Mitsuye Endo at her job as a Sacramento civil servant in 1942.
SACRAMENTO – Gov. Gavin Newsom, First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom, and the California Museum on Dec. 12 announced the 18thclass of the California Hall of Fame, consisting of trailblazers in athletics, civil rights, culinary arts, entertainment, and more.
For the first time in the history of the California Hall of Fame, this class is entirely composed of women in a meaningful recognition of women’s achievements, which have historically been underrepresented in California’s history. The posthumous class was inducted on Dec. 19 in a virtual ceremony.
California Hall of Fame 18th class inductees:
Julia Child: Cook, author, television personality
Ina Donna Coolbrith: California’s first poet laureate
Vicki Manalo Draves: Olympic gold medalist
Mitsuye Endo: Civil rights activist
Dian Fossey: Primatologist, gorilla conservationist
Alice Piper: Civil rights hero
Tina Turner: Singer, performer
“We are very proud to induct the California Hall of Fame’s 18thclass,” said Gov. Newsom. “This all-female cohort consists of powerful women who remain beloved cultural icons and civil rights luminaries today, truly embodying the California spirit.”
“We are thrilled to announce the induction of the first all-women class of honorees into the California Hall of Fame,” said First Partner Newsom. “These trailblazing women have shattered barriers, challenged societal norms, and driven progress that has transformed California and the world. By celebrating their extraordinary and lasting accomplishments, we are moving closer to truly honoring the rich diversity that defines our great state.”
“The California Museum is honored to be the home of the California Hall of Fame, celebrating remarkable individuals who have shaped our state and nation,” said Anne Marie Petrie, chair of the California Museum Board of Trustees. “The 18thclass highlights the inspirational achievements of women who overcame obstacles, making indelible contributions to our culture and influencing the path of history. We are proud to play a part in recognizing their enduring legacies.”
Launched in 2006, the California Hall of Fame honors history-making Californians who embody the state’s spirit of innovation and have changed the state, the nation, and the world. Inductees are selected annually by the governor and first partner for achievements in arts, business and labor, entertainment, food and wine, literature, music, public service, science, and sports.
Info: https://californiamuseum.org/california-hall-of-fame/
A History-Making Activist
Mitsuye Endo was the plaintiff in the only successful legal challenge to the U.S. government’s unconstitutional mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.
Born in Sacramento in 1920, 22-year-old Endo was working as a clerk for the Department of Motor Vehicles when the State of California fired all of its Japanee American workers following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. She joined 62 other fired employees in appealing their termination, but when the government forced everyone of Japanese descent living on the West Coast from their homes and into concentration camps, the case became moot since they were physically unable to return to work.
The attorney who had been representing the employees, James Purcell, turned to a habeas corpus case, arguing that the mass incarceration of American citizens without due process of the law was unconstitutional. Looking for a perfect plaintiff, he identified Endo, a Methodist who had never visited Japan and who had a brother serving in the U.S. military.
Because of her reserved nature, Endo at first was reluctant to be the face of the lawsuit, but she agreed when she realized that she would be helping all the incarcerated Japanese Americans, not just herself.
As the case, filed on July 12, 1942, slowly made its way through the courts, Endo and her family — who had been transferred from a temporary relocation facility near Sacramento to the Tule Lake incarceration camp 300 miles north — were again moved to the Topaz incarceration camp in Utah. The government offered to release her so that her case would be dropped, but she refused, remaining at Topaz with meager food rations and recurring illnesses.
The U.S. Supreme Court finally ruled in Endo’s case on Dec. 18, 1944, finding that it was unconstitutional to imprison loyal Americans without due process. The day before the decision came down, the government proclaimed that loyal Japanese Americans could return to the West Coast.
Leaving Topaz in May 1945, Endo went to live with a sister in Chicago, where she took a position as a secretary to the Mayor’s Committee on Race Relations. Two years later, she married Kenneth Tsutsumi, whom she had met in camp, and the pair went on to have three children.
Residing in Chicago for the remainder of her life, Endo never sought the spotlight, preferring a very private existence. She granted just one interview request for a brief oral history, which appeared in the anthology “And Justice for All” in 1984. Even her own children did not know of her role in history until learning of it as adults.
Endo passed away in 2006 at the age of 85.
Three other Nisei — Fred Korematsu, Gordon Hirabayashi and Minoru Yasui — also challenged the government’s treatment of Japanese Americans. The Supreme Court ruled against them, upholding the government’s claim of military necessity. The three cases were reopened in federal court four decades later on the basis of new evidence, but Endo was not involved because her case had been successful.
In Endo’s case, the court ruled that the government could not continue to imprison a citizen who was known to be loyal, but did not rule on the constitutionality of the mass incarceration itself.
Trailblazing Olympic Diver
Victoria “Vicki” Manalo Draves (1924-2010) persevered through racial prejudice to become the first woman to win springboard and platform gold medals in a single Olympics and the first Asian American to medal at the Olympic Games.
She was raised in San Francisco’s working-class South of Market district by an English mother and Filipino father at a time when mixed-race marriages ranged from frowned upon to illegal. She dreamed of becoming a ballet dancer, but with her family unable to afford training, she settled on practicing handstands and cartwheels on her own. She was 10 years old before she learned to swim, taking lessons at the nickel baths in the Mission District, and 16 when she began diving.
In the run-up to U.S. entry into World War II, prejudice against Asian Americans of any ethnicity made it difficult to train. If she was allowed to practice at public schools at all, the operators often drained the pool afterwards. The surname Manolo made her Filpino heritage obvious, shutting her out of the Fairmont Hotel Swimming and Diving Club despite her natural talent.
The club’s coach, Phil Patterson, saw her potential and formed the Patterson School of Swimming and Diving just for her. On his advice, she reluctantly agreed to use her mother’s maiden name, Taylor, in competitions.
In 1944, at age 19, she met Lyle Draves, who became her coach, and in 1946, her husband. Excelling under his methodical coaching style, she won four national titles from 1946 to 1948.
Under the name Victoria Manalo Draves, she made history at the 1948 London Olympics, becoming the first woman to sweep the diving events. She and men’s platform winner Sammy Lee also became the first divers of Asian descent to win Olympic gold medals.
Manalo Draves went on to appear in water shows including Larry Crosby’s “Rhapsody in Swimtime” in Chicago and toured internationally with swimmer Buster Crabbe’s “Aqua Parade.” She and her husband eventually settled in Los Angeles and started a family, as well as a swimming and diving training program.
She was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1969, and in 2005, the site of her old elementary school in San Francisco became Victoria Manalo Draves Park.