NEVER GIVE UP! Minoru Yasui and the Fight for Justice (DVD)

Directed by Holly Yasui and Will Doolittle. Narrated by George Takei. Music by Shoji Kameda. This film relates the life history of an American hero. Minoru (Min) Yasui was born in Hood River, Oregon in 1916 of immigrant parents. He was the first Japanese American attorney in Oregon and during World War II, he initiated a legal test case by deliberately violating military orders that lead to the incarceration of over 110,000 persons of Japanese ancestry in U.S. concentration camps. He spent 9 months in solitary confinement awaiting his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled against him. The film depicts his and his family's wartime experiences in the temporary detention centers and the Tule Lake and Minidoka concentration camps. After the war, Min Yasui moved to Denver and continued to defend the human and civil rights not only of Japanese Americans but for Blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, religious minorities, children and youth, the aged, low income people, etc. In the 1970s and 80s, he spearheaded the redress movement to win reparations and a formal apology from the government for the injustices against Japanese Americans during World War II. He also reopened his wartime case, and it was in appeal when died in 1986. He is buried in his hometown of Hood River, Oregon. Running time: 56 min. 7 Special Features film including the “Re-opening of the WWII Legal Cases” and “Minoru Yasui Day March” English and Spanish Closed Captions and Subtitles  FOR HOME USE ONLY.