U.S.A.
December 7, 2015
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 13
Opponent of Japanese Americans’ WWII treatment honored
By Heather Hollingsworth
PRESIDENTIAL MEDAL OF FREEDOM.
President Barack Obama shakes hands with Laurie
Yasui, center, accepting the Presidential Medal of
Freedom for her father, the late civil-rights leader
Minoru Yasui, during a ceremony in the East Room
of the White House in Washington. Yasui challenged
the constitutionality of a military curfew order during
World War II on the grounds of racial discrimination,
and spent many months in solitary confinement
during the legal battle. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
The Associated Press
ANSAS CITY, Mo. — Relatives of
a civil-rights attorney who last
month
was
honored
posthumously with a Presidential Medal
of Freedom for challenging the treatment
of Japanese Americans during World War
II are alarmed by recent opposition to
Syrian refugees resettling in the U.S.
Laurie Yasui, 64, of Kansas City, said
her father, Minoru Yasui, would be “up on
his soap box, stomping his feet, and
shaking his fist” because of the political
response to the Paris attacks. She and
other relatives were at the White House to
witness the honoring of her father and 16
others, including baseball greats Willie
Mays and the late Yogi Berra, with the
nation’s highest civilian award.
Lawmakers and more than half of U.S.
governors have raised questions about the
vetting of Syrian refugees, with some
expressing
concerns
that
Islamic
extremists may try to take advantage of
the process to enter the country. Several
governors have said they want to stop
Syrian refugees from entering their states.
And David Bowers, the mayor of Roanoke,
Virginia, invoked the mass detention of
Japanese Americans during World War II
in comments about keeping Syrian
refugees out of the region.
“I was just aghast,” Laurie Yasui said,
noting that Japanese internment has come
to be viewed as a “dark moment in history.”
K
Bowers apologized after calls for his
resignation.
After Pearl Harbor, a fearful nation
cracked down on Japanese Americans and
Yasui’s law practice focused largely on
helping them transfer assets and prepare
for the internment camps. Yasui had
wanted to fight for the U.S., but was
rejected when he tried to enlist. Outraged,
he deliberately violated a military curfew
placed on Japanese Americans and
demanded to be arrested in 1942. He spent
nine months in solitary confinement, with
the Supreme Court ultimately ruling
against him.
“The thing of it was, he loved this
country,” Laurie Yasui said. “He thought
that this country was the greatest country
on earth and made a point to say that this
is the only country where you could stand
up and object to the government and the
president and be allowed to make that
objection without being killed or
destroyed.”
In the years that followed the war, he
crisscrossed the country demanding —
ultimately successfully — that the U.S.
pay reparations to former Japanese
internees and their heirs. The nation also
formally apologized for the forced
internment, and when Yasui died in 1986
at the age of 70, he had successfully
convinced a trial court to vacate his 1942
arrest.
A
case
challenging
the
constitutionality of his conviction was
pending before a federal appeals court.
“He would have been very proud to
receive this,” Laurie Yasui said of the
medal. “I think it would have said volumes
to him about the state of the union today
that he is being recognized by the
government that he fought so hard to
defend.”
But Chani Hawkins, his 31-year-old
granddaughter, also of Kansas City, said
the family’s excitement is tempered by the
nation’s response to the Syrian refugees.
She noted that after the internment camps
closed, many states sought to keep the
newly released Japanese Americans from
resettling within their borders. Yasui
settled in Colorado, one of the few places
where the former internees were
welcomed.
“Again,” Hawkins said, “we are at this
kind of crossroad where fear and hysteria
is playing into the decisions that are being
made.”
See related story on page 11.
Sia video features child karate master with Olympic dreams
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MEDIUM
level: Medium
#12548
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Instructions: Fill in the grid so that the digits 1
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Solution to
last week’s
puzzle
Puzzle #26485 (Easy)
All solutions available at
<www.sudoku.com>.
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talents” — has a quick sweet smile when she isn’t
screaming.
Her kicks, turns, and punches in the air are part of kata
forms that are like choreography in the Japanese
defensive martial art of karate. Kata competition is
separate from combat matches, which are also part of the
sport.
When doing kata, you slip into a focused character,
Mahiro says, by imagining “a far more powerful enemy.”
She lost a contest just once, when she was in
kindergarten. She wept, she recalls, so painful was it to
lose. The trick is to practice as though you are in
competition, and compete as though you are in practice,
she said.
And she practices with a ferocious frenzy, working out
every day after school with her older brother. She was four
years old when she started karate, inspired by her
brother, then five years old, who began lessons with their
father, a truck driver.
The moves must be powerful, precise, and sharp, and
getting better never ends, you can keep working at one
detail after another, she added, sounding almost like a
guru.
When asked about the appeal of karate, her reply is
rather simple — being able to make friends.
“You get to play with them,” such as tag, she said.
Her parents say they are grateful to karate because it
teaches a child discipline, hard work, the resilience to
perform under pressure, and manners. Bowing and
cheerful replies, as well as constant practice and respect
to hierarchy, exemplified in the belt system signifying
skill levels, are integral to karate.
Her teacher, Takako Kikuchi, acknowledged that some
purists may disapprove of a young woman’s participation
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GRADE-SCHOOL GURU. Mahiro Takano, center, a three-time Ja-
pan karate champion in her age group, found making a music video was
quite fun, and agreed she would do it again, especially if Justin Bieber or
Taylor Swift offers. Mahiro’s video shoot with singer Sia in a Tokyo suburb
took about a week. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
in a music video.
“But this little girl did not compromise in the music
video. She is doing her best, delivering, correctly and
thoroughly, one by one, the moves that she knows, with
utmost concentration. There is nothing false about it,
nothing made up. She is truly telling the world the way of
karate,” Kikuchi said proudly.
Mahiro has already been chosen as an official
“ambassador” for karate for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The
sport is vying to be chosen for the games. Never mind that,
even if that happens, Mahiro may not be old enough to
compete. The age cutoff is still undecided.
“I want to go to the Olympics,” she says, “and win a gold
medal.”
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