POLITICAL, ECONOMIC& SOCIAL INJUSTICE

MODERN HISTORY OF HAWAI’I

World War II

JapaneseInternment & Korematsu Case

Kumu Pa NakeaHonolulu, Hawaii

Honouliuli, O’ahu, Hawai’i

From Citizen to Enemy:The Tragedy of Japanese Internment

U.S. Concerns with JapanU.S. was planning to stop Japan’s plans of controlling the Asia-Pacific so Japanese military leaders felt that Japan had to attack the U.S Pacific fleet to cripple the U.S.’s ability to fight a war there, and as a warning to the U.S. not to interfere. Japan would then be in a better position to fight off American attempts of invasion, as it would have enough time to build up troops to protect the countries it had conquered in that continent.

U.S. concerns with Japan included:

the ongoing Japanese war against China,

the Japanese occupation of French Indochina,

Japan's alliance with Nazi Germany, &

the U.S. refusal to sell oil to Japan.

Introduction: Awaken the “Sleeping Giant/Dragon”Pearl Harbor was the U.S.’s Pacific Fleet’s American base

in Hawai’i

The U.S. had a large naval fleet there because they saw Japan’s aggressive expansionist policy as a direct threat to it’s nation.

The Japanese felt that America’s involvement in the World War was inevitable.

America stopped providing valuable resources to Japan, through an embargo on steel, scrap metal and oil supply; and, this threated Japan’s survival. Japan would no longer get scrap metal and oil they needed for their war activities.

Why the Japanese Attacked?

America had already been “stern” with Japan about its expansion in the Pacific because America had interests in the Philippines.

To take revenge, Japan wanted to preemptively strike so that it would cripple American forces. It did so somewhat successfully.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor caused about 2400 dead, almost 200 planes destroyed and 8 battleships destroyed or damaged.

The long term effect of Pearl Harbor was that it brought the U.S. to the war that they were avoiding for so long.

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On December 7, 1941, Japan attacks Pearl Harbor & the U.S. entered World War II against Japan, Germany, & Italy.

The bombing exacerbated the tension and animosity between people of Japanese descent & white Americans on the west coast. 

U. S. joins the World War II

U.S. is forced to break away from their isolationist policy into real warfare.

They joined in the war as one of the Allied members & counter-attacked Japan as a form of revenge & vengeance over its naval destruction

The Americans fought a long and hard front in the Pacific trying to avenge the attack on Pearl Harbor.

This brought about the collapse of Japan empire

A generation of Japanese Americans

In the 19th Century, political & social upheaval in Japan caused many Japanese to immigrate to the U.S.

There had been resentment & tension between Americans & Asian immigrants.

In California, laws were passed making it difficult for Japanese to own land, become naturalized, or to even migrate to America

Racial Tensions Grow

By the 1920s, California banned almost all immigration from Japan, & laws made interracial marriage illegal.

Anti-Japanese SentimentThey moved from Hawai’i to the

Western states in large numbers until the ban by the Immigration Act of 1924

The Japanese population had grown from 2000 in 1890 to 100,000 at the time of the ban

A generation of Japanese-American children born in the U.S. spoke fluent English & were American by birth

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Fred Korematsu worked as a welder in the San

Francisco shipyards His family owned & operated a greenhouse in

California.

“Dangerous enemy aliens”

The day after the attack, the government arrested, took into custody & froze assets of 100s of Japanese.

The FBI began to follow community leaders with strong Japanese ties.

As American citizens, they had enjoyed the rights of US citizens

Now “dangerous enemy aliens,” their own government imposed strict curfews on them & raided their homes for “contraband”—anything connected to their homeland.

Fred Korematsu

Japanese Americans on the West Coast were targeted as threats to national security. 

Executive Order 9066

President Roosevelt signs

Executor order 9066,

which allowed the U.S.

military to forcibly remove

& by Aug. 7, 1942,

incarcerate over 110,000

Japanese & their American

born children from the

West Coast to detention

centers.

Honouliuli, Hawai'i Internment Camp

Thousands of citizens & legal aliens were detained during the war, but no Japanese American was ever found to have collaborated with the enemy.

Mass Evacuation

Many Japanese

Americans cooperate

with the government &

report to the evacuation

The mass evacuation

destroys the livelihood of

1000s of Japanese

Americans

Local governments fire

anyone suspected of

being Japanese.

Fred Korematsu In 1942, at age 23,

Korematusu refused to go to the government’s incarceration camps

Korematsu is arrested in San Francisco, convicted of defying the government’s order & put in jail

While in jail, ACLU’s lawyer Ernest Besig, offers to represent him challenging the constitutionality of the internment of the Japanese Americans

Three decades(1983) later, in 1983, Prof. Peter Irons discovered key documents that government intelligence agencies had hidden from the Supreme Court in 1944

The documents consistently showed that Japanese Americans had committed no acts of treason to justify mass incarceration

Korematsu appeals his case all the way to the Supreme Court; & in 1944, the Court ruled: In favor of the government,

stating that he violated a military order

against him, arguing that the incarceration was justified due to military necessity

With this new evidence, a legal team of mostly Japanese American attorneys re-opened Korematsu’s 40 year-old case on the basis of government misconduct.

This resulted in the overturning of the Supreme Court Order

Fred Korematsu Vindicated

On November 10, 1983, Korematsu’s conviction was overturned in a federal court in San Francisco.

It was a pivotal moment in civil rights history.

In 1998, Korematsu received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, from President Bill Clinton.

Fred Korematsu, A CIVIL RIGHTS HERO

Korematsu remained an activist throughout his life.

In 2010, California passed the Fred Korematsu Day bill, making January 30 the first day in the U.S. named after an Asian American.

Korematsu’s growing legacy continues to inspire people of all backgrounds and demonstrates the importance of speaking up to fight injustice.

From Citizen to Enemy:The Tragedy of Japanese Internment

From Citizen to Enemy:The Tragedy of Japanese Internment

The Tragedy of War