31 Facts About Korematsu

Shortly after the Imperial Japanese Navy launched its attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which authorized the removal of individuals of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast from their homes and their mandatory imprisonment in incarceration camps, but Korematsu instead challenged the orders and became a fugitive.

Korematsu resided continuously in Oakland from his birth until the time of his arrest.

Korematsu attended public schools, participated in the Castlemont High School tennis and swim teams, and worked in his family's flower nursery in nearby San Leandro, California.

Korematsu encountered racism in high school when a US Army recruiting officer was handing out recruiting flyers to Korematsu's non-Japanese friends.

When called for military duty under the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, Korematsu was formally rejected by the US Navy due to stomach ulcers, but it is believed that he was actually rejected on the basis of his Japanese descent.

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Korematsu went in one day to find his timecard missing; his coworkers hastily explained to him that he was Japanese so therefore he was not allowed to work there.

Korematsu then found a new job, but was fired after a week when his supervisor returned from an extended vacation to find him working there.

Korematsu underwent plastic surgery on his eyelids in an unsuccessful attempt to pass as a Caucasian, changed his name to Clyde Sarah and claimed to be of Spanish and Hawaiian heritage.

Korematsu was arrested on a street corner in San Leandro on May 30,1942, and held at a jail in San Francisco.

Korematsu agreed, and was assigned civil rights attorney Wayne M Collins.

Korematsu felt that "people should have a fair trial and a chance to defend their loyalty at court in a democratic way, because in this situation, people were placed in imprisonment without any fair trial".

Korematsu was tried and convicted in federal court on September 8,1942, for a violation of Public Law No 503, which criminalized the violations of military orders issued under the authority of Executive Order 9066, and was placed on five years' probation.

Korematsu was taken from the courtroom and returned to the Tanforan Assembly Center, and thereafter he and his family were placed in the Central Utah War Relocation Center in Topaz, Utah.

Korematsu was placed in a horse stall with a single light bulb, and later said "jail was better than this".

Korematsu was thus disdained for his opposition to a government order, and was even seen as a threat in the eyes of many Japanese Americans.

When Korematsu's family was moved to the Topaz internment camp, he later recalled feeling isolated because his imprisoned compatriots recognized him and many, if not most, of them felt that if they talked to him they would be seen as troublemakers.

Korematsu then appealed to the US Court of Appeals, which granted review on March 27,1943, but upheld the original verdict on January 7,1944.

Korematsu appealed again and brought his case to the United States Supreme Court, which granted review on March 27,1944.

Korematsu moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, where he continued to fight racism.

Korematsu still knew there were inequalities among the Japanese, since he experienced them in his everyday life.

Korematsu found work repairing water tanks in Salt Lake City, but after three months on the job, he discovered he was being paid half of what his white coworkers were being paid.

Korematsu told his boss that this was unfair and asked to be paid the same amount, but his boss only threatened to call the police and try to get him arrested just for being Japanese, so he left his job.

Korematsu married Kathryn Pearson in Detroit on October 12,1946.

Korematsu's daughter was born in 1950, and a son, Ken, in 1954.

Korematsu found the statement as empowering as Martin Luther King Jr.

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Korematsu spoke out after September 11,2001, on how the United States government should not let the same thing happen to people of Middle Eastern descent as what happened to Japanese Americans.

Furthermore, Korematsu provided examples of specific cases in American history in which the government exceeded constitutional authority, including the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 and the Japanese internment of World War II.

Korematsu thus reacted critically to the administration of President George W Bush, who imprisoned detainees in Guantanamo Bay by restricting their civil liberties albeit in a time of, according to the respondent, "military necessity".

From 2001 until his death, Korematsu served on the Constitution Project's bipartisan Liberty and Security Committee.

Korematsu cited the Korematsu case and the similar precedent of Gordon Hirabayashi as blots on the reputation of the Office of the Solicitor General, which aspires to deserve "special credence" when pleading cases before the Supreme Court, and thus "an important reminder" of the need for absolute candor in arguing the United States government's position on every case.

In 2018, in Trump v Hawaii, the Supreme Court expressly declared that Korematsu's case was wrongly decided, but did not formally overrule it.