Mazie Hirono: “today I rise to honor the late Mitsuye Endo Tsutsumi on the 80th anniversary of the historic Supreme Court decision in…”

“today I rise to honor the late Mitsuye Endo Tsutsumi on the 80th anniversary of the historic Supreme Court decision in her case Ex parte Endo for her courageous contributions to civil rights. Mitsuye Endo was born on May 10, 1920, in Sacramento, CA. After graduating from Sacramento Senior High School, she attended secretarial school and began a clerical job with the California Department of Employment. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Ms. Endo was fired from her State civil service job due to her race. She joined a lawsuit challenging California's wrongful termination of civil servants with Japanese ancestry, beginning her fight against the unjust treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II. After Executive Order 9066 was signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Mitsuye Endo and over 120,000 other Japanese Americans were forcibly removed and incarcerated in desolate camps in the interior of the country. They were incarcerated behind barbed wire and armed guards under the pretense that they posed a threat to national security on the basis of their race. Ms. Endo and her family were incarcerated for 3 years, first at Tule Lake, CA, and later at Topaz, UT, both euphemistically referred to as ``Relocation Centers.'' Mitsuye Endo stood up for what she knew was right and filed a lawsuit challenging her incarceration in July 1942.…”