Born OTD, 1892, Michio Itō reshaped dance in Europe and America by blending Japanese aesthetics with Western movement.
After Pearl Harbor, he was sent through incarceration camps and forced back to Japan.
A pioneer of American modern dance was rejected because of his ancestry.
Before Hirabayashi, Yasui, Korematsu, and Endo, there was Mary Asaba Ventura.
On April 13, 1942, she became the first documented Japanese American to challenge the wartime curfew in court.
Judge Black denied it two days later, setting a precedent before other cases began.
OTD in 1850, Governor Burnett signed California’s Foreign Miners’ Tax, imposing a crushing monthly fee on non-citizen miners during the Gold Rush.
When white foreign miners protested, California later rewrote the law to exempt any “free white person.”
It wasn’t just taxation.
A. L. Wirin worked on landmark cases involving Korematsu, Yasui, Oyama, and Takahashi, helping dismantle alien land and discriminatory fishing laws.
He received death threats for it.
He kept going. American civil rights are stronger because he did.
quietamericans.com/al-wirin
April 11, 1942: the first issue of the Manzanar Free Press was published inside a U.S. concentration camp.
Produced by incarcerated Japanese Americans under surveillance, it became both a lifeline for the community and a quiet act of resistance.
quietamericans.com/manzanar-free-press
OTD in 1850, A.M. Winn was appointed brigadier general by California’s openly racist first governor Peter Burnett. Winn would later found the Native Sons of the Golden West, an organization that became a major force in anti-Japanese exclusion.
They still exist today.
quietamericans.com/native-sons
On April 9, 1942, the Bataan Death March began. More than 76,000 American and Filipino troops were forced over 60 miles. Thousands died.
It helped justify the removal of 120,000 Japanese Americans.
But they had nothing to do with it.
quietamericans.com/bataan-death-march
They were once labeled “enemy aliens.”
Then the men of the 100th, 442nd, and MIS became some of the most decorated soldiers in U.S. history.
April 5 — National Go For Broke Day honors the Nisei who fought for a nation that doubted them.
quietamericans.com/national-go-for-broke-day
#AAPIHistory
April 5, 1942: A U.S. citizen and a WWI Veteran reported to camp in full uniform.
He had already served his country in World War I.
Hikotaro Henry Yamada reported to Santa Anita Assembly Center in full American Legion uniform, a visible act of dignity, protest, and patriotism. On an Easter Sunday.
March 31, 1883 — Lafcadio Hearn documented San Maló, the first known permanent Filipino settlement in the U.S.
In 1587, Filipino sailors and slaves came ashore near Morro Bay. By the 1760s, some had jumped ships and built fishing villages in Louisiana.
quietamericans.com/san-malo
They weren’t trying to escape.
At Manzanar, some Japanese Americans slipped out at night to fish in the streams beyond the camp.
For a few hours, they could forget where they were.
The Manzanar Fishing Club (2012) tells their story.
quietamericans.com/manzanar-fishing-club
Fukuzawa Yukichi with the girl of the photo studio 1860. Photo by William Shew, courtesy of the Keio University Fukuzawa Center
March 29, 1860 — The first official Japanese Embassy arrived in San Francisco.
One delegate, Fukuzawa Yukichi, visited a photography studio and posed with the photographer’s 12-year-old daughter, Theodora Shew.
The image fascinated people in Japan.
March 28, 1942 – Minoru Yasui was arrested.
Yasui deliberately violated the military curfew to challenge its constitutionality.
And he fought his case all the way to the Supreme Court.
quietamericans.com/minoru-yasui
#JapaneseAmericanHistory #CivilDisobedience
Santa Anita Assembly Center, Arcadia, California. Evacuees of Japanese ancestry from San Pedro, California, arrive - NARA - 537038
March 27, 1942 — Santa Anita Racetrack was turned into a detention site for Japanese Americans.
18,000+ held.
8,500+ in horse stalls.
No charges. No trials. No evidence of widespread espionage.
They called it “protection.”
quietamericans.com/santa-anita
Only white people were allowed to be U.S. citizens.
