The Mass Internment of Japanese Americans and the Quest for Legal Redress

The Mass Internment of Japanese Americans and the Quest for Legal Redress
Author: Charles J. McClain
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 528
Release: 2013-09-05
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1136516441

In 1942 U.S. military authorities, invoking a presidential order and an Act of Congress, forcibly evacuated over 110,000 persons of Japnese ancestry, most of them U/S. citizens, from their homes on the West Coast to what in fact were prison camps inland. The essays and articles in this volume explore this most extraordinary episode in American constitutional history.

Encyclopedia of Japanese American Internment

Encyclopedia of Japanese American Internment
Author: Gary Y. Okihiro
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 347
Release: 2013-06-11
Genre: History
ISBN:

This book addresses the forced removal and confinement of Japanese Americans during World War II—a topic significant to all Americans, regardless of race or color. The internment of Japanese Americans was a violation of the Constitution and its guarantee of equal protection under the law—yet it was authorized by a presidential order, given substance by an act of Congress, and affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court. Japanese internment is a topic that we as Americans cannot afford to forget or be ignorant of. This work spotlights an important subject that is often only described in a cursory fashion in general textbooks. It provides a comprehensive, accessible treatment of the events of Japanese American internment that includes topical, event, and biographical entries; a chronology and comprehensive bibliography; and primary documents that help bring the event to life for readers and promote inquiry and critical thinking.

Japanese-American Civilian Prisoner Exchanges and Detention Camps, 1941-45

Japanese-American Civilian Prisoner Exchanges and Detention Camps, 1941-45
Author: Bruce Elleman
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2006-04-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 113432183X

The important and previously undocumented event in the history of the Second World War: the negotiation of 'prisoner' exchanges between the United States and Japan during 1941 to 1943, is examined here by Bruce Elleman. Approximately 7000 American citizens had been arrested by the Japanese authorities while visiting Japan as tourists, conducting business, teaching English or carrying out missionary work. The same amount of Japanese citizens living illegally in the United States had to be repatriated to secure the Americans' release. Challenging the conventional perceptions regarding the role and justification of the detention camp, this insightful book addresses questions regarding the diplomatic agreement between Japan and the United States, the Japanese-American detention camps and the role of one of the most successful minority groups in the United States today: the Japanese-Americans.

All Deliberate Speed

All Deliberate Speed
Author: Charles J. Ogletree
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 412
Release: 2004
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780393058970

A Harvard Law School professor examines the impact that Brown v. Board of Education has had on his family, citing historical figures, while revealing how the reforms promised by the case were systematically undermined.

Enduring Conviction

Enduring Conviction
Author: Lorraine K. Bannai
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Total Pages: 319
Release: 2015-11-02
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 029580629X

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.

Asian Americans

Asian Americans
Author: Pyong Gap Min
Publisher: Pine Forge Press
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2006
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9781412905565

"This is a textbook for undergraduate students studying the Asian American experience and ethnic studies in the fields of Sociology, Political Science, History, and Cultural Studies."--Jacket.

Race, Rights, and Reparations

Race, Rights, and Reparations
Author: Eric K. Yamamoto
Publisher: Aspen Publishing
Total Pages: 542
Release: 2020-10-01
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1543803636

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.

Historical Justice in International Perspective

Historical Justice in International Perspective
Author: Manfred Berg
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 318
Release: 2009
Genre: History
ISBN: 0521876834

This book makes a valuable contribution to debates on redress for historical injustices by offering case studies from nine countries on five continents. The contributors examine the problems of material restitution, criminal justice, apologies, recognition, memory and reconciliation in national contexts as well as from a comparative perspective. Among the topics discussed are the claims for reparations for slavery in the United States, West German restitution for the Holocaust, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the efforts to prosecute the perpetrators of the Khmer Rouge's mass murders in Cambodia and the struggles of the indigenous people of Australia and New Zealand. The book highlights the diversity of the ways societies have tried to right past wrongs as the demand for historical justice has become universal.

Rightlessness

Rightlessness
Author: A. Naomi Paik
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2016-01-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 1469626322

In this bold book, A. Naomi Paik grapples with the history of U.S. prison camps that have confined people outside the boundaries of legal and civil rights. Removed from the social and political communities that would guarantee fundamental legal protections, these detainees are effectively rightless, stripped of the right even to have rights. Rightless people thus expose an essential paradox: while the United States purports to champion inalienable rights at home and internationally, it has built its global power in part by creating a regime of imprisonment that places certain populations perceived as threats beyond rights. The United States' status as the guardian of rights coincides with, indeed depends on, its creation of rightlessness. Yet rightless people are not silent. Drawing from an expansive testimonial archive of legal proceedings, truth commission records, poetry, and experimental video, Paik shows how rightless people use their imprisonment to protest U.S. state violence. She examines demands for redress by Japanese Americans interned during World War II, testimonies of HIV-positive Haitian refugees detained at Guantanamo in the early 1990s, and appeals by Guantanamo's enemy combatants from the War on Terror. In doing so, she reveals a powerful ongoing contest over the nature and meaning of the law, over civil liberties and global human rights, and over the power of the state in people's lives.