.S.
W Challenge 
Mitsuye Endo, 1920-2006
Mitsuye Endo was born in Sacramento to first generation Japanese immigrants. When Endo was 22 years old working for the California Department of Motor Vehicles, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Within weeks of the attack, the California State Personnel Board moved to dismiss all Japanese American state employees. Of the up to 500 Japanese Americans dismissed, Endo was one of the 63 employees who challenged the firings with the help of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL). President Franklin D. Roosevelt had signed the Executive Order 9066, ordering the internment of about 120,000 Japanese Americans in camps throughout the country. Endo and her family were interned at the Tule Lake concentration camp near the Oregon border, one of ten detention camps. The JACL hired James Purcell, a San Francisco lawyer, who selected Endo as the plaintiff to challenge the incarceration because having been raised a Methodist and with a brother on active duty in the US Army, represented the best example of a model citizen. Endo went on to become the chief plaintiff in the only US Supreme Court case to successfully challenge Japanese incarceration during WWII. The Justices unanimously ruled on Dec. 18, 1944 that the government could not detain citizens who were loyal to the U.S.