Some Women Would Challenge Facist Commendation of Large Families

 
Section I: Introduction
Section II: Issei: East To America
Section Three: The Decision To Imprison A People
Department IV: Life Behing Barbed Wire: The Internment Feel
Section V: Japanese Americans In The State of war: The Battlefield Connection
Department 6: The Quest for Justice

The following text was taken from the original traveling exhibit "A More Perfect Marriage: Japanese Americans and The Us Constitution" in 1994.

Section I
INTRODUCTION

Two centuries after its cosmos, the U.s. Constitution remains the well-nigh successful frame of regime ever devised. "Every word of the Constitution decides a question between power and liberty," wrote James Madison in 1792, and his words resonate today. This exhibition looks at one American community whose members were stripped of their homes, property, and Constitutional rights in World State of war 2, in the name of national defence force.

Early on in 1942, almost 120,000 Americans of Japanese beginnings�virtually of them U. S. citizens -were forced from their homes and into federal detention camps. Most spent the state of war behind barbed wire and nether armed baby-sit in remote areas. There were no formal accusations, no search for evidence, no trials. Japanese Americans were assumed guilty of potential disloyalty solely on the basis of race.

Some turned to the courts to enforce their Constitutional rights, only in 1944 the Supreme Courtroom largely upheld the government's actions. The banishment of Japanese Americans to detention camps in wartime shows how swiftly Constitutional safeguards can be jettisoned when racial prejudice, public pressure, and fear deed together in fourth dimension of national crisis.

"The Japanese in California should be under armed baby-sit to the Last man and woman right now�and to hell with habeas corpus."

— Westbrook Pegler, nationally syndicated columnist, 1942

THE CONSTITUTION

In The Federalist, Number 51, James Madison described the primal challenge facing any con�stitutional republic�to create a government that can regulate the affairs of citizens and regulate itself besides:

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external or internal controls on regime would be necessary. In framing a government which is to exist adminis�tered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this� you must first enable the regime to control the governed; and in the adjacent place oblige it to control itself "

The starting time draft of the Constitution was printed and distributed to members of the Convention for comment early on in Baronial 1787. This re-create belonged to David Brearly (1745-1790), a New Jersey delegate. The notes are in his hand.

"Every Give-and-take... decides a question between ability and liberty.

—James Madison, 1792

"Our Constitution is and then simple and practical that it is possible e'er to encounter the extraordinary needs past changes in emphasis and system without loss of essential course. That is why our constitutional system bas proved itse4Cthe near superbly enduring political mechanism the mod world bas produced.

—Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933

"You may think that the Constitution is your security�it is zilch but a piece of paper. You may think that the statutes are your security�they are null but words in a book. Y'all may think that elaborate machinery of authorities is your security�information technology is nothing at all, unless you accept sound and uncorrupted public opinion to give life to your Constitution, to give vitality to your statutes, to make efficient your government machinery."

—Charles Evan Hughes, Master Justice, U.S. Supreme Courtroom

The Fourth Amendment

"The right of the people to exist secure in their persons, houses, papers, and furnishings, confronting unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall consequence, but upon probable cause, support�ed by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to exist searched, and the persons or things to be seized. "

The Fourteenth Amendment, 1868

'All persons born or naturalized in the U.s.a., and bailiwick to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United states and of the Land wherein they reside. No Country shall make or enforce any police force which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any Land deprive whatsoever person of life, liberty or property, without due procedure of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. "

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Section II
ISSEI: Due east TO AMERICA

Between 1861 and 1940, about 275,000 Japanese immigrated to Hawaii and the American chief�land. Nearly Issei�the immigrant generation�arrived between 1898 and 1924, the year that the United States ended Asian immigration. Barred from U.S. citizenship since 1900, the Issei also were barred from land ownership in California and other western states. They faced prejudice in newspa�per editorials, in segregated schools, in employment, and in other aspects of daily life.

But Japanese Americans persisted, developing their communities and pursuing educational and busi�ness opportunities. By 1940 many had deep roots in America, and contributed significantly to the Due west Coast economy. Issei owned homes, businesses, and farms, all held in the names of their American-built-in children who were automatically U.S. citizens and able to ain property.

Like other immigrants, many Issei retained a regard for their Japanese homeland and traditions. Their children, the Nisei generation built-in in the United States, considered themselves "the virtually loyal of all loyal Americans." But many watched uneasily as tensions betwixt Nippon and the United States increased during the 1930s.

