When asked to reflect on her proudest moments, Peggy A. Nagae wrote:

" 1. As Program Director for the Center for Asian Pacific American Women, I developed and directed the APAWLI fellowship program: a yearlong learning process to cultivate leaders holistically—mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. The Asian American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) women in our program learned skills to lead in a straightforward and holistic manner, to gain seats at leadership tables, and to contribute positively to their larger communities by successfully completing impact projects. After graduating, these women went on to lead organizations and champion the rights AANHPI communities. They were promoted to senior lawyer and managerial positions in law firms and corporate legal departments, elected to political office, and found success in their own entrepreneurial ventures. I loved our whole person leadership way of developing compassionate and compelling leaders!

2. I co-chaired the 2024 nomination of Mitsuye Endo Tsutsumi for a Presidential Medal of Freedom with Kathryn Bannai, also an Asian American woman attorney. Both of us had served as lead counsel for Minoru Yasui and Gordon Hirabayashi, respectively, reopening their World War II Japanese American cases in the early ‘80s. We sought the vacation of their convictions based on newly discovered evidence that demonstrated their incarceration (and that of 120,000 others) was the result of racial discrimination rather than military necessity. Along with the case of Fred Korematsu, we successfully overturned all three convictions. I also spearheaded Minoru Yasui’s successful nomination for a Presidential Medal of Freedom, which was awarded by President Obama, posthumously, in 2015.

Fewer are aware of Mitsuye Endo’s significant civil rights case. Endo was the lone Japanese American woman litigant whose habeas corpus petition reached the Supreme Court in 1944 where she won. The Endo decision was a significant factor in closing all incarceration camps and in opening the way for Japanese Americans to return to the West coast. While her case was on appeal, the government offered her an early release, which meant she would be set free. It also meant that her case would be dismissed. Endo refused and remained incarcerated for over a year longer. She was committed to justice for ALL not justice for one. Mitsuye Endo was courageous, determined, and steadfast.

In 2024, we submitted her nomination to President Biden urging him to award Mitsuye Endo Tsutsumi a Presidential Medal of Freedom so she could be justly honored. On January 2, 2025, Kathryn and I along with other leaders, including NAWL president-elect, Sandra Yamate, attended the White House ceremony where Mitsuye Endo Tsutsumi was posthumously awarded the Presidential Citizens Award. For me, it completed a circle that started decades earlier and finally bestowed upon a courageous Japanese American woman the recognition she so richly deserved."

Peggy was also honored with the Oregon Commission for Women’s 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award earlier this month.

Left collage: Peggy and colleagues with Minoru Yasui in 1983.

Right collage: Peggy and friends at the January 2025 White House ceremony where Mitsuye Endo Tsutsumi was posthumously awarded the Presidential Citizens Award.