Mitsuye Endo - A Quiet Hero Who Fought for Justice
Civil Rights Activist
Born: May 10, 1920, Sacramento, California, U.S.A.
Died: April 14, 2006, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.
Mitsuye Endo was a Japanese American woman whose legal fight helped end the unjust internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
Born in 1920 in Sacramento, California, her parents were immigrants from Japan, and she was the second of four children. Like many children of Japanese Americans, called Nisei, Mitsuye grew up attending public school and later went to secretarial school. After finishing school, she worked a clerical job for the California Department of Motor Vehicles.
But everything changed for Mitsuye on December 7, 1941. That day, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, a U.S. naval base in Hawaii. After the attack, many people in the United States became suspicious and afraid of Japanese Americans. Because of this, the California government fired all Japanese American state employees, including Mitsuye. This was unfair because they were American citizens who had done nothing wrong.
With help from the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) and a lawyer named James C. Purcell from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Mitsuye decided to fight her firing in court. However, before the case could be solved, the government forced more than 120,000 Japanese Americans to leave their homes and live in prison-like camps. This was called "internment," and it was ordered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The government said it was necessary for safety during the war, but in truth, it was based on suspicion and fear.
Mitsuye and her family were first sent to the Sacramento Assembly Center and later to the Tule Lake internment camp in California. The camps were surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by soldiers. The living conditions were very poor, some people were even kept in old horse stables. After visiting one of these camps, lawyer Purcell decided to challenge the government’s actions in court. He wanted to prove that holding loyal American citizens in camps without cause was illegal.
Purcell chose Mitsuye to be the lead plaintiff in the case. Mitsuye was a good choice because she was a U.S. citizen, had a brother serving in the army, was Christian, and had never even been to Japan. At first, Mitsuye was hesitant about taking on such a big challenge, but she agreed because she believed it was the right thing to do. She later said, “I agreed to do it at that moment, because they said it’s for the good of everybody, and so I said, well if that’s it, I’ll go ahead and do it.”
On July 12, 1942, Purcell filed a petition in federal court challenging the internment. The court listened to the case but didn’t make a decision until July 1943, when they denied it without giving any reason. Soon after, the government offered to let Mitsuye leave the camp if she dropped her lawsuit. But Mitsuye refused, choosing to stay in the camp so she could continue to fight for justice.
The case was appealed and eventually reached the Supreme Court. On December 18, 1944, the Court made a unanimous decision in Mitsuye Endo’s favor. The justices ruled that the government could not keep a loyal American citizen imprisoned without any charges. Justice William O. Douglas wrote that Mitsuye should be freed because the government itself admitted she was loyal.
The day before the ruling, President Roosevelt’s administration announced that Japanese Americans could start returning to the West Coast in January 1945. Mitsuye’s case helped end the internment camps and allowed thousands of Japanese Americans to go home.
After the war, Mitsuye moved to Chicago to live with her sister. She took a job as a secretary for the Mayor’s Committee on Race Relations. In 1947, she married Kenneth Tsutsumi, a man she had met while in the camps, and they had three children together. Mitsuye lived a quiet life and rarely talked about her important role in history. In fact, her own daughter did not know about her mother’s fight for justice until she was an adult.
Mitsuye Endo Tsutsumi passed away from cancer in 2006. Though she kept her story private, her courage and strength helped protect the rights of thousands of Japanese Americans during a very difficult time in U.S. history. She showed how one person’s bravery can make a big difference for many people.
References:
“Mitsuye Endo (U.S. National Park Service).” National Parks Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, www.nps.gov/people/mitsuye-endo.htm.
“Mitsuye Endo.” Request Rejected, exhibits.stanford.edu/riseup/feature/mitsuye-endo.
Varner, Natasha. “Mitsuye Endo: The Woman behind the Landmark Supreme Court Case - Densho: Japanese American Incarceration and Japanese Internment.” Densho, 24 Mar. 2025,densho.org/catalyst/mitsuye-endo.
Keywords:
Civil Rights, Justice, Courage, Perseverance, Freedom, Responsibility, Challenge Injustices, Stand Up for Your Beliefs
Explore ARTEFFECT projects about this Unsung Hero:
Mitsuye Endo artworks