EARLY Immigration TO THE The states

The first large groups of Asian immigrants reaching Hawaii -a U.S. territory- and the United states in the late 19th century faced racial prejudice. In 1882 Congress passed a law excluding Chinese laborers from entering the country. About Americans could not and did not distinguish between Chinese and Japanese.

In Hawaii, where large numbers of Japanese laborers had been recruited, the legislature passed restrictive laws confronting them, and attempted to attract people of other nationalities every bit laborers. In 1907 Congress forbade the immigration of Japanese from Hawaii to the U.S. mainland. By 1940 persons of Japanese ancestry deemed for most 40 percent of the population of the Hawaiian Islands.

Well-nigh Japanese immigrants to the United states of america before 1907 settled on the Westward Coast and excelled in the cultivation of marginal lands. As successful farmers, fruit growers, fishermen, and small busi�nessmen, their ability to do well with piffling and to overcome bang-up odds fabricated them objects of green-eyed by some in the dominant white community. Fix autonomously by their physical appearance, they became fur�ther isolated from the white mainstream as envy fed racial hostility.

LEGALIZING RACISM

Under the and so-called Gentlemen'south Agreement of 1907-08, Nihon agreed to restrict the emigration of laborers to the Usa. The United States in return agreed not to discriminate openly against Japanese residents. Ironically, President Theodore Roosevelt thus became the defender of Japanese rights in America.

Opponents of Japanese immigration claimed that Asians were ineligible for citizenship. Their opin�ion was based on an Deed of Congress in the 1790s that express naturalization to gratis whites and aliens of African descent. In 1922 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Hawaiian law that denied Japanese immigrants citizenship on those grounds. Asians were the last grouping of immigrants who were admittedly barred from U.S. citizenship.

In 1913 the California Associates restricted state ownership to people eligible for citizenship, thereby excluding Japanese resident aliens from land ownership. In a 1924 deed that set quotas on immigrants from many nations, the U.South. Congress violated the 1907 Gentleman's Agreement past banning alto�gether the immigration of peoples ineligible for U.S. citizenship, namely Asians. The human action almost eliminated Asian immigration and caused great resentment in Japan.

THE RISING Sunday

Until the 1940s, few Americans had frequent contact with people of Japanese descent living in the United States. Most Americans formed their views of Japan and the Japanese from what they read in newspapers, magazines, and books, or heard from occasional speakers. Fear of japan's growing mili�tary ability and prejudice against people who seemed different were mutual themes.

Japan'south spectacular victory over Russian federation in the state of war of 1904-05 was the start defeat of a European power by an Asian nation in mod times. The effect raised the pride of Japanese everywhere. Among white Americans, however, the rise of Nihon on the world scene, the Japanese expansion into Mainland china later World War I, and the tradition of racial prejudice against Japanese led to fearfulness of a hereafter "xanthous peril" and to predictions of eventual state of war.

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Department III
THE DECISION TO IMPRISON A PEOPLE

Japan's alliance with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in 1940 focused globe attending on the Asian nation'south war machine ability and regal ambition. The Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, stunned the United States, and fixed in many American minds the epitome of Japan equally a treacherous nation. Fearfulness of more than attacks, fifty-fifty invasion, in the wake of Pearl Harbor fabricated information technology seem acceptable, even patriotic, to claiming the loyalty of all Japanese Americans in the U.s.a..

On February 19, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Social club 9066 authorizing mili�tary authorities to exclude "whatever and all persons" from designated areas of the country when neces�sary for national defence force. Due east.O. 9066 was the offset step in a programme that uprooted Americans of Japanese ancestry from their communities and placed them nether armed baby-sit for up to 4 years. Although some West Coast Japanese Americans expected that resident conflicting Japanese men would exist rounded up and confined if war bankrupt out with Japan, they were shocked that women, children, and American citizens of Japanese ancestry would likewise be moved ftom their homes and confined first in assembly centers and then in permanent camps. The Japanese American response to their impris�onment varied. Most community leaders recommended cooperation with regime. Some sought to test the constitutionality of the programme in the courts. Nonetheless others protested against the forced removal that violated guarantees of private rights fix forth in the Constitution.

THE Crisis

For both Japan and America, Globe War xi in the Pacific had ugly overtones of racial disharmonize. German language or Italian troops might take been regarded by Americans equally misguided victims of evil leaders merely the Japanese were referred to in American popular civilisation as "yellow vermin," "mad dogs," and "monkey men." The effects of racist wartime propaganda on Americans of Japanese ancestry were devastating.

