By STEVEN HERBERT
California on Thursday is observing Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution, remembering the shipyard welder who challenged the constitutionality of the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.
The Asian Pacific American Law Students Association at UC Irvine hosted a Korematsu Day Celebration Panel with civil-rights lawyers on Thursday afternoon. The UC Irvine School of Law is the site of the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality, whose mission is to use legal research, litigation advocacy and clinical education to achieve durable social change related to racial equity and social justice.
A conversation with Karen Korematsu, daughter of Fred Korematsu and a co-founder of the San Francisco-based Fred T. Korematsu Institute, and Courtney Peagler, the institute’s vice president and director of education, is available on its website. Titled “Advocate Now: You Can Make a Difference,” it can be accessed at korematsuinstitute.org/advocate-now.
The institute promotes the importance of remembering the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.
Fred Korematsu was arrested in 1942 and convicted of violating President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s executive order authorizing the incarceration of more than 120,000 people of Japanese descent in camps throughout the nation.
Santa Anita Park in Arcadia and Fairplex in Pomona, then known as the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds, were both Civilian Assembly Centers — temporary camps where Japanese Americans were sent as they were removed from their communities.
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Eventually most were sent to relocation centers, also known as internment camps. Japanese Americans considered to be disruptive or of special interest to the government were sent to detention camps.
Korematsu lost an appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in 1944 that the incarceration was justified due to military necessity.
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Legal historian Peter Irons and researcher Aiko Herzig Yoshinaga discovered key documents in 1983 that government intelligence agencies had hidden from the Supreme Court before it made its ruling. They consistently showed that Japanese Americans had committed no acts of treason to justify mass incarceration, leading a federal court to overturn Korematsu’s conviction.
“After my father’s conviction was overturned in 1983, his mission was education,” said Karen Korematsu.
Fred Korematsu went on to champion the cause of civil liberties, not only seeking redress for Japanese Americans who were wrongfully incarcerated, but also traveling throughout the nation to advocate for the civil rights of other victims, especially after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Korematsu received the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, from President Bill Clinton in 1998. He died in 2005 at age 86.
Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution was established under a bill by Assemblymen Warren Furutani, D-Harbor Gateway, and Marty Block, D-San Diego, and signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Sept. 23, 2010.
The day is observed on Jan. 30, the anniversary of Korematsu’s birth in 1919 in Oakland. It is the first day in U.S. history named after an Asian American.
“Throughout his life, Korematsu worked tirelessly to ensure Americans understood the lessons learned from a dark chapter of our history,” Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote in his proclamation declaring Thursday as Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution.
“Today, as we confront attacks on our fundamental rights and freedoms and hate-fueled violence across the country, it is clear that Korematsu’s extraordinary fight for civil rights is far from over. His legacy is an inspiration and reminder to all of us that we must continue to strike out against injustice in our daily lives.”