was a Japanese

civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...

activist. In spite of social and legal barriers, he directly challenged three major barriers against Asians in the United States: citizenship, joining a profession, and owning land.

Biography

Yamashita was born in

Yawatahama, Ehime is a city located in of Ehime Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 31,385 in 15638 households and a population density of 240 persons per km². The total area of the city is . Geography Yawatahama is located in the wes ...

Shikoku is the smallest of the four main islands of Japan. It is long and between wide. It has a population of 3.8 million (, 3.1%). It is south of Honshu and northeast of Kyushu. Shikoku's ancient names include ''Iyo-no-futana-shima'' (), '' ...

, Japan. He immigrated to the United States in the 1890s and, aided by a photographic memory, graduated from Tacoma High School in two years before entering

University of Washington law school The University of Washington School of Law is the law school of the University of Washington, located on the northwest corner of the main campus in Seattle, Washington. The 2023 '' U.S. News & World Report'' law school rankings place Washingto ...

's second graduating class. Yamashita graduated with a law degree from the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

in 1902 and passed the state bar exam with distinction. The

Washington State Supreme Court The Washington Supreme Court is the highest court in the judiciary of the U.S. state of Washington. The court is composed of a chief justice and eight associate justices. Members of the court are elected to six-year terms. Justices must retire ...

, in processing his bar application, issued an order expressing "doubt whether a native of Japan is entitled under naturalization laws to admission to citizenship." Yamashita appealed the order, representing himself before the Washington Supreme Court. Despite Yamashita's 28-page brief having been described as being of "solid professional quality" and containing legal strategies that are "quite original," the Supreme Court's unanimous decision was that he was not eligible to be an American, and therefore could not practice law. This decision was overturned, posthumously, nearly 100 years later on March 1, 2001. In 1922, Yamashita again entered legal waters when he appealed an

alien land law The California Alien Land Law of 1913 (also known as the Webb–Haney Act) prohibited "aliens ineligible for citizenship" from owning agricultural land or possessing long-term leases over it, but permitted leases lasting up to three years. It affe ...

prohibiting Asians from owning property. Washington's attorney general maintained that in order for Japanese people to fit in, their "

marked In linguistics and social sciences, markedness is the state of standing out as nontypical or divergent as opposed to regular or common. In a marked–unmarked relation, one term of an opposition is the broader, dominant one. The dominant defau ...

physical characteristics" would have to be destroyed, that "the

Negro In the English language, ''negro'' is a term historically used to denote persons considered to be of Black African heritage. The word ''negro'' means the color black in both Spanish and in Portuguese, where English took it from. The term can be ...

, the

Indian Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...

and the Chinaman" had already demonstrated assimilation was not possible for them. The

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

heard the case ''

Takuji Yamashita v. Hinkle ''Yamashita v. Hinkle'', 260 U.S. 199 (1922), was a decision of the United States Supreme Court that upheld the constitutionality of the state of Washington's Alien Land Law.. The law prohibited Asians from owning property. Washington's attorne ...

'', but affirmed the prohibition. Washington's Alien Land Law would not be repealed until 1966. Afterwards, Yamashita managed restaurants and hotels in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

and

Bremerton Bremerton is a city in Kitsap County, Washington. The population was 37,729 at the 2010 census and an estimated 41,405 in 2019, making it the largest city on the Kitsap Peninsula. Bremerton is home to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and the Bremerto ...

and an oyster business in Silverdale. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, after the signing of

Executive Order 9066 Executive Order 9066 was a United States presidential executive order signed and issued during World War II by United States president Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942. This order authorized the secretary of war to prescribe certain ...

, Yamashita and his wife were

interned Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...

, losing virtually everything they owned. With his family, he was incarcerated at

Tule Lake Tule Lake ( ) is an intermittent lake covering an area of , long and across, in northeastern Siskiyou County and northwestern Modoc County in California, along the border with Oregon. Geography Tule Lake is fed by the Lost River. The elevat ...

Manzanar Manzanar is the site of one of ten American concentration camps, where more than 120,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II from March 1942 to November 1945. Although it had over 10,000 inmates at its peak, it was one o ...

, and Minidoka before returning to Seattle. In 1957, following the death of his daughter Martha, Yamashita and his wife returned to Japan where he died less than two years later.

References

1874 births 1959 deaths American activists Japanese-American civil rights activists University of Washington School of Law alumni Japanese-American internees Japanese emigrants to the United States People from Yawatahama, Ehime {{AsianAmerican-stub