THE ORIGINS OF REMOVAL

Members of the State of war Section argued for removal of the Issei and their Nisei children from areas regarded as vital to national security. Officials were influenced by politicians from West Declension dis�tricts, where opposition to Japanese Americans ran loftier. The sentiment confronting removal, centered in the U.South. Justice Department and supported past some religious leaders and private individuals, was limited, muffled in the shrill demands for swift activity.

"Their racial characteristics are such that we cannot under or trust even the citizen Japanese.

—Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of War, 1942

'A patriotic native- born Japanese, if he wants to make his contribution, will submit himself into a concen�tration campsite. "

—Leland Ford, Congressman from California, 1942

OPPOSITION TO REMOVAL

Few advocates of civil liberty stepped frontwards to argue against the Japanese internment plan. Dispensing with the basic constitutional rights of almost 120,000 Americans and resident aliens came rapidly and with relative ease. Most Americans outside of the West Coast ignored or were unaware of the situation, their attention fixed on the war with Federal republic of germany, Italy, and Japan.

The limited official opposition to removal centered in the U.S. Justice Department. Officials like Edward J. Ennis recognized that Japanese Americans were loyal, and spoke out against the injustice and danger of proposals for mass relocation. The FBI's J. Edgar Hoover opposed removal. Some religious leaders, specially Quakers, and a few private citizens, such equally Socialist leader Norman Thomas, likewise protested the program. Their voices, never very strong compared to those of the War Department staff, were drowned out by the ascent clamor for activeness. Few traditional advocates of civil liberty stepped forward to fence that the internment program violated key principles of constitutional constabulary.

THE Determination

Officials in the War Department who favored the forced removal of Japanese Americans found President Franklin Roosevelt receptive to their cause. Rooseveles Executive Order 9066 went into event on February xix, 1942. Past the spring of 1942, information technology was clear that well-nigh Americans would ignore the plight of their fellow citizens of Japanese beginnings. For Japanese Americans, the Constitution ceased to exist for the duration of the war.

GOING OUT OF BUSINESS

For thousands of Japanese American homeowners and small businesses, moving out also meant sell�ing out�quickly, and at an enormous loss. The full dollar value of the property loss has been esti�mated at as much as $1.3 billion. Net income losses may accept been as high as $2.7 billion (both in 1983 dollars).

Only the harm went across economic loss. Many Japanese Americans never fully recovered from the shock and trauma of the move, coupled every bit it was with the disruption of careers and economic upheaval.

REGISTRATION

Registration of all Americans of Japanese beginnings was the beginning footstep toward forced removal. In the bound of 1942, scenes similar these were repeated in every Japanese American community along the Pacific Coast.

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Section Four
LIFE BEHIND Spinous WIRE: THE INTERNMENT Feel

The War Relocation Authorisation (WRA) eventually housed 120,000 Japanese Americans in ten major camps in vii states. No 2 camps were quite alike, but all had 1 mutual feature�geographic isolation. Conditions at the camps varied from the heat and dust of Manzanar, Poston, and Gila River to the rains of Jerome and Rowher and the bitter wintertime common cold of Center Mount and Minidoka. Individuals arriving at a army camp were shocked to notice that they would alive backside spinous-wire fences, watched over by armed military police in guard towers.

The WRA too operated citizen isolation centers in Utah and Arizona where internees regarded as peculiarly difficult were "sentenced" to indeterminate "terms" without benefit of judge or jury. The Justice Department maintained additional camps for resident aliens.

Every camp had a vista or landmark that came to symbolize the place for the men, women, and chil�dren confined there. At Manzanar, it was the image of the mountains rising abruptly out of the California desert floor. Center Mountain brooded above the Wyoming military camp. At Topaz, Utah, peo�ple remembered three behemothic h2o towers, just inside the fence. The largest military camp, Poston, in Arizona, held 20,000, and the smallest, at Granada, Colorado, 8,000.

THE GEOGRAPHY OF INTERNMENT

Commencement Stop

Temporary associates centers were the first stop for most internees. Sixteen centers were established in California, Oregon, Washington State, and Arizona. Fairgrounds, racetracks, and other public facilities were pressed into service to handle the influx of Japanese Americans. They remained in these centers, under the control of the Ground forces's Wartime Civil Control Assistants (WCCA), until the War Relocation Dominance (WRA) camps were prepare.

