Passage of the United States Naturalization Act restricts citizenship to “free white persons.” The act is not fully repealed until 1952.

The passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act stops all immigration from China. In response, employers begin to recruit Japanese laborers to fill the void.

Masuo immigrates to the United States, settling in Hood River Oregon. He works as a laborer, mastering English and studying the systems of law and business in his new home.

With his brother Renichi Fujimoto, Masuo opens his first store in Hood River. Their business grows steadily over the years, despite rising anti-Asian and nativist sentiment, demonstrated in the 1919 founding of the Hood River Anti-Asiatic Association. These sentiments are exploited and promoted by community leaders and a white-mainstream press.

Shidzuyo Miyake, a college-educated teacher is able to immigrate to the U.S. via the 1907 Gentlemen’s Agreement. She marries Masuo and teaches flower arranging, tea ceremony, homemaking and western cultural practices to help Japanese women adjust to American customs.

In Ozawa v. United States, the Supreme Court upholds the Naturalization Act of 1790 and rules that foreign-born Asian immigrants are legally excluded from naturalized citizenship on the basis of race.

The Oregon Alien Land Law prohibits land ownership by non-citizens. Masuo begins to purchase land in the names of his children, who are U.S. citizens.

The Immigration Act of 1924 restricted the number of immigrants permitted to enter the United States by establishing a national origins quota. This quota allowed visas for only two percent of each nationality’s population in the U.S. based on the 1890 census. The law also entirely barred immigration from Asian countries.

Min Yasui is the first sibling to enroll at UO, where he studies Law. Explore Min’s story here. 

Michi is a freshman, joining Min at UO, where he has completed his Bachelor of Arts degree and is working towards a Bachelor of Laws. Michi will go on to major in English. Explore Michi’s story here.

Shu (Robert) arrives on campus in Fall 1941, at the beginning of Michi’s senior year. Explore Shu’s story here. 

As a community leader, Masuo is arrested five days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He is transferred between various military prison sites before being incarcerated in a Justice Department camp in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Despite a complete lack of evidence, he is declared a “potentially dangerous” enemy alien.

At the beginning of the war, his arrest is interpreted by many in the non-Japanese community as proof of disloyalty. As a result, the family’s reputation in Hood River is largely destroyed.

At the point of his arrest, Masuo owns or has a stake in twelve farms totaling roughly 750 acres in addition to his thriving store.  The government closes the store and freezes the family’s assets.  Continued taxation without income forces the family to sell off property and liquidate the store.

Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, allows forced removal and incarceration of “all persons of Japanese ancestry.”

Along with other West Coast Japanese Americans, Yasui family members Shidzuyo, Homer, Yuka, Tsuyoshi (Ray), his pregnant wife, Mikie, and Renichi and Matsuyo Fujimoto face forced removal from Hood River to incarceration camps.

The Yasuis were first detained at Pinedale Assembly Center in Fresno, California. The camp held mostly Japanese Americans from the Pacific Northwest. Tsuyoshi (Ray) remembered the intense heat, and recalled in a 2003 oral history interview that when he got off the train, “man, it’s like a furnace, just blazing hot. The sun is a ball of fire up there, and there’s no shade.”

The family is moved to the Tule Lake incarceration camp in California, where Mikie gives birth to daughter Joan, one of the first babies born in captivity.

Learn the history of Tule Lake here. 

The War Relocation Authority grants Homer permission to go to Colorado to attend University of Denver, in large thanks to the advocacy of The American Friends Service Committee based in Philadelphia.

Now sixteen years old, Yuka is released from Tule Lake and permitted to join Homer in Denver, Colorado, where he has been living since his release in 1942. She enters South Denver High as a sophomore. Shidzuyo is left behind in Tule Lake and not permitted to leave.

By spring, Shidzuyo is released from Tule Lake, and heads to Montana to join Tsuyoshi’s (Ray’s) family, who have been released from Tule Lake to work harvesting sugar beets. Later that spring, she is finally cleared by the government and allowed to move to Denver to join Yuka, Homer and Michi.

Roku enlists, serving in Japan as part of the U.S. military intelligence service. After the end of the war, he earns an engineering degree at the University of Michigan. 

Later widely condemned, the Hood River Incident occurred on November 29, 1944, when the names of sixteen Nisei servicemen were removed from the county’s “roll of honor.” This act was one of several anti-Japanese measures aimed at discouraging the return of Japanese Americans to the area following World War II.

The Hood River News published a full-page, anti-Japanese American petition written by American Legionnaire Kent Shoemaker. It ran over several issues in February of 1945.

Yuka was the fourth Yasui sibling to enroll at UO in the beginning of winter term in January 1945. Michi and Shu (Robert) had previously fled campus in 1942. Yuka was the first Japanese American student to enroll since 1942 when her siblings Shu and Michi fled campus. Explore Yuka’s story here. 

Five months after the end of the war, Masuo is released from the Santa Fe Justice Department camp and free to join Shidzuyo in Denver.

Passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (also known as the McCarran-Walter Act) eliminates the outright exclusion of immigrants based on race while still introducing a racially biased quota system and new ideological criteria for exclusion. Masuo and Shidzuyo begin to study for their citizenship test, passing in 1952 (Shidzuyo) and 1953 (Masuo). During that time, Masuo teaches civics classes and mentors other Issei to pass their own exams.

The Yasui family placed a high value on education, and each of the siblings set out in their careers to give back to their communities through lives of service.

Min moved to Denver in 1945 and passed the Colorado bar exam. Initially denied admission because of his wartime criminal record, he appealed and won admission. In Denver, he opened a law practice and eventually became Executive Director of Denver’s Human Rights Commission. In the 1970s and 1980s, he helped lead national campaigns seeking government redress and reparations for Japanese Americans due to forced removal and evacuation during WWII. Explore Min’s full story here.

After settling in Denver, Michi became a lifelong teacher in the Denver Public Schools. In 1980, she won the Denver Teacher Award while teaching first grade at Greenlee Elementary School. Her nomination included a scrapbook assembled by appreciative parents, and recommendations submitted by colleagues. It concluded, “Mrs. Ando is a remarkable teacher and an extraordinary human being in every sense…Her warmth and intelligence are felt by all whose lives are touched by her, and she sets a standard to which few others in the teaching profession can hope to aspire.” Explore Michi’s full story here. 

Shu (Robert) attended medical school at Temple University in Philadelphia. During his residency in Williamsport, PA, he met his future wife Phyllis. They settled and raised a family in Williamsport, and Shu spent fifty years as a respected surgeon in the community. He served active duty as a medical officer in the U.S. Army from 1955-1957 in Germany. “Dr. Bob,” as he was known, loved sports, and served as a physician to visiting international teams competing in the Little League World Series. Explore Shu’s full story here.

After receiving her bachelor’s degree at UO, Yuka went on to earn a Master of Nursing Degree from Yale University and a Master of Public Health Degree from the University of Pittsburgh. She began her career as a nurse in the Grace-New Haven Hospital in New Haven, CT. She was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to study at the Institute of Public Health in Japan, where she met her husband, Toshio Fujikura.

Yuka was a dedicated public health nurse who spent decades volunteering to improve health outcomes for all.  Her faith inspired her to support local and international charities. She was an active member of the Japanese American Citizens League and often made presentations to schools, the media and at civic events about her family’s experiences during WWII, using every opportunity to promote equal justice. An avid traveler, she led tour groups to Japan, bridging the gap and understanding between cultures. Explore Yuka’s full story here.