'WHEREVER THERE'S A FIGHT' AUTHORS TO DISCUSS CALIFORNIA'S CIVIL RIGHTS

Elaine Elinson and Stan Yogi, co-authors of the book, Wherever There’s A Fight: How Runaway Slaves, Suffragists, Immigrants, Strikers, and Poets Shaped Civil Liberties in California, will provide an overview of the long struggle for freedom and equality in the Golden State at a public program set for Sunday, September 12, beginning at 2 p.m. at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo.

Since the Gold Rush, California has seen individuals stand up for their rights against social prejudice, physical violence, economic hardships and political opposition. Elinson and Yogi examine the state’s long history dating back to the Chinese immigration, the Japanese American incarceration during World War II, the McCarthy blacklisting from the 1950s and the fight for equal rights for people with disabilities.

In particular, Wherever There’s A Fight singles out the case of Fred Korematsu, who challenged the government’s edict to remove all people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast during World War II. Korematsu lost his case in the Supreme Court, but had his conviction overturned in the 1980s through a legal procedure known as writ of error coram nobis. Elinson and Yogi note that the forced removal of Japanese Americans was foreshadowed in the decades of discrimination against them before World War II, and that the treatment of this group of Americans has echoes in the post-9/11 era today.

Among the points made in their book, Elinson and Yogi observe that while Federal and state governments are charged with enforcing their constitutions, it is often individuals or groups of people who bring about change. The authors also emphasize that the fight for equal rights continues with the issue of same-sex marriage prominent today.

Elaine Elinson was the communications director of the ACLU of Northern California and editor of the ACLU News for more than two decades. She is a coauthor of Development Debacle: The World Bank in the Philippines, which was banned by the Marcos regime. Her articles have been published in the Los Angeles Daily Journal, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Nation, Poets and Writers, and numerous other periodicals.

Stan Yogi has managed development programs for the ACLU of Northern California since 1997. He is the coeditor of two books, Highway 99: A Literary Journey through California's Great Central Valley and Asian American Literature: An Annotated Bibliography. His work has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, MELUS, Los Angeles Daily Journal, and several anthologies.