March 26, 1790: The Naturalization Act of 1790 defined who could belong.
Only “free white persons” were eligible. Everyone else was excluded.
It would take more than 160 years to undo.
Miyoshi Umeki next to Red Button in “Sayonara”
The first Asian actress to win an Academy Award was in “Sayonara.”
March 26, 1958 — Miyoshi Umeki became the first Asian actress to win an Oscar.
Despite her historic win, Hollywood offered her few roles afterward.
It would take 65 years for another to follow.
quietamericans.com/miyoshi-umeki
March 24, 1942:
Civilian Exclusion Order No. 1 was issued.
The first of 108 orders that would remove Japanese Americans from the West Coast.
Read the story:
quietamericans.com/civilian-exclusion-orders
It took a 26-minute film and nearly 70 years to break the barrier.
March 23, 1998:
Chris Tashima became the first U.S.-born Asian American to win an Academy Award.
“Visas and Virtue” won Best Live Action Short Film.
He became blind from boxing, but his vision was clear.
At 17, Jimmie Sakamoto told Congress he wanted to be American more than anything.
He spent the rest of his life trying to prove it—founding the Japanese American Citizens League.
quietamericans.com/james-sakamoto
Dust storm at Manzanar, CA, 1942, photo by Dorothea Lange
They called it a “Reception Center.”
March 21, 1942:
The first of over 10,000 people arrived at Manzanar.
Most were U.S. citizens.
They avoided calling it what it was.
quietamericans.com/manzanar
Tule Lake, was the last WRA camp of WWII to close.
On March 19, 1946, the day before it closed, more than 3,000 people asked to rescind the citizenship they had renounced under incarceration.
It would take fourteen years.
4,978 people eventually had their citizenship restored.
March 18, 1994:
Bruce Yamashita was commissioned as a Marine captain after exposing racial discrimination within the Corps.
During training, he was mocked for his heritage and questioned for whether someone who looked like him belonged.
Instead of staying silent, he fought the discrimination.
After losing her brother, sister, and father at Manzanar,
Dr. Mary Sakaguchi Oda spent her life delivering babies.
Over 3,500 births.
Not a single mother or child lost.
quietamericans.com/mary-oda
Photo credit: Los Angeles Times Photographic Collection, UCLA Library Special Collections (CC BY 4.0)
The first switch hitter in more ways than one.
March 15, 1907 — Jimmy James Fumio Horio was born in Maui.
A Nisei, he became the first foreign player in Japanese professional baseball, its first switch hitter, and a founding member of the team that became the Yomiuri Giants.
March 13, 1946 — Sadao Munemori was awarded the Medal of Honor for sacrificing his life to save two fellow soldiers.
His mother, who had been incarcerated at Manzanar during the war, accepted the medal on his behalf.
quietamericans.com/sadao-munemori
Bruce Lee gave Taky Kimura a direction in life.
In return, Taky learned Bruce’s martial arts and dedicated his life to passing it on, even turning down the chance to appear in Lee’s movies.
quietamericans.com/taky-kimura
March 9, 1945: The deadliest air raid in human history began over Tokyo.
An estimated 100,000 people were killed in a single night.
Yet outside Japan, the night Tokyo burned is rarely remembered.
Remember the history:
quietamericans.com/operation-meetinghouse
Zenimura built it. And they did come.
March 7, 1943: While incarcerated at the Gila River War Relocation Center in Arizona, Kenichi Zenimura built a baseball field from scratch.
Soon it became the heart of the camp.
quietamericans.com/zenimura-field
If you couldn’t tell apart, remove them all.
March 6, 1942: California Governor Culbert Olson supported the wholesale evacuation of Japanese Americans from coastal California, arguing it was extremely difficult to distinguish loyalty.
Somehow, that was the justification.
In 1860, King Kamehameha IV and Queen Emma had surprise guests.
March 5, 1860: The first Japanese diplomatic mission to the United States stopped in Honolulu.
A delegation of samurai was on its way to ratify the Treaty of Amity and Commerce between Japan and the United States.