The Irrepressible Moe Yonemura

At a time when there were almost no Japanese Americans enrolled at UCLA, Moe Yonemura was a "big man on campus." Cheerleader, elected student body official, fundraiser, spirit-builder -- Moe did it all.

He kept it up even after he and his family were forced behind barbed wire in the spring of his senior year.

When the US Army made it possible for the Nisei to volunteer in 1943 -- to join a racially segregated battallion --  Moe was among the first to join up.

This is the remarkable story of an irrepressible young man.

Hitoshi "Moe" Yonemura, here about 20 years old, stands before the crowd as "yell leader" at a UCLA football game.  The photograph is from page 244 of the UCLA yearbook for 1940.

Moe left camp to join the US Army as a Second Lieutenant in 1943.  

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Music in this episode: Erik Haddad - "Frame of Mind"; Jazzhar – "Room with a View," "No End Avenue," and "Where It Goes"; www.bensound.com - "Better Days" and "Sad Day"; "Hail to the Hills of Westwood" and "By the Old Pacific" from www.fightmusic.com; "Flat Feet Floogie (with a Floy Floy) by Slim and Slam (from archive.org)
 

Photo of Moe Yonemura in uniform courtesy of the National Archives Catalog.