Conditions in the WCCA assembly centers were unsanitary at all-time. At Tanforan and Santa Anita, California, internees were housed in stalls that only a week earlier had held horses. Sanitation, food service, and health-care facilities were below the everyman U.Southward. Army standards.

THE PERMANENT War RELOCATION AUTHORITY CAMPS

Life in the internment camps was hard. Residents had been deprived of their most basic rights and this fact was never forgotten. The loss of parental authorisation, the absence of family unit eating arrangements in the mess halls, the lack of privacy, and other factors threatened traditional family life.

Artificial and traumatic as the army camp experience was for Japanese Americans, life did become on. Sentinel troops, religious observances, schools, little theater companies, and able-bodied events helped ease the pain of living beneath the shadow of a watchtower. For many, the real mensurate of internment was institute in the scores of small-scale indignities endured each day. Taken together, their cost on family cohe�sion and on individual nobility and cocky-respect was enormous.

Barracks HOME

From 1942 to 1946, home for most Japanese Americans was i of ten WRA camps, all patterned on military facilities. Each was divided into a number of blocks housing 250 to 300 people. Each block consisted of 12 residential billet, a mess hall, a fundamental latrine and washroom, and a recre�ation hall.

Hastily congenital, with tar newspaper walls and no amenities, the barracks were hot in summer and cold in winter. Well-nigh did non meet minimal standards for military machine housing. A visiting judge noted that pris�oners in federal penitentiaries were better housed.

"It was clumsily hot out there [Poston, Arizona]."

" The floor had about an inch of infinite betwixt the boards, wide enough for the grass under the house to abound through information technology."

—Mine Okubo, Citizen 13660

"We were told to have only as much every bit we could bear in our 2 hands. How much could you carry in your 2 hands?'

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"The Heart Mountain Campsite was very common cold. The coldest temperature which we experienced there was minus xx-eight degrees. When one touched a doorknob, the skin would stick to the knob."

LIFE IN Campsite

Japanese American internees recreated community structures that helped them live as normal a life as possible. Civic associations, churches, Boy Scout troops, Parent Teacher Associations, dances, and athletic competitions helped to ease the monotony and feet. Merely life in the camps inevitably involved ruby-red tape and bureaucratic nightmares. Residents stood in lines for virtually every activity, and filled out forms (in triplicate) for every asking. Meals were prepared and served in block mess halls, each handling from 250 to 300 internees.

"It is rather hard to say, just when a person is imprisoned in a camp surrounded past barbed wire�if he has no liberty, he loses all hope and gets to where he doesn't care anymore."

—Anonymous

"The loss -of privacy was one of the great indignities suffered by evacuees."

'My small daughter and I used to consume at a table where ii little boys ... ate with their mothers. They bad become so uncontrollable that the mothers gave up, and let them swallow as they pleased. . . .

"We lined up for post, for checks, for meals, for showers, for laundry tubs, for toilers, for clinic service, for movies. We lined up for everything."

—Mine Okubo, Citizen 13660

Work RELEASE

Every bit early on every bit May 1942, camp residents who were willing to work every bit field laborers were offered flavour�al furloughs. Later, individuals and families were offered permanent release to selected jobs outside war machine zones. Elaborate investigations of character and loyalty were required for participants in this piece of work-release programme. By 1943, 17,000 Japanese Americans had permanently left the WRA camps nether the program.

DISSENT

Within the camps, Japanese American internees disagreed among themselves well-nigh the best approach to take in dealing with the U.Southward. authorities. Those who argued for full cooperation with campsite administrators clashed with others who favored resistance to the government programs. The divi�sions among internees had deep, bitter, and tragic consequences.

A QUESTION OF LOYALTY?

Early in 1943 all camp residents were told to complete ane of two questionnaires. At the time, all citizens of Japanese ancestry were classified as 4-C, meaning enemy aliens. A selective service ques�tionnaire was meant to distinguish between "loyal" and "disloyal" draft-historic period Nisei males. The other questionnaire was for all other residents. Some internees feared that even the satisfactory completion of this second form might be dangerous. If they were accepted as loyal, they feared that they might exist forced to exit campsite. Since they were forbidden by law to return to their homes in the Due west Coast armed forces zones and had fiddling money and no hope of finding work, they preferred to remain in army camp.

The loyalty forms aggravated existing tensions among camp residents. Some trusted the govern�ment, while others suspected that trick questions would be used as a basis for segregation, family separation, or other forms of punishment. Many residents, dispossessed and locked away behind barbed wire, chose the loyalty questionnaires as the issue on which to accept a stand.

