Masuo Yasui (1886-1957) moved to Hood River in 1905, and opened a small store with his brother. The Hood River Valley area was populated by hundreds of immigrant Japanese laborers by this time, mainly working in logging camps, sawmills, and orchards. Over time, the Yasui Brothers' store became a very successful business venture as well as an important social center for the local Japanese community. Yasui began buying up clear-cut lands and turning them into productive orchards.

In 1912, at the age of 26, Yasui married a childhood friend from his village in Nanukaichi, Japan, with whom he had been corresponding. Shidzuyo Miyake Yasui (1886-1960?), also 26, had attended college in Tokyo and was working as a teacher in a girl's school, where she taught history, geography, philosophy, painting, poetry, flower arrangement, and tea ceremony—a life very different from her new home in the farming community of Hood River. Masuo and Shidzuyo Yasui were married for 45 years and had nine children.

Over the course of 37 years, Masuo Yasui became a highly respected businessman, an important community leader, and one of the most successful fruit growers in the state of Oregon. Within the Japanese community, he provided legal and financial advice and help, often acting as translator and advocate when his fellow immigrants needed the services of the white community, and assisted many of his fellow immigrants in purchasing land of their own. Within the white community, Yasui became a prominent citizen, and was the first Japanese person to be elected to the board of directors of the Hood River Valley Fruit Growers Association. Yasui was a very busy and trusted intermediary between both communities.

Immediately after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the United States government froze all assets of all Japanese Americans. The Yasui Brothers' store was closed and the family was not allowed to take any supplies from the store or withdraw any of their funds. All of their lands were seized. As a leader in the Japanese community, six days after the outbreak of war, Masuo Yasui was arrested by FBI agents, and charged with being a "potentially dangerous enemy alien." He was imprisoned from Dec. 1941 to Jan. 1946. In May 1942, Shidzuyo and her two youngest children were “evacuated” and “relocated” to the Tule Lake internment camp in California.

Suspicions raised by Yasui's imprisonment, and the loss of all his property except a fragment of orchard, made Hood River inhospitable after the war. Masuo and Shidzuyo Yasui moved to Portland, where Masuo turned his energies to helping fellow evacuees return to their homes and lives, once again providing legal and financial counsel and advocacy. In 1952 Congress introduced a bill to allow Japanese immigrants to become American citizens. Yasui began teaching classes to help his fellow Japanese men and women—many now in their 60s and 70s—prepare for citizenship. Yasui was one of the first to pass the tests, and became a naturalized American citizen at the age of 66. Later in life, Masuo Yasui suffered from what is now known as Alzheimer’s Disease; he committed suicide at age 71. Shidzuyo Yasui died three years later. The Yasui children became successful in many professions.

The lives of the Yasui family were devastated by Executive Order 9066, by which Japanese Americans were interned, stripped of property, and bereft of rights. While Masuo and Shidzuyo Yasui and their children fought for redress, for themselves and for all those affected by the order, they also worked to build a better world. The Yasui legacy is one of achievement in higher education, humanitarian services, and lasting commitment to community.