Mits Koshiyama spoke at a 2007 event in San Francisco promoting a book written in Japanese about the resisters. (Photo by J.K. Yamamoto)

MOUNTAIN VIEW — Mitsuru “Mits” Koshiyama, one of the Heart Mountain draft resisters, died on Feb. 6 at his home in Mountain View. He was 84.

Koshiyama was one of the resisters featured in the 2000 documentary “Conscience and the Constitution” and frequently spoke at public events about the wartime internment of Japanese Americans.

When war with Japan broke out, the American-born Nisei were classified as ineligible for military service. In 1943, their right to volunteer for the Army was restored, and in 1944 the draft was instituted in the internment camps. At the Heart Mountain camp in Wyoming, a group called the Fair Play Committee stated that Japanese Americans’ constitutional rights should be restored before requiring them to serve in the Army. Koshiyama was among the internees who refused induction.

In May 1944, 63 Heart Mountain resisters were indicted for draft evasion in Cheyenne Wyo. The seven members of the Fair Play Committee and Denver journalist James Omura, who supported the resisters, were indicted for conspiracy to counsel draft evasion.

The 63 resisters were convicted and sentenced to three years in a federal penitentiary. Another 22 from Heart Mountain were later convicted.

Koshiyama served his sentence on the honor farm at the federal penitentiary at McNeil Island, Washington state. Most of the resisters there were given time off for good behavior in 1946, but Koshiyama was given extra days.

In December 1947, President Harry Truman pardoned all of the draft resisters.

“The resisters were a group of principled young Japanese Americans who sincerely believed that they should be enjoying the freedoms and rights as proclaimed in the Constitution of the United States, not locked up behind barbed-wire fences of a concentration camp and denied the very rights they were asked to defend,” Koshiyama wrote in 2002.

He added, “The resisters have never been against the veterans. Each did what he believed the right thing to do. I have three brothers who served, so our family was pretty patriotic. Many of the resisters had brothers who served.”

Mountain View Native

Koshiyama was born on Aug. 7, 1924 in Mountain View. With his parents, three brothers and three sisters, he worked long hours on the family’s leased strawberry farm in Santa Clara. He was about to graduate in June 1942 when the family was shipped to the detention camp at the Santa Anita Racetrack and then to Heart Mountain. He graduated from the camp high school.

After prison, he rejoined his family, which was scraping by as strawberry sharecroppers. A friend allowed Koshiyama and a brother to enter the closely guarded cut flower nursery business.

Koshiyama and his wife, Mizue, married in 1962 and put three children through college. Closing the family nursery after 24 years, he went to work as the landscape gardener at Willow Glen High School in San Jose.

In 1989, students asked him to write an article for the school newspaper and Koshiyama began to speak in public about his wartime resistance.

In addition to "Conscience and the Constitution," Koshiyama was featured in another documentary, "Rabbit in the Moon"; in Eric Muller’s book “Free to Die for Their Country: The Story of the Japanese American Draft Resisters in World War II”; and Yukio Morita’s book “Amerika Nikkei Nisei no Chohei Kihi” (American Nikkei Nisei Draft Resistance).

Koshiyama participated in a 2002 ceremony, held in San Francisco, in which the Japanese American Citizens League formally apologized for its treatment of the resisters. During the war, the JACL opposed legal challenges to the internment and condemned the resisters.

Frank Abe, the Seattle-based director of “Conscience and the Constitution,” posted a note about Koshiyama on his website, www.resisters.com: “What’s saddening for me at this moment is that I’ve been living with Mits’ voice and his joy for life in my head for the past several months while editing his outtakes from the film for the bonus features for the forthcoming DVD. I’m grateful we were able to capture and preserve his stories ...”

In addition to Mizue, his wife of 47 years, Koshiyama is survived by his children, Karol Matsune (Lance), Chris Koshiyama, and June Waypa (Jeff); and grandchildren, Kara, Kelsey and Matthew Matsune, Kyle Koshiyama, and Stephanie and Jacob Waypa. He was the fourth of eight children born to Tatsuhei and Tsutaye Koshiyama, brother to the late Hajime Koshiyama, Mari Yoshida (George), George Koshiyama and Elsie Koshiyama, brother to surviving siblings Frances Koshiyama-Fellezs, Albert Koshiyama (Hiroko) and James Koshiyama (Terry), and brother-in-law to Teri Koshiyama.

Services will be held on Saturday, Feb. 14, at 1 p.m. at Wesley United Methodist Church, 566 N. 5th St. in San Jose Japantown.

‘Just a Piece of Paper?’

Following is the essay that Koshiyama wrote for the Ram Pages, the newspaper of Willow Glen High School, 20 years ago. (Source: www.resisters.com)

* * *

When I recall what happened 45 years ago, many unpleasant memories return.

When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, Japanese Americans living on the Pacific Coast were devastated. We were immediately treated as enemy sympathizers even though we were American citizens.

I can still remember all the accusations at the time, such as Japanese Americans aiding the enemy in Hawaii, and that we were spying for Japan on the Pacific Coast.

The United States government at that time would not tell Americans the truth. Even though the Army and Navy intelligence proved that we did not commit any crimes against our country, the U.S. government still allowed these rumors to persist.

I believe this led us to be interned in the concentration camps for the duration of the war.

I always believed in the Constitution of the United States. It was written to protect all the rights of American citizens and to insure all Americans equal protection under the law.

All these rights were denied me when I needed them the most. The United States government denied me the writ of habeas corpus — the right to be tried in court to prove my innocence. I believe the government's reason for denying me a day in court was that they couldn't find me guilty of anything.

But public pressure put me in a concentration camp against my wishes.

When a group of young internees cried out for their constitutional rights, a congressman replied that the Constitution was just a piece of paper.

I often wonder when the teachers at Willow Glen High explain the framework of the Constitution as the supreme law of this country, if they really believe that it protects the rights of all citizens. I can assure you that it doesn't.

I really want to blame my internment on racist "White America," but Japanese Americans were just as guilty. We just didn't have the courage to fight racism and to fight for our constitutional rights.

Rather than fight for their rights, our leaders, the Japanese American Citizens League, took a different approach. They encouraged all of us to cooperate even if it meant giving up our citizenship rights. Forty-five years later, these same people are saying that their constitutional rights were violated. It's amazing how brave people can get when it's safe to do so.

But not all Japanese Americans acted in this manner. Some acted like Americans and fought for their rights. When the government tried to draft the internees into a segregated infantry unit, same had the courage to say that they wouldn't serve without the return of their constitutional rights.

They explained that they couldn't fight for a free world when their families were interned in a concentration camp.

Our leaders branded these resisters as troublemakers and said they were trying to ruin the "proper image" of the Japanese Americans. This happened in Heart Mountain camp and I was there to see it first-hand.

The reason that I am writing this article is to awaken all minorities to the importance of the Constitution. You must fight for your rights when they are violated. Never, NEVER surrender your rights as citizens of the United States — like we did.

1989 marks the 200th anniversary of the United States Constitution, a document that has become a symbol of freedom and justice throughout the world. But if it is to last another 200 years, we must stop thinking of it as just a symbol, and do our best to actually practice the principles it lays down.

If we don't, the Constitution might very well become "just a piece of paper."