Korematsu v. The United States

With Executive Order 9066 passed and Japanese-Americans on the West Coast forced out of their homes, one man retaliated. Fred Korematsu a twenty-three-year-old man refused to leave his home in San Leandro, California. Because of this, he is arrested and forced to the internment camps.

Korematsu was born on January 30th, 1919 in Oakland, California to Japanese immigrants. Even before his arrest in 1942, Korematsu experienced racism in high school when an army recruiter said, “We have orders not to accept you.” During World War II, Korematsu tried to enlist in the U.S. Navy because of the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 but was turned away because of stomach ulcers he suffered from for years. Since he wasn’t able to fight, he was trained to be a welder and contributed to the defense effort. Unfortunately, he lost many jobs because he was a “Jap.”

Korematsu was able to get his case brought to the Supreme Court but lost the court decision 6-3. Hugo Black, a member of the Supreme Court, wrote the majority decision where he stated that,

“Executive Order No. 9066, 7 Fed. Reg. 1407 . . . issued after we were at war with Japan, declared that “the successful prosecution of the war requires every possible protection against espionage and sabotage to national-defense material, national-defense premises, and national defense utilities . . .” 

When Fred Korematsu was released from the camps in 1944, he moved to the East coast, where he still faced racism on a daily bases but was able to build a life and start a family. In 1983, Korematsu challenged the case from 1942 with a team of Civil Rights lawyers. During the trial, it was discovered that evidence was withheld from the court, so Korematsu’s recorded was overruled. Fifteen years later, Fred Korematsu was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bill Clinton.      

"Korematsu v. United States: The U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Internment." Korematsu v. United States: The U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Internment. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Feb. 2016.