TULE LAKE

Japanese American internees segregated on the basis of their answers to questions on the required forms, were to be sent to Tule Lake, California. Of the eighteen,422 people finally incarcerated at Tule Lake, 69 percent were citizens, most them minor children; 39 per centum had requested repatriation or expatriation to Japan; 26 percent had answered the loyalty questionnaire "unsatisfactorily"; and 31 percentage were family members of "troublemakers."

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Section V
JAPANESE AMERICANS IN THE WAR: THE BATTLEFIELD Connexion

Some 25,000 Japanese Americans, many of whom had family and friends living in the internment camps, served in U.Southward. military units during Earth State of war 11. The extraordinary combat record of Japanese American troops�in particular, that of the combined I 00th Infantry Battalion and 442nd Regimental Combat Team and the contributions of Japanese American Military Intelligence Service language specialists�underscored the irony of wartime internment.

Praise from their comrades in arms and all-encompassing news coverage of the bravery of Japanese American soldiers highlighted the injustice of the forced removal of civilians to the camps and helped to set the stage for postwar change.

But while Japanese American soldiers displayed their patriotism and valor abroad, the internment continued at domicile. Few images of civilian life in Earth State of war 2 are more poignant than that of the Japanese American gold star mother or wife�whose son or husband had died in action�living in an internment camp.

THE Draft

From October 1940 until the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December vii, 1941, the Selective Service Commission classified Japanese American citizens equally they did all other American citizens. After Pearl Harbor, citizens of Japanese ancestry were reclassified 4-C, enemy aliens. Even though classified as enemy aliens, some Nisei were afterwards permitted to volunteer for armed forces service.

In December 1943 information technology was announced that all Nisei would exist reclassified and eligible for the draft. In all, 2,800 inductees were drawn from the camps in 1944 and 1945. Many young men viewed the activeness every bit a reinstatement of their rights every bit citizens and welcomed the opportunity to serve.

OPPOSITION TO THE DRAFT

The draft of young Japanese American men did not bring most the closing of the camps and the restoration of the rights and holding of Japanese Americans. In protest, many Nisei refused to appear for their physicals or to serve in the armed services until all their rights of citizenship had been restored. In all, 315 immature men refused induction. Of them, 263 were convicted of draft evasion. Many took a stand against the typhoon even though they knew that physical infirmities or family status would have fabricated them ineligible for induction.

Resistance to the draft was peculiarly strong at the Center Mountain and Poston Camps. Sixty-three Nisei members of the Centre Mount Off-white Play Commission resisted on constitutional grounds. The resisters were tried, convicted and sentenced to three years in federal prison. All appeals failed. In 1947 President Truman pardoned all Japanese Americans who resisted the typhoon.

JAPANESE AMERICANS IN COMBAT

By wars end, the combined 100^thursday Infantry Battalion/442nd Regimental Combat Team, com�posed almost entirely of Japanese Americans, was the most decorated U.South. military unit of measurement for its size and length of service. Never numbering more than iv,500 men, the 100th/442nd consisted of actress�commonly aggressive fighters. The soldiers of these units earned a total of eighteen,143 private decora�tions and took a casualty rate of 300 pct. The awards included:

1 Congressional Medal of Honor

7 Major Campaign Streamers

7 Presidential Unit of measurement Citations

36 Army Commendations

87 Bounded Commendations

Meritorious Service Plaques for Medical

Disengagement and Service Company

I Distinguished Service Medal

560 Silver Stars

28 Oak Leaf Clusters (in lieu of a 2nd Silver Star) 22 Legion of Merit Medals

xv Soldier's Medals

iv,000 Bronze Stars with

1,200 Oak Leaf Clusters (in lieu of a second Bronze Star)

3,500 Purple Hearts (with 500 additional Oak Foliage Cluster for additional awards)

12 French Croix de Guerre with

2 Palms (in lieu of a 2d award)

ii Italian Crosses for Military machine Valor

2 Italian Medals for Military Valor

GO FOR BROKE!

In June 1942 a segregated Nisei unit, composed entirely of volunteers recruited in Hawaii, was sent without its weapons to training at Camp McCoy, Wisconsin. 8 months later, the men of the unit of measurement, designated the 100th Battalion of the 69th Infantry Sectionalization, were moved to Camp Shelby, Mississippi, for advanced infantry training.

