Sei Fujii immigrated to America in 1903 and graduated from USC's law school in 1911, knowing full well that, as a noncitizen, he would not be allowed to take the bar and practice as an attorney.
Undeterred, Fujii partnered with a like-minded white classmate, J. Marion Wright, and worked for more than four decades to overturn racially discriminatory laws that prohibited Japanese residents and their descendants from participating fully in the American dream.
Fujii is scarcely remembered today, even by Japanese Americans, but on Saturday, a group of his admirers, including leaders of the Little Tokyo Historical Society, unveiled a monument in his honor at the entrance to the Japanese Village Plaza in Little Tokyo.