Frank Chuman

Frank Fujio Chuman (, April 29, 1917 – May 23, 2022) was an American civil rights attorney and author, involved in several important Japanese American civil rights cases and in the redress movement.

Early life Frank Fujio Chuman was born on April 29, 1917, in Montecito, California, to parents who had emigrated from Japan's Kagoshima Prefecture. The middle of three children, Chuman attended Los Angeles High School, where he graduated in 1934 as class valedictorian. He went on to graduate from UCLA in 1938, and then enrolled in USC's Law School in 1940. In 1942, following Executive Order 9066, Chuman was forced to leave school and was incarcerated at Manzanar with his parents and older sister.

While at Manzanar, Chuman served as chief administrator at the Manzanar Hospital. In 1943, Chuman was allowed to leave Manzanar and resume his legal education, first at the University of Toledo and then at the University of Maryland, where he was the institution's first Asian American law student. Chuman received his law degree in 1945. While at the University of Maryland, Chuman took a course in which he became acquainted with the writ of error coram nobis — a legal order that would play an important role later in his life. Chuman joined the legal team as an adviser, and the petition led to the reversal by federal court judges of the two convictions.