A second segregated Nisei armed services unit of measurement, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, was activated at Camp Shelby on February 1, 1943. The original contingent included i,500 volunteers from the mainland, primarily from the camps, and 3,000 men from Hawaii. All of the American denizen vol�unteers came to the unit of measurement with a draft board rating of iv-C, the designation for an enemy alien, one more denial of the rights of Japanese Americans. The unit's motto was, "Go for Broke."

Gainsay

The 100th Infantry Battalion was declared combat-ready in August 1943, and joined the 34th "Ruby Balderdash" Division of the 5th Ground forces in North Africa. After landing at Salerno, Italy, on September 26, 1943, the men of the 100th began establishing their enviable combat record. By early 1944 the 100th had been dubbed the "Imperial Heart Battalion," and the gallantry and bravery of its members erased any doubts the U.S. Army might have had about sending the men of the Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Squad to Europe to join the fight against the Germans.

During the final ix months of combat training at Camp Shelby, the 442nd supplied 530 enlisted replacements and 40 officers to replenish the 100th Battalion, already in combat in Europe. The 442nd entered combat, on June 7, 1944 at Anzio. With the men of the I 00th Battalion now fastened, the unit of measurement remained in combat for the next I I months. The 100th/442nd saw action in Italian republic, Kingdom of belgium, southern France, and Federal republic of germany. At war's end, 680 members of the unit of measurement had been killed in activity, 67 were missing, and 9,486 Majestic Hearts had been awarded for wounds suffered in combat.

MILITARY INTELLIGENCE

Similar the Nisei who fought with the 100th/442nd in Europe, some five,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry became Armed forces Intelligence Service (MIS) language specialists. About 3,700 men were serving in gainsay zones in the Pacific and in Asia by August 1945. MIS Japanese language special�ists served with 130 unlike army and navy units, with the Marine Corps, and on loan to combat units of England, Commonwealth of australia, China, and New Zealand.

Military Intelligence Service language specialists served both as translators attached to intelligence headquarters in Hawaii, India, and Commonwealth of australia, and with gainsay units in the field. On-the-spot trans�lations of captured documents, prisoner interrogations, and persuasion of Japanese soldiers and civil�ians to surrender were among the duties performed nether burn down by Japanese American intelligence ser�vice troops.

SUMMING Up

The extraordinary gainsay record of Japanese American troops in Europe, the Pacific, Cathay, Burma, and India underscored the injustice of wartime internment. Praise from their comrades in arms left no room to doubt the bravery and loyalty of the Nisei citizens who had gone overseas while many of their friends and family were held behind barbed wire at dwelling house.

"That which happened to the Japanese on the W Coast must not happen again ... it must not happen again to any minority group.... I am convinced that if some class of token justice is non done to the wronged loyal Japanese of the U.Southward., that the U. S. will be the sufferer in the long run. Not from the Japanese�rather from internal instability and an inability to come to grasp with the horns, threatening, of reality... A frank admission and attempt at retribution will give America more than a thousand "slurring-overs".... I yet maintain, that in Truth there is strength ... a force that will stand the test of time and suffer for the practiced of all."

—Letter from Sgt. Chester Tanaka to friends in St. Louis, Nov six, 1944

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Section VI
THE QUEST FOR JUSTICE

By 1946 the U.Southward. regime had released all Japanese Americans incarcerated in the WRA camps. Although the procedure was gradual, and included aid for retraining and relocation, rejoining club was difficult for many. The postwar housing shortage, the competition with returning veterans for jobs, and persistent discrimination added to their difficulties. Many detainees discovered that their pre-1941 communities had vanished, and their homes and businesses were lost.

As Japanese Americans began to rebuild their lives, they also began a long quest for justice. The first fruits of this campaign came with the passage of the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952, which opened the way to citizenship for the Issei, and established a quota system for Asians similar to that for all other immigrants. In add-on, some states offered reparations for holding losses suffered equally a result of Executive Order 9066. It was only a beginning. Japanese Americans were determined to create a public understanding of the injustices they had suffered and to resolve the basic Ramble problems related to their wartime incarceration.

The wartime experience of Americans of Japanese beginnings holds of import lessons for all citizens. Japanese Americans demonstrated the importance of courage in adversity, loyalty to the highest ideals of the U.S. Constitution, and the ability of determined citizens to effect positive change. Through their struggle to ensure that all Americans empathize the importance of extending the safeguards and protections of the Constitution to every citizen, regardless of race, color, or creed, they have moved all of united states of america a bit closer to that "More Perfect Union" envisioned by the founders of the nation.

