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Ueoka was a crusader against racial, cultural barriers

Wailuku attorney who fought against discrimination has died at age 96

Meyer Ueoka

Meyer Ueoka, a longtime Maui attorney, war veteran, former Board of Education member and state legislator, has died. He was 96.

He died Aug. 26 at his home in Wailuku. Private family services were held.

Even before Ueoka made his mark on Maui with his community service, he stood up against racial discrimination more than 50 years ago as a college student.

“He was very much a pioneer in helping to I guess you could say break racial and cultural barriers in a time of discrimination and exclusion,” said family friend Brian Moto, a fellow Maui attorney who serves as president of the Nisei Veterans Memorial Center. The center honors and tells the story of veterans like Ueoka.

“He was able to overcome and to serve as a role model for others,” he said.

Moto has known Ueoka and his family for decades. Both are closely tied to the Paia Mantokuji Mission. Ueoka is the son of the founding minister, Sokyo Ueoka.

Ueoka was happiest when greeting people at the church, Moto said.

“He had the biggest smile on his face during the obon festivals,” he recalled. “His face would lighten up. He would be excited to see all the people and hear the music. It gave him a great sense of joy.”

Moto benefitted from Ueoka’s guidance when he was a Michigan law school student in the early 1980s. Moto worked as a summer law clerk in the Maui law firm Ueoka shared with the late Martin Luna.

“It was a good learning experience,” Moto said.

Ueoka was born in Paia in 1920 and attended Paia and Maui High schools. He went to the University of Nebraska and was a senior when World War II broke out. He left college to serve his country.

Like other nisei, Ueoka volunteered to serve in the military because he felt it was his duty and a way to show his loyalty, which was being questioned during wartime, his family said.

He ended up as a member of the Military Intelligence Service, which included nisei, or second-generation Japanese-Americans, who were trained as linguists. The nisei were enlisted in the Military Intelligence Service due to a shortage of Japanese linguists during the war. They would serve the military effort on the battlefield and later during the occupation.

After the war, Ueoka returned to school to get his sociology degree and went on to earn a law degree from Washburn Municipal University in Topeka, Kan.

He received his license to practice law in 2nd Circuit District Court in 1949, several months after he married Yukie Hirano. Later, he was admitted to practice law in other Hawaii courts. From 1976 to 1978, Ueoka was a member of the state House of Representatives. From 1980 to 1994, he was a member of the state Board of Education.

In 1994, Ueoka received an Imperial Decoration from the Japanese government, the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold and Silver Rays. In 2011, he also received a Congressional Gold Medal that honored Japanese-Americans for their service in World War II as part of the 100th Infantry Battalion, 442nd Regimental Combat Team and the Military Intelligence Service.

Ueoka received many other designations and awards. He led organizations such as the Maui Japanese Community Association and Maui County Boy Scouts of America. He also enjoyed fishing and diving.

Ueoka’s daughters, Celia Suzuki and Janice Kemp, said in an email that Ueoka’s priorities in life aligned “with the principles of our Founding Fathers and what we strive for as Americans — service to the community, public education and freedom of speech, nondiscrimination, and the opportunity for success.”

In that racial discrimination incident in the late 1940s in Nebraska, Ueoka recalled going into a restaurant with several Hawaii guys and one guy from the Mainland and not being served, according to an interview he did with the Hawaii Political History Documentation Project in 1991.

Ueoka left but returned later with his Mainland friend, who was served at the establishment. Ueoka was later thrown out after he began to ask customers if it was OK if he had a beer at the place. Ueoka wrote letters to the editor of the newspaper. People to whom he taught swimming and crafts wrote letters in support of him.

A member of a council of churches group in Nebraska queried Ueoka about them filing a civil rights lawsuit against the cafe. But Ueoka said “just forget about it,” according to the documentary project.

Though he did not file the lawsuit, university students boycotted the cafe.

It was at the University of Nebraska that the Ueoka sisters said their dad taught swimming to Ted Sorensen, President John F. Kennedy’s speechwriter and adviser. Both men were students at the university.

Moto and the Ueoka family recalled Ueoka saying he wanted to practice law until he was 100.

“Practicing law was very satisfying for him because by providing legal advice and counsel, he was fulfilling service to those who had a need,” Suzuki and Kemp wrote. “Working as a community volunteer was just in his blood — again, he found much gratification in helping others.”

Ueoka also is survived by his wife, Yukie; a son, Ladd; and three granddaughters.

* Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.

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