A group of senators, including Oregon’s Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, have written a letter to President Barack Obama to award the Presidential Medal of Honor to Hood River native Minoru Yasui.  Yasui is most famous for his legal challenge to the order authorizing restrictions on, and the eventual internment of, more than 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II.  He deliberately violated a curfew and after his arrest took his case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled against him.  An Oregon district court eventually overturned his conviction but did not rule on the constitutionality of wartime internment.  He had tried nine times to join the U.S. Army, only to be denied due to his heritage.  Yasui was born in Hood River, earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Oregon, and became the first Japanese-American to graduate from the University of Oregon law school.  After his internment Yasui eventually moved to Denver, where he had a long career as a lawyer and civil rights advocate.  Eight senators signed the letter to the President.