Homer, Holly, Yuka
By Peggy Nagae
On the first anniversary of the death of our dear friend Holly Yasui, we would like to share her biographical sketch and pay tribute to her great contribution to the effort of creating a better world.
Holly Yasui was a humanist, activist, filmmaker, playwright, writer, and visionary. She dedicated decades of her life to preserving her father’s legacy, Minoru “Min” Yasui, a fellow activist and warrior for justice. Holly’s work included a play and a documentary film about her father, as well as articles, essays, book chapters, speeches, and even edits to amicus briefs filed on his behalf.
Born in Denver, Colorado, on December 29, 1953, Holly graduated cum laude from the University of Colorado in 1979 and pursued film studies at the University of Southern California. She then earned master’s degrees in comparative literature and communications from the University of Wisconsin.
Holly moved to San Miguel de Allende in 1992 and continued her activism, working at various nonprofits, including El Charco del Ingenio and the Global Justice Center. Holly also collaborated with the Mexican Center for Agricultural Development (CEDESA), a community development center in Dolores Hidalgo. She was a volunteer with the Latin America Relief Fund and Tsuru for Solidarity, a national Japanese-American-led movement that aims to shut down U.S. detention facilities and challenge unjust immigration policies in solidarity with other activist communities. She supported a shelter known as ABBA in Celaya when the crisis of Central American immigrants took place in 2018. Earlier, in 1998, during the indigenous uprising in south Chiapas, she volunteered as a human rights observer with Zapatista Peace Camps, returning several times to support the indigenous people who were fighting for their rights.
In 2013, Holly co-founded the Minoru Yasui Tribute Committee, along with Peggy Nagae. The Committee successfully nominated Min for a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States. He received it posthumously from President Barack Obama in 2015.
Holly documented Min’s life in her play “Unvanquished,” which won at Seattle’s 1991 Multicultural Playwrights Festival. Later, she made the film, “Never Give Up: Minoru Yasui and the Fight for Justice,” with co-director Will Doolittle.
In late 2016, she and Peggy transformed the Minoru Yasui Tribute Committee into the Minoru Yasui Legacy Project (MYLP). Its mission is to defend civil rights and advance social justice. The MYLP sponsors Minoru Yasui Day on March 28, the day Min intentionally violated the military curfew imposed on Japanese Americans at the start of World War II. It’s worth mentioning that Minoru spent nine months in solitary confinement after intentionally violating the curfew imposed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1942.
There are many examples of Holly’s courageous convictions and strong activism. For instance, in 2017, in the wake of the Trump administration’s Muslim ban, Holly challenged Trump’s policies from a legal and narrative standpoint through filing amicus briefs. She marched at the front of the No Muslim Ban Ever rally, along with Muslim activists and organizers in Washington, D.C., and was the keynote speaker.
Other issues that captivated Holly included Syrian refugees and detention camps. During the uprisings against anti-Black racism, Holly penned a moving essay to support the protests in Portland, Oregon, which was then under a state of emergency.
In her last written words, Holly—scheduled to be a panelist at the University of Oregon Law School on October 19, 2021, for the celebration of her father’s birth—wrote these remarks:
“Anti-Asian hostility has a long and ugly history, since Asian immigrants were not allowed to naturalize as U.S. citizens by the Naturalization Act of 1870 (only “free white males” were allowed to become U.S. citizens). Asians were excluded from parts of the West Coast, lynched, and massacred. Alien Land Laws, passed throughout the western states in the early 1900s, completed the codification of anti-Asian sentiment into law. Min Yasui’s parents were Japanese immigrants who suffered from this discrimination, which was a precursor to the wholesale violation of civil rights represented by the forced removal and imprisonment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Today, Min Yasui would surely stand up and speak out against the anti-Asian hate crimes that have surged in the wake of the COVID pandemic.”
Sadly, Holly succumbed to COVID on October 31, 2021. Two months later, the Min Yasui Legacy Project, along with the Japanese American Museum of Oregon, sponsored an online tribute to Holly. Family members and friends participated, sharing their memories and anecdotes. The Governor of Oregon, Kate Brown, participated by sending a moving letter that was read at the event, and Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii spoke at the tribute. Senator Hirono had carried Holly’s father’s nomination for the Presidential Medal of Freedom to President Obama, and she spoke at last year’s Min Yasui Day. President Biden also sent his condolences.
Holly died too young, too soon, and with too much that she still wanted to do. We treasure our time and work with Holly. We will continue the legacy of her father, and now Holly, through the Minoru Yasui Legacy Project.
