1 Context

Chapter 1: Race, Rights and Reparation: an Overview

   The first chapter contains brief overviews of the key terms “race” and “rights.”  These terms have multiple meanings and valences, understood fully only by reference to a series of ideological shifts over time. Moreover, Chapter 1 addresses the specific characteristics of Asian American racial group identity and Asian American involvement in both civil rights litigation and development of equal protection law: a little-known history outside of ethnic studies programs.  This chapter provides a thumbnail sketch of the relationship of all of these concepts to national security issues, before turning to a very brief sketch of the law and theory of “reparations.” The general trajectory of each section of chapter 1 follows the trajectory of the book: discussing early history first, the internment period next, followed by the era of the redress movement.

Chapter 2: An Historical Introduction

   Chapter 2 is an historical introduction to Asian Americans’ legal experience. It introduces several major U.S. Supreme Court decisions that contributed to the legal construction of Asian Americans as a subordinated racial group in the U.S. Touching upon the areas of immigration, naturalization, the right to work and property ownership, these cases illustrate the hostile legal and social environment faced by Americans of Asian descent well before the events of World War II.  They also foreshadow strongly arguments and attitudes that influenced the internment decisions.