THE CHALLENGE IN THE COURTS

"The Constitution is what the judges say it is."

—Charles Evans Hughes, Governor of New York, 1907

Four major court cases testing the constitutionality of wartime treatment of Japanese American citi�zens reached the U.S. Supreme Courtroom in 1943 and 1944. Lawsuits brought past Minoru Yasui, Gordon M. Hirabayashi, and Fred T. Korematsu related to violations of curfew and other discrimina�tory regulations imposed on Japanese Americans prior to relocation. In these cases, the justices chose to rule narrowly on the specific issues, rather than consider larger Constitutional issues of relocation. Accepting regime justifications of national security and military necessity, the Supreme Courtroom refused to block Executive Guild 9066 and the programs it generated.

EX PARTE ENDO

The case of Mitsuye Endo related to the legality of relocation. On Dec 18, 1944, the Us Supreme Court reversed a lower courtroom decision, ruling that Ms. Endo and other internees could not be barred from admission to writs of habeas corpus-the Constitution south guarantee of a denizen south right to a swift hearing before a magistrate in which specific accusations would accept to be stated.

The public law of March 21, 1942, empowered military authorities to impose a curfew, but did not mention detention. The Court ruled that war machine government had exceeded the scope of the police by imprisoning loyal American citizens. justice William 0. Douglas declared that "lawmakers intended to place no greater restraint on the citizen than was conspicuously and unmistakably indicated by the lan�guage they used."

THE Loftier COURT

U.S Supreme Court Principal Justice Harlan Fiske Rock and justices Owen J. Roberts, Hugo Blackness, Stanley Reed, Felix Frankfurter, William 0. Douglas, Frank Murphy, Robert Jackson, and Wiley B. Rutledge ruled on the four cases relating to the wartime treatment of Japanese Americans. The jus�tices were divided over the constitutional issues in question. These differences were reflected in the legal opinions they offered on the Japanese American cases.

"We must credit the military with as much good organized religion every bit nosotros would any other public official. We cannot sit down in judgment of the military machine requirements of that 60 minutes."

—Acquaintance Justice William O. Douglas, Concurring Opinion, Hirabayashi v. U.South., 1943

"The broad provisions of the Bill of rights. . . are [not] suspended by the mere existence of a land of war. Distinctions based on color and ancestry are utterly inconsistent with our traditions and ideals. Today is the showtime time, so far equally I am aware, that we have sustained a substantial restriction of the personal freedom of citizens based on the accident of race or ancestry. It bears a melancholy resemblance to the treatment accorded to members of the Jewish race in Federal republic of germany This goes to the very brink of constitutional power."

—Acquaintance Justice Frank Murphy, Concurring Stance, Hirabayashi v. U.S., 1943

"This is not a case of keeping people off the streets at dark equally was Hirabayashi... It is a case of convict�ing a denizen ... for not submitting to imprisonment in a concentration army camp solely considering of his ancestry."

—Acquaintance Justice Owen J. Roberts, Dissenting Stance, Korematsu 5. U.S., 1944

"[There have to be] definite limits to military discretion, especially where martial law has not been declared. Individuals must not be impoverished of their constitutional rights on a plea of military machine necessity that has neither substance nor back up."

—Associate Justice Frank Irish potato, Concurring Opinion, Ex Parte Endo , 1944

GOING BACK TO COURT

As early as 1945 Eugene V. Rostow of the Yale Law School Kinesthesia referred to the Supreme Court decision in the Hirabayashi, Korematsu, and Yasui cases equally "our worst wartime mistake." "The basic problems," he urged, "should be presented to the Supreme Courtroom again, in an try to obtain a reversal of these wartime decisions."

In American law, however, the principle of finality commonly bars a reconsideration of a Supreme Courtroom conclusion. Reinterpretation of the Courtroom's decision usually occurs in another example covering the same legal principle. The incarceration of Japanese Americans was, however, a unique event. As a Presidential Committee noted in 1980, "the state has non been and then unfortunate that a repetition of the facts has occurred to give the Court that opportunity."

