Home2024 OAPABA Gala Dinner Program

2024 Gala Dinner Program

Schedule of Events

5:30 PM | Reception

7:00 PM | Dinner

Formal Welcome and Introduction
Matt Maile, OAPABA President

Keynote Speaker
Dr. Karen Korematsu
Founder and Director, Fred T. Korematsu Institute - Introduction by James Kim -

Justice Lynn R. Nakamoto Award Recipient
Judge Steven Powers
Oregon Appeals Court
- Introduction by Liani Reeves -

OAPABA Foundation
Introduction and Scholarship Announcement
Kim Stuart, OAPABA Foundation
Jovita Wang, OAPABA Foundation

8:55 PM | Closing Remarks

About OAPABA and NAPABA

The Oregon Asian Pacific American Bar Association (OAPABA) is a fast-growing community of APA attorneys and serves as the Oregon affiliate of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association. Our mission is to promote advancement, be a vehicle and forum for advocacy, and encourage and foster communication for our APA legal community.

The National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA) is a national association of APA attorneys, judges, law professors, and law students. NAPABA represents the interests of over 50,000 attorneys and approximately 75 national, state, and local bar associations. NAPABA engages in legislative and policy advocacy, promotes APA political leadership and political appointments, and builds coalitions within the legal profession and the community at large.

Keynote Speaker
Dr. Karen Korematsu

Dr. Karen Korematsu is the Founder and Executive Director of the Fred T. Korematsu Institute and the daughter of the late civil rights icon, Fred Korematsu. Karen is a national speaker and travels the country advocating for civil liberties, social justice, civics, and ethnic studies education. She encourages Covid-19 vaccinations in AAPI communities and promotes Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution on January 30 in perpetuity for all fifty states.

Dr. Korematsu has been interviewed on radio, podcasts, and TV. Her Op/Ed’s have appeared in the NY Times and Washington Post. She has received numerous awards and honors including the ACLU- Chief Justice Earl Warren Civil Liberties Award, the GMNY 2015 Isadore Starr Award, the NAPABA Presidents Award, the Muslim Advocates-Voice of Freedom Award, and the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies (APAICS) Community Leadership Award. In addition, she is a recipient of the Key to the City of Dearborn, Michigan by the Mayor of Dearborn in 2017.

Karen is a member of National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) and an Honored Member of the Council of State Social Studies Specialists (CS4). Karen is the first non-lawyer member of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA), serves on the board of directors of Asian Americans Advancing Justice-AAJC, DC and the NAPABA Law Foundation (NLF). She serves on the National Advisory Board of the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality at Seattle University School of Law.

Karen has signed on to various amicus briefs opposing violations of constitutional rights. In June of 2021, Dr. Korematsu was appointed to serve as a State of California Education Ambassador by State Superintendent, Tony Thurmond.

Karen received her first honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from St. Michael’s College in Burlington, Vermont, May 2019. She received her second honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Haverford College in Pennsylvania, May 2022.

Justice Nakamoto Award Recipient
Judge Steven R. Powers

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The Honorable Steven R. Powers has served on the Oregon Court of Appeals since July 2017, when Governor Kate Brown appointed him to the court. Oregonians subsequently elected him to a six-year term in November 2018. Before joining the Court of Appeals, Judge Powers was:

an attorney in private practice with Parsons Farnell & Grein, LLP
Deputy General Counsel in the Office of the Governor
a prosecutor in the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office
Chairperson of the Oregon Board of Parole and Post-Prison Supervision
an Assistant Attorney General in the Oregon Department of Justice
a petitions law clerk for the Oregon Supreme Court.

Judge Powers was a civil litigator in private practice where he represented clients in insurance coverage disputes and in appellate matters. While at the Oregon Department of Justice, he served in the Appellate Division where he handled a wide range of civil, criminal, and administrative appeals before the Oregon Court of Appeals, Oregon Supreme Court, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and the Supreme Court of the United States. He was a founding board member of the Oregon Filipino American Lawyers Association as well as an active member of the Oregon Minority Lawyers Association and the Oregon Asian Pacific American Bar Association.

Judge Powers earned his B.A. from Western State College of Colorado (now known as Western Colorado University) and J.D. from Willamette University College of Law. He has volunteered with the Classroom Law Project to enhance civic education and engagement, and he has served as a mentor to high-school students, law students, and newly admitted attorneys. Judge Powers has served on the Commission on Judicial Fitness and Disability since 2018, and frequently presents on various law-related topics for judges, lawyers, and students.

Mitsuye Endo Tsutsumi Petition

Mitsuye Endo Tsutsumi, just 22 years old at the time, courageously challenged the incarceration of her fellow Japanese Americans in concentration camps during World War II. She refused an offer of early release and remained in a concentration camp so that her petition for habeas corpus could be heard by the federal courts. Her sacrifice was not in vain: On December 18, 1944, the Supreme Court decided Ex parte Endo, holding unanimously that loyal Japanese Americans could not be imprisoned without cause. Endo’s case played a significant role in the closing of the concentration camps and the return of Japanese Americans to the West Coast in 1945 and 1946.

As we approach the 80th anniversary of the Endo decision, it is long past time to appreciate, recognize, and honor Mitsuye Endo Tsutsumi. Not only was her case one of just four challenges to the Japanese American incarceration to reach the Supreme Court, but Endo was also the lone woman litigant and the only one to achieve a successful outcome. The three men who challenged the incarceration in the Supreme Court, Fred Korematsu, Gordon Hirabayashi, and Minoru Yasui, have all received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Endo was as courageous, determined, and willing to fight injustice as those principled men. Yet her case is seldom cited and she has been recognized rarely, perhaps because she was a woman.

Endo's courage and conviction are an embodiment of what it means to be a responsible American citizen. She fought not just for herself but also for the rights of all citizens, proving that one person can indeed make a difference. In recognition of her significant contribution to civil liberties during one of America's darkest hours, we request that President Biden posthumously award Mitsuye Endo Tsutsumi with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Her story is not just part of our history; it is also part of our present struggle against injustice and discrimination. By honoring Endo, we honor all those who have bravely stood up against injustice at great personal cost and, as she put it, for “the good of everybody.”

Join us in this call to recognize Mitsuye Endo Tsutsumi's bravery and dedication to justice by signing this petition today! The link is: https://chng.it/vhVXB8J6VS

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