Coram Nobis and the Continuum of Activism

              National Japanese American Historical Society
Trie Roots of Mtj Struggle for
Peace and Justice
By Rev. S. Michael Yasutake
Edited by Ken Kaji and Shizue Seigel
Rev. S. Michael Yasutake is the executive director of the Interfaith Prisoners of
Conscience Project (sponsored by the
National Council of the Churches of
Christ, USA). This organization is dedicated to mobilizing religious and
community support for releasing political prisoners in U.S. prisons and
monitoring prisons for human rights violations. He is also chair of the
U.S.-Japan Committee for Racial
Justice, which is committed to combating
human rights violations in both Japan
and the U.S. Throughout his lengthy career, Rev. Yasutake has been active in
numerous organizations devoted to
peace and justice. In this article, he
traces the roots of his commitment to his
early experiences as an American of
Japanese ancestry.
Iy present vocation of organizing
work for justice and peace seems
to me a logical outcome of my heritage
and background as a person of
Japanese ancestry and a Nisei who
lived through the World War II internment era. Combating racism and
human rights violations committed by
the superpower nations of the U.S. and
Japan is my modest contribution to the
cause of world peace.
From the ages of 3 to 7 I was raised
by my grandparents in rural Fukuoka
prefecture until I rejoined my parents
in Seattle. For many years, I felt ill-at-
ease in both the Japanese American
community and in white society. In
I he actions and policies of the
U.S. government led to the mass
incarceration of people of Japanese
ancestry... Much later, it was was
found that many wartime decisions
were based on deceits and the
suppression of truth.
My work with the political prisoners
of today convinces me that such
deceits were not an isolated
aberration of American history.
retrospect, I realize that this sense of
what might be termed culture shock
helps me identify with those viewed by
the majority people of the U.S. as
aliens, strangers and the marginalized.
After finishing high school, I returned to Japan for a year and a half,
from 1939-1940. I saw first-hand the
way the militaristic climate in Japan
was being fed by propagandistic mass
media, which was filled with projections of Japan as the leading nation of
the world. A year later, I was back in
the U.S. when Pearl Harbor was
bombed. I witnessed an outpouring of
war propaganda by the U.S. media
against both Japan and U.S. residents
of Japanese ancestry. As a young man
who was acquainted in
depth with both
cultures, the distortions and
exaggerations on both sides did not
ring true to me. I could see quite clearly that both governments manipulated
the truth and exploited situations to
their own advantage.
My family was soon incarcerated in
a U.S. concentration camp [as were
120,000 others of Japanese ancestry]
during World War II. My father, our
family's primary means of support,
had been arrested earlier, taken away
from our family and sent to a separate
Department of Justice camp.
After a year and a half in the
Minidoka camp in Idaho, I was released to attend college at the
University of Cincinnati. A federal
agent came to query me at the school
on my loyalty to the U.S. government
and my willingness as a draft-age male
to enlist in the military. I was faced
with a difficult and painful decision. I
realized that as a conscientious objector against all wars, I had to take a
stand. For refusing the draft, I was expelled from college. Thus, I gained my
first appreciation of the personal cost
of confronting authority.
I didn't give up my goals, however. I
completed college at Boston University
Yasutake (cont'd on p. 23)
Nikkei Heritage • Spring 1999    9