Min Yasui lives on in Obama Presidential Center

Yasui became nationally recognized when he intentionally violated a military-enforced curfew discriminating against Japanese-Americans and Japanese immigrants on March 28, 1942. Since 2016, the state of Oregon recognizes the day as Minoru Yasui Day. The violation led to Yasui’s arrest and subsequent incarceration, after which he was moved into a Japanese internment camp. Yasui moved to Denver once he was released.

What followed was an impactful career as chairman of the Japanese American Citizens League and executive director of the Commission on Community Relations. He passed away in 1986 and is buried in his hometown of Hood River. In 2015, former President Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously for his work.

“Power of Words” is featured in the Obama Presidential Center Museum as a four-story, 88-foot tall digital installation. The piece explores how language can be a catalyst for social change through means of film, speeches, music, and other forms of storytelling. Yasui’s featured footage comes from a 1986 guest lecture he gave to students of an Asian American Studies course at the University of California, San Diego — one of the first courses of its kind offered in the U.S.

“But this is the United States of America, founded in liberty, dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal,” Yasui said in the featured footage. “And this was happening in our country. As an American citizen, as a lawyer, I felt that we owed at least the obligation as a citizen to tell our government they are wrong. That is the sacred duty of every citizen, because what is done to the least of us can be done to all of us. I knew that we had to protest it.”

Decades after his career began, he continues to inspire civic engagement and equity. The Minoru Yasui Legacy Project was founded by his daughter, Holly Yasui, and former lead attorney, Peggy Nagae, to “defend civil rights and advance social justice.” The University of Oregon’s School of Law, where he was an alumnus, also facilitates a fellowship in honor or Yasui.

More information on the “Power of Words” installation can be found on the Obama Foundation website. Yasui’s legacy carries on in the Obama Presidential Center as an inspiration to all Americans to fight for civil liberties and justice for all.