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2 Internment

Part II. Internment

This second major section of the book covers the major legal decisions affecting Japanese Americans during World War II. Chapter 3 traces the foundation for their incarceration from Executive Order 9066 and beyond. It then highlights and explores the central legal cases challenging these laws—those of Hirabayashi, Yasui, Korematsu and Endo. These resulted in the endorsement by the U.S. Supreme Court of the incarceration of West Coast Japanese Americans on constitutional grounds, although eventually the Court ordered their release on statutory grounds. Chapter 4 then delves into the specific dilemmas arising from the mass detention of Japanese Americans, including the divisive impact of the so-called “loyalty questionnaires,” the legal challenges of draft resisters and those of strandees. It also provides selected but broadly illustrative snapshots of the experiences of the over 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry incarcerated in the 1940s, including their early efforts at resettlement, redress and reparation after the end of the war.

Chapter 3: The Internment Cases

We now turn to the heart of the book: the actual experience of internment.  Chapter 3 covers the legal dimensions of the internment decision, with attention to the equal protection jurisprudence introduced in Part I.  It also brings the national security law element into the analysis.  Organized both chronologically and conceptually, the early curfew cases form a stepping stone to the later exclusion case and finally to the case squarely confronting the legality of detention.

The “Overview: From Pearl Harbor to the Assembly Centers” provides a brief chronology of the congressional, presidential and military decisions leading to the internment.  It also introduces key players, including government officials responsible for these decisions as well as the ordinary individuals dramatically affected by them.

The chapter then takes up the four “internment cases” decided by the U.S. Supreme Court—Hirabayashi, Yasui, Korematsu, and Endo. Each of these cases is preceded by a brief biography of the individuals who resisted the internment through legal means.

Chapter 4: Incarceration Consequences

Chapter 4 describes the experience that lies at the heart of the injustice visited upon Americans of Japanese descent.  The chapter raises fundamental questions of what it means to be American, to be Asian American, to be a loyal citizen or alien in wartime and to disagree with one’s country at the same time one professes loyalty.  It is a key bridge to Part III of the book, for one cannot discuss whether reparations are appropriate without discussing the actual injury inflicted.