After Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt, claiming a never documented “military necessity,” ordered the removal and incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II solely because of their ancestry. As Roger Daniels movingly describes, almost all reluctantly obeyed their government and went peacefully to the desolate camps provided for them. Daniels, however, focuses on four Nisei, second-generation Japanese Americans, who, aided by a handful of lawyers, defied the government and their own community leaders by challenging the constitutionality of the government’s orders. The 1942 convictions of three men—Min Yasui, Gordon Hirabayashi, and Fred Korematsu—who refused to go willingly were upheld by the Supreme Court in 1943 and 1944. But a woman, Mitsuye Endo, who obediently went to camp and then filed for a writ of habeas corpus, won her case. The Supreme Court subsequently ordered her release in 1944, following her two and a half years behind barbed wire. Neither the cases nor the fate of law-abiding Japanese attracted much attention during the turmoil of global warfare; in the postwar decades they were all but forgotten. Daniels traces how, four decades after the war, in an America whose attitudes about race and justice were changing, the surviving Japanese Americans achieved a measure of political and legal justice. Congress created a commission to investigate the legitimacy of the wartime incarceration. It found no military necessity, but rather that the causes were “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.” In 1982 it asked Congress to apologize and award $20,000 to each survivor. A bill providing that compensation was finally passed and signed into law in 1988. There is no way to undo a Supreme Court decision, but teams of volunteer lawyers, overwhelmingly Sansei—third-generation Japanese Americans—used revelations in 1983 about the suppression of evidence by federal attorneys to persuade lower courts to overturn the convictions of Hirabayashi and Korematsu. Daniels traces the continuing changes in attitudes since the 1980s about the wartime cases and offers a sobering account that resonates with present-day issues of national security and individual freedom.

After Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt, claiming a never documented “military necessity,” ordered the removal and incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II solely because of their ancestry. As Roger Daniels movingly describes, almost all reluctantly obeyed their government and went peacefully to the desolate camps provided for them. Daniels, however, focuses on four Nisei, second-generation Japanese Americans, who, aided by a handful of lawyers, defied the government and their own community leaders by challenging the constitutionality of the government’s orders. The 1942 convictions of three men—Min Yasui, Gordon Hirabayashi, and Fred Korematsu—who refused to go willingly were upheld by the Supreme Court in 1943 and 1944. But a woman, Mitsuye Endo, who obediently went to camp and then filed for a writ of habeas corpus, won her case. The Supreme Court subsequently ordered her release in 1944, following her two and a half years behind barbed wire. Neither the cases nor the fate of law-abiding Japanese attracted much attention during the turmoil of global warfare; in the postwar decades they were all but forgotten. Daniels traces how, four decades after the war, in an America whose attitudes about race and justice were changing, the surviving Japanese Americans achieved a measure of political and legal justice. Congress created a commission to investigate the legitimacy of the wartime incarceration. It found no military necessity, but rather that the causes were “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.” In 1982 it asked Congress to apologize and award $20,000 to each survivor. A bill providing that compensation was finally passed and signed into law in 1988. There is no way to undo a Supreme Court decision, but teams of volunteer lawyers, overwhelmingly Sansei—third-generation Japanese Americans—used revelations in 1983 about the suppression of evidence by federal attorneys to persuade lower courts to overturn the convictions of Hirabayashi and Korematsu. Daniels traces the continuing changes in attitudes since the 1980s about the wartime cases and offers a sobering account that resonates with present-day issues of national security and individual freedom.

Justice at War irrevocably alters the reader's perception of one of the most disturbing events in U.S. history—the internment during World War II of American citizens of Japanese descent. Peter Irons' exhaustive research has uncovered a government campaign of suppression, alteration, and destruction of crucial evidence that could have persuaded the Supreme Court to strike down the internment order. Irons documents the debates that took place before the internment order and the legal response during and after the internment.

The US Supreme Court is the head of the judicial branch of the federal government. It is the highest court in the land, with thousands of cases appealed to it every year. One of those history-making cases was Korematsu v. The United States, which addressed the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Readers will follow this case from beginning to end, including the social and political climates that led up to it and the effects it had after the court made its ruling. Major players and key events are discussed, including Fred Korematsu, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Frank Knox, General DeWitt, Alfonso Zirpoli, Adolphus, St. Sure, Al Wirin, Charles Fahy, Harlan Stone, Mitsuye, Endo, and Marilyn Hall Patel. Compelling chapters and informative sidebars also cover the Fourteenth Amendment, the American Civil Liberties Union, executive orders, Japanese immigration, Russo-Japanese War, World War II, the Japanese American Citizen's League, Issei, Nisei, Executive Order 9066, the Ringle Report, and the Evacuation Claims Act. Korematsu v. The United States forever influenced how we view expansion of governmental power during wartime. This landmark Supreme Court case changed the course of US history and shaped the country we live in. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Essential Library is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.

