Meet Dale Minami, lead attorney on historic Korematsu v. United States Supreme Court Case
Posted on | August 5, 2009 | 1 Comment
We’re proud to announce the next conversation in visualizAsian.com’s AAPI Empowerment Series of free live interviews with notable Asian American Pacific Islander leaders, with Dale Minami. The call will be held Tuesday, August 25 at 6 PM PT (9 PM ET). The call was held Aug. 25, but if you missed it, no worries — you can still register to hear the lively conversation for a limited time!
Dale is a giant in the AAPI community — in fact, the entire U.S. legal community — as the lead attorney in Korematsu v United States, the landmark case that cleared the name of Fred Korematsu, a Japanese American who resisted being sent to internment camps during WWII and was sent to prison. A 1944 U.S. Supreme Court’s decision established the constitutionality of the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. But Dale and a team of young pro-bono lawyers took on the case and in 1983, got Korematsu’s conviction overturned.
Register now to isten to the archive recording of our talk with Dale Minami for a limited time!
Dale has been fighting for the AAPI community all his career.
He filed the first class-action lawsuit over employment by AAPIs on behalf of AAPIs with United Pilipinos for Affirmative Action v. California Blue Shield, and he helped the Spokane chapter of the JACL take on Washington State University with a class action suit to establish an Asian American Studies program. He also led a fight against UCLA over tenure that was denied an Asian American professor that revealed the layers of discrimination in the academic community.
He was a co-founder of the Asian Law Caucus, Inc., a community-interest law firm, a co-founder of the Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area, the first Asian American Bar Association in the United States, the Asian Pacific Bar of California and the Coalition of Asian Pacific Americans, a registered political action committee.
Dale received a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Southern California and graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1968. He received his J.D. in 1971 from Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California.
Minami’s San Francisco-based law firm, Minami Tamaki LLP, specializes in personal injury law and entertainment law.
His clients include skater Kristi Yamaguchi, playwright Philip Kan Gotanda and Academy Award-winning filmmaker Steven Okazaki. He is counsel to several community organizations, including the Center for Asian American Media (formerly NAATA), and the Asian American Journalists Association.
He’s earned more recognitions than you can count, including the 2008 Citation Award from U.C. Berkeley School of Law, American Bar Association’s 2003 Thurgood Marshall Award, the American Bar Association’s “Spirit of Excellence” Award, the 2003 ACLU Civil Liberties Award, the State Bar President’s Pro Bono Service Award, an honorary Juris Doctor degree from the McGeorge School of Law, designation of a dormitory at the University of California at Santa Cruz as the “Queen Liliuokalani-Minami” Dormitory, a public interest fellowship in his name established at U.C. Berekley’s School of Law, awards from the Coro Foundation, and awards from the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California, the Harry Dow Memorial Fellowship in Boston, the Fred Korematsu Civil Rights Fund, the Organization of Chinese Americans, the Japanese American Youth organization of the Japanese American Citizens League, the Japanese Community Youth Council and Centro Legale de la Raza, among others.
We’re excited to have Dale Minami join us for a live interview on visualizAsian.com!
Here’s a must-see video about Dale made for an award ceremony when he received the UC-Berkeley law school’s highest honor:
Register now to isten to the archive recording of our talk with Dale Minami for a limited time!
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October 15th, 2009 @ 10:03 pm
To Dale Minami:
Dale, I have just reviewed this material and the video taped interview you gave. I have been researching Japanese American Internment, and have been chatting with Neil about my recent desire to know the truths, which as you so aptly expressed, were hidden from the American public. I shared with Neil recently that I did not learn anything in high school about the Internment, not one chapter. I began reading the interview tapes your Mother gave to the L.A. Times and my thirst for the truth has expanded from there.
So this evening I googled you and found the site regarding the Boalt Hall Citation Award for 2008 which you received. I read and read and then read the Eddy Zheng case, the Chan v. Scott case and I am now deep into the Karamatsu case. I am so proud to have known you at the beginning of your quest for social responsibility and justice. However, as I have shared lately via email with Neil, I have never understood as I do now, and to say I knew Dale Minami, is a privilege and an honor.
I knew you would do great things in your life, but what you accomplished and what you continue to do to fight the daily battle makes me appreciate the freedoms I have as an American that you have protected throughout your career. I am one of the Americans who throughout academia was still not told the truth, in fact, it was as if it never happened. I feel that humanity should have been on trial, convicted and sentenced to reflect upon itself for enternity.
I am now 59 and I wanted to know the truth. My father served in WWII and he told me many stories about his Japanese American Navy buddies and what their families endured, and he asked me to search for the historical truth and so better late than never!
I am so proud to have known you, Dale.
Sincerely,
Susan Moore