Biography
Min Tamesa was a steering-committee member of the Fair Play Committee and one of the seven leaders of the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee, the organized draft-resistance movement among Japanese Americans imprisoned at the Heart Mountain concentration camp in Wyoming during World War II. The Committee held that it was unconstitutional to draft incarcerated Nisei — U.S. citizens stripped of their rights and held behind barbed wire with their families — unless those citizenship rights were first restored. In October 1944 the leaders were tried in federal court in Cheyenne for conspiracy to counsel draft evasion; the jury convicted all seven, and on November 2, 1944 Judge Eugene Rice sentenced them to four years at the Leavenworth federal penitentiary. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit overturned the conspiracy convictions in 1945.
The Heart Mountain museum identifies Min Tamesa as Minola Minoru Tamesa. Its biography records forced removal to Pinedale Assembly Center on May 13, 1942, arrival at Tule Lake on July 24, 1942, and transfer to Heart Mountain on September 27, 1943. These camp dates do not establish first nationwide custody or final discharge.
The museum separately dates his arrest for failing to appear for an induction physical to May 13, 1944, followed by conviction in June 1944 and a three-year nominal prison sentence. It states that he was already serving that sentence when charged on July 20 over Fair Play Committee activities. The individual prosecution and earlier forced confinement are distinct from the existing later conspiracy case. No continuous custody span or actual total is inferred. Museum biography and archival case-file guide.
