The Bamboo People

Pioneering Nisei attorney Frank F. Chuman (1917– ) was active in many of the key civil rights-related cases in the early postwar era. He is also credited with being one of the first to come up with the concept of reopening the wartime cases using the writ of error coram nobis. During his time in law school, he worked at the Los Angeles County Probation Department. Following Executive Order 9066, Chuman was placed on "leave of absence" from his job, and subsequently taken away and confined at Manzanar. Chuman left Manzanar in the fall of 1943 to continue his legal studies. During the postwar years, he served as legal counsel for the national JACL from 1953-60 and as its national president from 1960-62. During his term as president, Chuman negotiated with UCLA president, Franklin Murphy, the creation of the Japanese American Research Project (JARP), to be housed at UCLA, with archives holding rare materials on Japanese immigrants. In connection with JARP, Chuman devoted several years of research, when he could get away from his law practice, to the creation of a legal history of Japanese Americans, including the evolution of legislation and jurisprudence in regard to immigration restrictions, alien land laws, wartime confinement and other subjects. Chuman's book remains the standard work in that area.