Bill Text: CA SJR12 | 2015-2016 | Regular Session | Chaptered

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Bill Title: Mitsuye Endo Tsutsumi: Presidential Medal of Freedom nomination.

Spectrum: Slight Partisan Bill (Democrat 9-3)

Status: (Passed) 2015-08-28 - Chaptered by Secretary of State. Res. Chapter 150, Statutes of 2015. [SJR12 Detail]

Download: California-2015-SJR12-Chaptered.html

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BILL NUMBER: SJR 12	CHAPTERED
	BILL TEXT

	RESOLUTION CHAPTER  150
	FILED WITH SECRETARY OF STATE  AUGUST 28, 2015
	ADOPTED IN SENATE  JULY 2, 2015
	ADOPTED IN ASSEMBLY  AUGUST 27, 2015

INTRODUCED BY   Senator Pan
   (Principal coauthors: Senators Liu and Nguyen)
   (Principal coauthors: Assembly Members Bonta, Chang, Chau, Chiu,
Chu, Kim, Low, Ting, and Williams)

                        JUNE 2, 2015

   Relative to Mitsuye Endo Tsutsumi.


	LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


   SJR 12, Pan. Mitsuye Endo Tsutsumi: Presidential Medal of Freedom
nomination.
   This measure would state the Legislature's support of the
nomination of Mitsuye Endo Tsutsumi for the Presidential Medal of
Freedom.



   WHEREAS, Mitsuye Endo was among 120,000 Japanese Americans
residing on the west coast of the United States who were forced from
their homes in the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor; and
   WHEREAS, Pursuant to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Executive
Order No. 9066, Mitsuye Endo and her family were uprooted from their
Sacramento home and incarcerated first in the Tule Lake War
Relocation Camp in California, and later in the Topaz War Relocation
Camp in Utah. Altogether, Endo spent nearly three years surrounded by
barbed wire and guard towers in some of the most remote and desolate
areas of the United States; and
   WHEREAS, Based on Mitsuye Endo's background as a loyal American
citizen, a Nisei (second-generation Japanese American) from
Sacramento who was Christian, had never been to Japan, and had a
brother serving in the United States Army, Endo was selected as the
plaintiff for a test case challenging Japanese internment; and
   WHEREAS, Endo's case, Ex parte Mitsuye Endo (1944) 323 U.S. 283,
was a habeas corpus case challenging the authority of Executive Order
No. 9066 and the War Relocation Authority to detain a "concededly
loyal" American citizen without charges. The case was first filed on
July 13, 1942, while Endo was incarcerated at Tule Lake, denied in
1943, and appealed to the United States Supreme Court in 1944; and
   WHEREAS, While her case was proceeding, Endo rejected an offer
from the government for conditional release, choosing instead to
remain incarcerated to allow her case to continue through the court
system; and
   WHEREAS, On December 18, 1944, the United States Supreme Court
ruled 9-0 in favor of Endo, stating that "A citizen who is concededly
loyal presents no problem of espionage or sabotage. Loyalty is a
matter of the heart and mind not of race, creed, or color. He who is
loyal is by definition not a spy or a saboteur. When the power to
detain is derived from the power to protect the war effort against
espionage and sabotage, detention which has no relationship to that
objective is unauthorized"; and
   WHEREAS, On December 17, 1944, the Roosevelt administration, which
had been alerted in advance of the court's ruling, rescinded
Executive Order No. 9066; and
   WHEREAS, Beginning on January 2, 1945, only two weeks after the
Endo decision, Japanese Americans held in the camps were released and
able to return to the west coast of the United States. With the
exception of Tule Lake, the incarceration camps began closing shortly
thereafter; and
   WHEREAS, It has been noted that the United States Supreme Court's
decision in Endo created significant tension with the court's
decision in Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu v. United States (1944) 323
U.S. 214, which was decided the same day. In short, the court held in
Korematsu that the government could criminally punish someone for
refusing to be illegally imprisoned; and
   WHEREAS, Mitsuye Endo was the only female plaintiff in the four
United States Supreme Court cases that challenged the legality of
military orders selectively affecting over 120,000 Japanese Americans
during World War II; and
   WHEREAS, The three remaining plaintiffs included Fred Korematsu,
who challenged the exclusion order; Gordon Hirabayashi, who
challenged the exclusion and curfew orders; and Minoru Yasui, who
challenged the curfew order; and
   WHEREAS, Although two of these plaintiffs, Fred Korematsu and
Gordon Hirabayashi, were awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom,
Endo, who brought the only victorious legal challenge filed by a
Japanese American during World War II, has not; and
   WHEREAS, Endo is an authentic American heroine who made a
principled, courageous, and historic stand and voluntarily sacrificed
her own freedom to secure the rights of all Japanese Americans who
were forcibly removed from their homes and confined in camps without
the benefit of due process; now, therefore, be it
   Resolved by the Senate and the Assembly of the State of
California, jointly, That the Legislature supports the nomination of
Mitsuye Endo Tsutsumi for the Presidential Medal of Freedom; and be
it further
   Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate transmit copies of this
resolution to the President and Vice President of the United States,
to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, to the Majority
Leader of the Senate, to each Senator and Representative from
California in the Congress of the United States, and to the author
for appropriate distribution.