Japanese Chicagoans found an advocate in Sidney Yates
Sunday marks the annual Day of Remembrance for Japanese Americans nationwide. The remembrance and associated events commemorate President Franklin Roosevelt’s Feb. 19, 1942, signing of Executive Order 9066, under whose authority the Army forcibly removed 120,000 Japanese American men, women and children from the West Coast and confined them in 10 incarceration camps in the interior.
For decades, Japanese Americans in Chicago have observed the Day of Remembrance with public events to acknowledge this history and commemorate the legacy of community perseverance in the face of forced removal and racism.
Indeed, Chicago holds a special place in this story, as the prime center of wartime resettlement for Japanese Americans who left the camps in search of new lives and job opportunities. By 1946, Chicago hosted more than 20,000 Japanese Americans
— the second-largest Japanese American population center in the United States. At first, Japanese Americans clustered on the Near North Side, but gradually families migrated to the neighborhoods of Lakeview, Kenwood and Oakland, while a new Japantown formed around Clark and Division streets. Though Chicago’s ethnic Japanese population declined in later decades, the city remains home to central community institutions such as the Japanese American Services Committee and the Chicago Shimpo newspaper.
On the occasion of the Day of Remembrance, it is worth noting the role of Chicago’s Japanese American community in the career of one of Chicago’s most prominent politicians, Sidney Yates, who served for 48 years as the U.S. representative of Illinois’ 9th District. As the representative of one of the largest populations of Japanese American immigrants in the United States, Yates was a vocal advocate for civil rights and immigration reform. In particular, during his first two terms as a congressman, Yates led several campaigns to amend the anti-Asian exclusion laws of the 1924 Immigration Act.
When Yates launched his congressional campaign in 1948, he chose to run in the 9th District against Republican Robert Twyman. Twyman catered to the majority of German Americans in the 45th Ward. Yates, who was of Lithuanian Jewish ancestry, instead strategically campaigned throughout the African American, Japanese American and Italian American communities of the
42nd Ward on a platform of civil rights and immigration reform. Yates later recalled his sit-downs with Japanese American leaders during his campaign:
“I remember meeting with a Japanese American group. We met in a little restaurant in an area that was called Little Tokyo (on Clark south of Division). They had just come out of the camps in California. They wanted only one promise from me — that I would oppose Oriental exclusion laws, which prevented their parents from becoming citizens,” he said. “I told them I couldn’t promise anything, but that I wanted them to know that their goals were my goals: democratic liberty. And they went out and campaigned for me in that area.”
His plan worked. Yates defeated Twyman amid a nationwide Democratic sweep of the House and the Senate.
Once in the House, Yates became a passionate advocate for Japanese Americans. As his first act as a congressman in January
1949, Yates submitted a bill to permit Japanese immigrants, then barred from naturalization under the 1790 Immigration Act, to become U.S. citizens. The bill passed the House but died in the Senate. Nonetheless, Japanese Americans took note of Yates’ actions and lauded him as a “man of his word.” Yates’ bill was later absorbed into the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952, which allowed Japanese nationals to become U.S. citizens.
Yates meanwhile sponsored dozens of private bills that permitted deserving Japanese individuals to enter or remain in the United States, despite immigration laws. Several of these cases dealt with the Japanese war brides of American servicemen who resided in Japan during the U.S. occupation. In addition to helping Japanese nationals, Yates introduced two private bills to aid Chinese refugees fleeing communist rule.
In later years, Yates distinguished himself primarily by
spearheading several political initiatives, such as saving the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities from the chopping block, supporting environmental policies and championing the development of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Yet he maintained close relations with Japanese American communities throughout his long career. During the 1980s, Yates testified on several occasions in support of awarding reparations to Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II and worked alongside fellow U.S. Reps. Norm Mineta and Robert Matsui to push a redress bill through the House. When an official government commission was appointed to study the wartime events, Yates organized congressional hearings in Chicago that gave Japanese Americans a platform to share their wartime experiences with the public.
At a time when anti-Japanese sentiment remained high in the
United States, Yates supported equal rights for Asian Americans and called for fair treatment. His story also serves as a timely reminder of the long history of Asian American communities in Chicago and their contributions to the city. The story of Yates’ close relationship with the Japanese American community appears prominently in Michael Dorf and George Van Dusen’s Yates biography, “Clear It With Sid!” There are many reasons why Sen. Dick Durbin described Yates as “one of Illinois’ most principled and skillful public servants.” Yates’ support for Japanese Americans is prominent among them.