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Short Stuff: Mitsuye Endo · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to short stuff. I'm Josh, and there's
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Chuck and there's Jerry over there. So this short stuff
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: because it's shorter, that's right. And this is one of
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: my favorite kinds of short stuff, kind of tailor made
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: for a short stuff when you have a little bit
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: of information about a great person in history who never
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: got their due, but there's not a lot much more
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: known about them, right, so you can talk about her
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: in this case and twelve minutes or so her and him. Yeah, good,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: it'll be thirteen minutes. That's right. And this is the
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: story on the her part of mitsu yi Indo. Nicely done,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: I think so. I'm pretty sure too, Okay. Mitsu Yi
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Endo was born in Sacramento. Wait where was she born Sacramento, California?
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Which is an important point here, Chuck, because from being
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: born in Sacramento, California, in he was an American citizen,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: natural born. That's right. She was one of four kids
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: to Japanese immigrants. Um, and got a job working for
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: the government. She was went to secretary school and then
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: worked as a secretary for the Department of Employment. Full
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: blooded born American working for the state government. Right, um,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: and she was working for the state government in December
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: of nineteen one when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: the sentiment towards the Japanese in America turned sharply at
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: that point, um so much so that I believe the
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: next year UM, the President at the time, Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: issued an executive order called Executive Order nine oh six six,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: which we have recorded on before. That's right, we did
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: a whole episode on this. But Executive Order nine oh
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: six six basically said, anyone of Italian American, German American
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: or Japanese American ancestry is basically fair game to have
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: their constitutional and civil rights utterly stripped from them during
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: this crisis of wartime, just because we're not sure if
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: they might do something hinky to disrupt America's wartime effort. Right. So,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: within just a few months of December seventh, nineteen UM,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: the United States dismissed all Japanese American state employees, which
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: included Mitsui Indo. UM. Hundreds of people affected, and sixty
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: three of those people were brave enough to get together
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: and challenge the firings, and they had a little backing
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: by the Japanese American Citizens League, and they got together
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: and they hired a very cool dude uh an attorney
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: named James C. Purcell, Yeah, who was not at all Japanese,
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: had no Japanese ancestry, and him whatsoever. He just saw
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: that this was not right. He saw something that wasn't right,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: and he decided to take on this case. Um. And
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: so the being summarily fired because you are of Japanese ancestry,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: not a Japanese immigrant, but like an American born person
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: of Japanese ancestry. That's bad enough. But under this executive order,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: in this kind of wartime hysteria, things got way worse
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: for Japanese Americans, especially ones on the West Coast, because
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: part of this executive order was basically like, hey, military,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: do what you need to do. In the military said, well,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: we figured we should probably clear the West coast of
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: anybody like that. We're going to forcibly remove Japanese Americans
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: from their homes and eventually into internment camps. And that's
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: the episode we did. Yeah, Japanese in tournament. It was
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: a good one. So they're basically incarcerated. Um, she and
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: her family, And we should point out that her brother
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: was serving in the U. S. Army. That's a huge point.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: It is huge point. Um. Her family was moved. She
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: was moved a couple of times. They were at Tuley
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Lake at one point, which is a very famous uh
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: internment camp that I think is still around as like
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: a living museum. Um. But at what eventually she was
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: separated from her family. They started by trying to keep
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: families together, and then they just stopped doing that and
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: people like mitsui Endo ended up being separated from her family,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: forced into a prison. It was a detainment detention center.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: If that sounds familiar, Yeah, exactly. Um. So Purcel's on
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: the case. He's uh gotta be in his bonnet to
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: help these people out, and he's trying to build a case.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: And what he needs is to find somebody, just one
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: person who will step forward and who was brave enough
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: to challenge their incarceration through habeas corpus petition, which is
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: to say that basically, hey, I shouldn't be um incarcerated
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: and I officially legally challenging my incarceration, right it means
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: bring me the body. It's part of the magna carta
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: I think, where it's basically says, bring the prisoner to me,
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: the judge, and let me decide if they're being held
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: illegally or not. We did an episode on that too,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, we definitely did something at
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: some point on habeas corpus so. So mitsu Endo was
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: a perfect test case or challenge case for this to
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: pur sell because she um, she was a Methodist, she
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: was a citizen and natural born citizen of the US,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: her brother was in the army, and she'd never even
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: been to Japan in her entire life. But there's a
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: big part of this, like, despite her just perfect um presentation,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: for a case like this, you have to convince her too.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: And part of Japanese culture is you don't stand out,
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: number one. You certainly don't stand out by making trouble
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: for the authorities. So it was extraordinarily brave when she
