On March 1, 2001, the state's modern-day
Supreme Court is poised to make amends for this dark, little-known chapter
in the state's racist history. Responding to a petition from the UW Law
School and the state bar association, the high court plans to reverse
its century-old action and admit Yamashita posthumously to the state bar.
The Washington
Supreme Court in 1902 barred Takuji
Yamashita from practicing law solely because he was born a member
of the "yellow race." Three days before his 28th birthday, the state Supreme
Court unanimously rejected Yamashita's petition for admission to the bar
and voided the citizenship Pierce County had granted him. The five white
Washington justices concluded unapologetically that excluding people based
on race dated to the founding of the country, and thus "expressed a settled
national will" on the subject.
He faced many examples of racism. During
the First World War, distrust of Asians escalated, and in 1917 Congress
barred emigration from most of Asia, Chin said. President Wilson led the
charge, writing, "We cannot make a homogeneous population out of people
who do not blend with the Caucasian race."
Washington's attorney general (during
that time) baldly maintained before the high court that in order for Japanese
people to fit in, their "marked physical characteristics" would have to
be destroyed, and that "the Negro, the Indian and the Chinaman" had already
demonstrated such assimilation was not possible.
His life showed a man who had directly
challenged three of America's major barriers against Asians: to becoming
a citizen, joining a profession and owning land.