THE COURT CASES AND DECISIONS, 1983-1988

THE CORAM NOBIS CASES

Four decades afterward the end of Globe War Ii, merely one course of activeness was available to those who sought to reverse the 1944 Supreme Courtroom decisions in the Korematsu, Hirabayashi, and Yasui cases. In Jan 1983, a legal team filed a writ of coram nobis, which seeks to correct an injury caused by a error of the court. The writ charged that federal officials had deliberately altered, suppressed, and concealed crucial evidence in prosecuting the case against Fred Korematsu. Similar writs were subsequently filed on behalf of Minoru Yasui and Gordon Hirabayashi.

Minoru Yasui died before activity was taken in his instance. In 1984, the U.S. Commune Court for

Northern California set bated Fred Korematsu's 1944 confidence. Three years later, the United States Courtroom of Appeals for the 9th District handed down a like determination in the Hirabayashi case.

Every bit a result of these decisions, the Supreme Courtroom of the The states did not have a opportunity to reverse the original 1944 rulings on the basic constitutional issues involved. Notwithstanding, the opin�ions of the federal judges make information technology clear that the original decisions in these cases should be regarded as reminders of past injustice, rather than as significant legal precedents.

HOHRI ET AL v. UNITED STATES: A Class Activity SUIT

In March 1983, a form action lawsuit, Hohri et al v. Usa, was filed, request $25.2 bil�lion in damages from the federal authorities equally redress for the wrongs washed to Japanese Americans during and after World War II. Lower courts agreed that the government had concealed bear witness that contradicted its claims of military necessity when information technology undertook the forced removal of Japanese Americans.

In the interest of obtaining a final ruling on the wartime cases, federal attorneys appealed to the Supreme Courtroom, which ruled in June 1987 that the suit was barred by both sovereign immunity and the statute of limitations, and, in improver, had been filed in the wrong federal appellate court. The Supreme Court denied a terminal request for review in October 1988, post-obit passage of the Civil Liberties Human activity of 1988.

REDRESSING THE Incorrect

In improver to seeking to right justice in the courts, Japanese Americans sought legislative redress for the injustice, hardships, and suffering that resulted from wartime incarceration. For these fun�damental violations of the basic rights of individuals of Japanese ancestry, the Congress apologized on behalf of the nation.

Much of the impetus for this legislation came from the investigations and written report of the Federal Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, working betwixt 1980 and 1982.

Congress established a Federal Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians in 1980. Charged with studying the circumstances that had led to the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans, and suggesting possible remedies, the Commissioners heard testimony from 750 witnesses, including old officials of the justice and War Departments, administrators of the relocation program, former camp inmates, and those opposed to whatever form of compensation or apol�ogy to victims of the exclusion and internment. The Commission concluded that the Japanese American internment was a wartime injustice based on "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership," not on military necessity.

CONGRESS AND THE CIVIL LIBERTIES ACT OF 1988

Bills aimed at providing an apology and fiscal redress for Japanese Americans incarcerated in U.South. government camps during Globe State of war Ii were introduced in the 96th, 97th, 98th, 99th, and 100th Congresses. Success came with the passage of H.P, 442 by the 100th Congress. On August 10, 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed that beak, now known as the Civil Liberties Human activity of 1988, into law. Amongst its provisions, the new law:

•Acknowledged the injustice of the evacuation, relocation, and internment of United states citizens and permanent resident aliens of Japanese beginnings during Earth State of war Ii.

•Offered an apology to Japanese Americans on behalf of the people of the United States.

•Provided for a public education fund to finance efforts to inform the public about ... internment ... and then every bit to prevent a recurrence of whatsoever similar effect."

•Authorized a redress payment of $20,000 to qualified Japanese Americans who were relocated and interned by the regime of the United States.

•Offered a similar apology and redress payments to Aleut residents of the Aleutian and Pribilof Islands who were as well relocated during Earth State of war II.

As of September 1, 1994, ORA had verified and delivered redress payments to more than than 79,343 men and women. Electric current plans telephone call for the redress process to be consummate past 1998.

"A More PERFECT UNION..."

"America is a land of promise, with wonderful possibilities and a beautiful ideal. And the United States Constitution makes nifty promises for us ... and Liberty is a very meaningful thing. As we celebrated Miss Liberty'due south 100th birthday, we realized what it could mean to our people. But we have to exist sincere and make it ring true. And so in order to do that, we need to protect this fragile democracy. It depends on human feelings and the quality of leadership and courage of the leaders [who] will determine which way it volition go. But the people need to insist... on having courageous leaders, people with integrity, people who are honest, that will concord upwards the Constitution to the alphabetic character."

Mary Tsukamoto, 1987

(Text written and edited in June 1994)

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