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: finally agreed to be the case for all Japanese Americans
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: who are being unconstitutionally treated by the US. Yeah, and
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: that that was what did it. When he said, hey, listen,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: this is not for you, this is for everyone, and um,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: still slightly reluctant, she agreed and saw the bigger picture. Uh,
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: and we're going to talk about the rest of our
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: story and Purcell's right after this. M okay, chuck so
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: um Mitsu yi Endo has agreed to have her case
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: taken by Purcell on to basically challenge all of Executive
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Order nine oh six six in the constitutionality of it, right,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: And I think in pretty short order this case, um
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: was people in government knew what was going on on
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: the federal level, and they found out who she was
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: and what her story was, and I think early on
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: they were kind of like, oh, yeah, this probably doesn't
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: look good for us. Wait, she's a methodist. Oh god, uh,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: this doesn't look great for us. So you know what,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: let her out. Um, she'll be fine, and just just
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: let her out because she I think we probably did
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: the wrong thing here. But she said no, and I
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: guess also at Purcell's urging, she stayed and turned um
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: and said, this is a societal issue. There's something much
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: larger at play, and I want to I want to
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: carry this like all the way to the top in
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: the court system. Yeah, because the government said if you
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: just drop this and go away, we'll let you out specifically,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: and she said, nope, that's pretty pretty cool. Man. Yeah,
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: so um, she said no, and they kept uh, they
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: kept um the case up all the way to the
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court. Supreme Court heard it and just ruled unanimously
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: that no, this is totally unconstitutional. What's happened to her? Um,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: It wasn't so much that the Supreme Court case that um,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: their decision in the end O case, that it closed
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: the Japanese Internament camps, Japanese American Internament camps. That wasn't
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: the what happened. What happened was it produced the pressure
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: that convinced Roosevelt to shut down the Internament camps. Yeah,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: this is fairly cowardly, I think. Um. In the end,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: they did the quote unquote right thing. But it was
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: only because this was looming. Apparently there was inside word
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: and they got tipped off that like, hey, the Supreme
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: Court is gonna come down against you, Roosevelt basically. Uh.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: And so the day after I'm sorry, the day before
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: the Supreme Court handed down their decision, Um, Roosevelt came
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: out and they said, oh, you know what, we're we're
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: just gonna end this Internament thing right here, right. And
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: then the next day the Supreme Court made like made
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: public their decision and end which was Yeah, cowardly, I
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: think it's a pretty good word about it. But there's
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: no way of getting around that. It was the end
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: O case that was the pressure that closed the internment camps,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: and so much so that, Um, there's a law professor
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: named Amanda Tyler who's an expert on the case. She
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: said that, Um, she's interviewed survivors of the Japanese internment
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: camp Japanese American internment camp. Sorry, um, who considered Purcell
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: as they refer to him as the man who set
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: us free? Pretty amazing. It is pretty amazing. And Endo
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: herself is very much regarded as a hero from this too.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: But she kept such a low profile that she um,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: her own daughter didn't even know the impact that she'd
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: had until her daughter was well into her twenties. Yeah.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: She eventually made her way to Chicago, Um, after all
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: this washed over. She worked as a secretary for the
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Mayor's Committee on Race Relations. A couple of years after that,
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: married a man named Kenneth Sutsumi, and she had met
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: him in an internment camp. Like tell me this is
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: in a movie waiting to be made. They went on
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: to have three kids and she kept a pretty low
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: profile after that. Like you said, UM was not a braggart, Um,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: but it was. It was a big deal. And I
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: think as like this has come out more in recent years. UM,
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: she's definitely like gotten her due in certain corners. I
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: wish the story was out wider. That's one reason we're
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: doing this. But she lived in Chicago for the rest
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: of her life. Eventually, very sadly died of cancer in
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: two thousand and six, and so Shell kept practicing law
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: right into his eighties. As a matter of fact. Yeah,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: that's great. UM. So this is this is noteworthy still today.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: Is that UM law Professor man of Tyler points out
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: because there's an ongoing debate over whether the executive, the
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: president and the executive branch has ultimately absolute power when
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: it comes to matters of national security, especially during wartime UM,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: or if the courts still have of a check as
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: the Constitution suggests that they do, over the executive's actions
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: no matter what it is or no matter what the
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: situation is, that the executive can't be absolutely right, no
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: matter what and unquestioned by the court. Yes, And I
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: think by constitution suggest you mean the Constitution clearly lays
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: out in demands right, Well, it depends on your interpretation, right,
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: So I guess that's it for short Stuff again, Chuck,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: nice selection. I think mitsuji Endo needs a parade every
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: year and her honor agreed. Thanks a lot for joining us.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Hope you enjoyed it. Until next time, Short Stuff Audios
• 11:42
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