WHY WE ARE THANKFUL FOR FRED KOREMATSU

Today, I write to honor and thank Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu. I had the opportunity to work with him in the campaign for reparations during the 1980s and am continually grateful to him for his historic court cases, which helped restore dignity to Japanese Americans who were wrongly incarcerated during World War II and contributed to both the reparations movement and the passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988.

So many Japanese Americans were removed from San Diego County in 1942 after President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 to incarcerate 120,000 people. My parents were among them. They were humble, honest and hardworking people who were incarcerated in a hot Arizona prison for three years. They had no idea that anyone defied the government order. They would be so surprised and proud that the state of California would name this day to honor a Japanese American!

Fred Korematsu was the first Asian American to have a day named in his honor. There are several schools named after him, and in 1998 he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Why did he receive these tributes?

The short answer is that in 1942, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Korematsu defied Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, which gave the military the authority to remove and incarcerate persons from “military areas in any region or locality.” Although World War II involved Germany, Italy and Japan, only Japanese Americans on the West Coast were forcibly removed and incarcerated because of military necessity.

At the age of 23, Korematsu refused to abandon his life in Oakland and report to one of America’s concentration camps. He went to great lengths to change his name and appearance so that he could move to Nevada and marry his Caucasian girlfriend. He knew that he had rights, but being a Japanese American, the odds were greatly stacked against him. It wasn’t long before he was arrested, convicted and sent to Tanforan Assembly Center in San Bruno and later to Topaz incarceration camp in Utah. In 1942, only three men challenged Executive Order 9066: Gordon Hirabayashi, Minoru Yasui and Fred Korematsu.

With the tremendous support of Ernest Besig, the executive director of the Northern California American Civil Liberties Union, Korematsu challenged the government’s actions in court. In 1944, in Korematsu v. United States, the Supreme Court delivered one of the most controversial decisions in the history of jurisprudence, supporting the government’s abrogation of constitutional rights to its citizens. Korematsu lost, so we all lost.

However, almost four decades later, in 1983, his conviction for defying incarceration orders was overturned based on the suppression of key evidence by the government that stated that the Japanese Americans on the West Coast were not a problem. There was no military necessity.

That suppressed evidence was uncovered by San Diegan Peter Irons, emeritus professor at UC San Diego, and Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga, a senior research associate for the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians. They found statements in government archives from military leaders and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover stating that Japanese Americans were not disloyal.

The rationale for mass incarceration was refuted. History would stand corrected.

Another historic event during the 1980s was the redress movement. The Japanese American community waged a campaign to seek reparations for the wartime incarceration. President Jimmy Carter responded in 1980 by creating the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, and it heard testimony from over 750 Japanese American former incarcerees and others about the incarceration and its impacts. The commission’s final report, “Personal Justice Denied,” concluded that the root causes of the incarceration were “race prejudice, wartime hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.” That conclusion, the overturning of Korematsu’s conviction and the growing support for reparations across the country helped in the passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988.

That act provided a presidential apology and monetary restitution of $20,000 to people who were impacted by Executive Order 9066, the wartime exclusion and incarceration. Over 82,500 people were identified and paid by 1998. My parents and older sister received the apology and reparations for their imprisonment at Poston, Ariz.

To me, Korematsu represented every person who just wants to build a life with the person they love. He had the courage to challenge the U.S. government with his resistance, and then again in the Supreme Court. Throughout his life, he never stopped fighting for justice. Sadly, he passed away in 2005.

In 2010, San Diego Assemblymember Marty Block and Los Angeles Assemblymember Warren Furutani introduced a bill to create the Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution. It passed, and then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed it into law.

Fred Korematsu would want you to study to learn your rights and never be afraid to speak up.

Korematsu refused to abandon his life in Oakland and report to one of America’s concentration camps.