Densho Digital Archive
Steven Okazaki Collection
Title: Minoru Yasui Interview
Narrator: Minoru Yasui
Location: Hood River, Oregon
Date: October 23, 1983
Densho ID: denshovh-yminoru-01-0005

MY: But actually, I was on my office on the 28th day of March, which is a Saturday evening. Waited 'til 8 o'clock, Rei Shimojima was my secretary, had her call -- incidentally, Chiye Tomihiro was there at the Foster Hotel. And we had Rei call the police, the FBI, to notify them that there was a Japanese person in violation of curfew walking up and down Third Avenue. And I've told this story many a time, but I walked and walked from eight o'clock, and the record will show that I was not actually arrested until 11:20 p.m. I walked for over three hours, and during that period, I got tired of walking up and down Third Avenue. So I did approach a police officer, and being a smart aleck and being an attorney, I pulled out the proclamation pointing out that it was in violation of a military proclamation, I had my birth certificate with me, and I proved that I was a person of Japanese ancestry. Asked the officer to arrest me, and the officer says, "Look, you'll get in trouble. Go on, run along home." And that certainly didn't serve my purposes, so I went down to the Second Avenue police station and talked to the sergeant and explain what I wanted done. And the sergeant obliged me and he threw me into the drunk tank. So that's how the case began at 11:20 p.m., 28th day of March, 1942.