Fred Korematsu’s decision to resist F.D.R.’s Executive Order 9066, which provided authority for the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, was initially the case of a young man following his heart: he wanted to remain in California with his white fiancée. However, he quickly came to realize that it was more than just a personal choice; it was a matter of basic human rights. After refusing to leave for incarceration when ordered, Korematsu was eventually arrested and convicted of a federal crime before being sent to the internment camp at Topaz, Utah. He appealed his conviction to the Supreme Court, which, in one of the most infamous cases in American legal history, upheld the wartime orders. Forty years later, in the early 1980s, a team of young attorneys resurrected Korematsu’s case. This time, Korematsu was victorious, and his conviction was overturned, helping to pave the way for Japanese American redress. Lorraine Bannai, who was a young attorney on that legal team, combines insider knowledge of the case with extensive archival research, personal letters, and unprecedented access to Korematsu his family, and close friends. She uncovers the inspiring story of a humble, soft-spoken man who fought tirelessly against human rights abuses long after he was exonerated. In 1998, President Bill Clinton awarded Korematsu the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

This book looks at the people behind Korematsu v. United States, the landmark Supreme Court case that challenged the U.S. government's decision to imprison Japanese citizens and non-citizens during World War II. The personal struggles and poor treatment of Fred Korematsu and others in internment camps are brought to life, as the significance of this case is explained in a historical context.

Race, Rights and National Security: Law and the Japanese American Incarceration is both a comprehensive resource and course book that uses the lens of the WWII imprisonment of Japanese Americans to explore the danger posed when the country sacrifices the rule of law in the name of national security. Following an historical overview of the Asian American legal experience as unwanted minorities, the book examines the infamous Supreme Court cases that upheld the orders leading to the mass incarceration and their later reopening in coram nobis proceedings that proved the government lied to the Court. With that foundation, the book explores the continued frightening relevance of those cases, including how racial and religious minorities continue to be harmed in the name of national security and the threat to democracy when courts fail to act as a check on their co-equal branches of government. New to the Third Edition: An entirely new section, which views the recent targeting of religious minorities through the lens of the Japanese American incarceration, including the Muslim travel ban case of Trump v. Hawaii, which purported to overrule Korematsu v. United States. A continuous inquiry throughout the book regarding the role of courts in reviewing government actions taken in the name of national security, the tensions inherent in identifying that role, the potential cost of excessive court deference, and a proposed method for judicial review of national security-based government actions. Updated text, including revisions that tailor the book’s content to its revised focus on national security, enhanced discussions of early anti-Asian exclusionary laws and Ex Parte Endo; recent events raising parallels to the Japanese American incarceration, such as the incarceration of immigrants and family separation at the southern border and the continued negative stereotyping of Asian Americans. Augmented discussion of ethical rules in relation to misconduct by government lawyers during World War II. Professors and students will benefit from: A succinct overview of Asian American legal history An overarching narrative that takes the reader from early anti-Asian discriminatory laws to the wartime Japanese American incarceration to today, interweaving carefully contextualized case law with questions, original government and litigation documents, oral histories, commentary, and photographs to stimulate class discussion. A focus on both the legal and non-legal issues surrounding the Japanese American incarceration, so that readers consider how the legal system, the law, and players within the legal system act within a broader milieu of politics, economics, and culture. The ability to understand law and the legal system in a way that is both interdisciplinary and that crosses different areas of law. The book treats subjects such as race relations and critical race theory; constitutional, criminal, and national security law; criminal and civil procedure; professional ethics; evidence; legal history; and lawyering practice. A professor in the area of constitutional law, for example, might excerpt relevant portions of the book to supplement the standard, typically decontextualized case law treatment of the Korematsu and Hirabayashi cases. At the same time, this book explores these and other cases in their historical and political context and addresses the law’s real human impact. Finally, the story of the Japanese American incarceration provides a powerful starting place for students to discuss a range of present-day issues regarding stereotypes and profiling, government restraint on liberties, national protectionism, and civic responsibility. If teaching at its best is about engaging students’ hearts and minds, and provoking stimulating debate, these materials are designed to facilitate just that.

From the author of "Free to Die for Their Country" comes the story of the internment of 70,000 American citizens of Japanese ancestry in 1942, and the administrative tribunals that had been designed to pass judgment on those suspected of being disloyal.

This revised and expanded edition of Japanese Americans: From Relocation to Redress presents the most complete and current published account of the Japanese American experience from the evacuation order of World War II to the public policy debate over redress and reparations. A chronology and comprehensive overview of the Japanese American experience by Roger Daniels are underscored by first person accounts of relocations by Bill Hosokawa, Toyo Suyemoto Kawakami, Barry Saiki, Take Uchida, and others, and previously undescribed events of the interment camps for “enemy aliens” by John Culley and Tetsuden Kashima. The essays bring us up to the U.S. government’s first redress payments, made forty eight years after the incarceration of Japanese Americans began. The combined vision of editors Roger Daniels, Sandra C. Taylor, and Harry H. L. Kitano in pulling together disparate aspects of the Japanese American experience results in a landmark volume in the wrenching experiment of American democracy.