Discover Nikkei

https://www.discovernikkei.org/en/interviews/clips/999/

Fair Play Committee

Then they had a public meeting at one of the church building I think where the Associate editor of the Heart Mountain Sentinel, uh Nobu Tawai who was the former president of the JACL in Pasadena. He always gave everybody the same answer, Yes Yes to both questions. And at that time this older gentleman (Kiyoshi Okimoto) who I found out later was a solar chemist from Hawaii, got up and he was a member of the ACLU at that time and he was uh a rough rough talkin’ gentleman. He got up and said you know everybody should think about the uh your uh constitutional rights have all been pounded on you know stepped on says you have no rights. And he said to think twice about signing yes to these questions this and that. And some of us that were there felt that uh well he’s expressing the same kind of feelings that some of us. And at that time he was calling himself the Fair Play Committee of One, going around the camp you know, and when he could get a group he would talk to them about the Constitution. So some of us thought well this fella knows what he’s talking about and let’s get together with him. And we got together with him and talked and had some meetings and uh and he ended up having a Fair Play Committee of many you know, and organized.


civil rights draft resisters Heart Mountain Heart Mountain concentration camp Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee imprisonment incarceration resistance resisters United States World War II World War II camps Wyoming

Date: May 9, 2006

Location: California, US

Interviewer: Lisa Itagaki

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum

Interviewee Bio

Frank Emi was born on September 23, 1916 in Los Angeles, CA. He ran the family produce business until life was interrupted by war. Emi was sent to Heart Mountain, Wyoming with his young wife and two kids.

Emi, along with many others, openly questioned the constitutionality of the incarceration of Japanese Americans. He helped form the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee and protested against the government’s actions by organizing a draft resistance. Emi was not even eligible for the draft because he was a father.

The Fair Play Committee argued that they were willing to serve in the military, but not until their rights as U.S. citizens were restored and their families released from the camps. The government convicted Emi and six others leaders of conspiracy to evade the draft. He served 18 months in jail. 86 others from Heart Mountain were put on trial and imprisoned for resisting the draft.

Following the war, Emi and other draft resisters were ostracized by Japanese American leaders and veterans. It was not until the fight for Redress, some forty years later that the Fair Play Committee was vindicated for taking a principled stand against injustice.

He passed away on December 2010 at age 94. (December 2010)

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