Content area
Full Text
ABSTRACT
Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, Japanese Canadians and Americans were uprooted from their homes, incarcerated and exiled. This article examines the larger context of human rights and racism. Although the legal protection of citizenship made significant differences, the overriding context of racism went beyond the law. Audrey Kobayashi argues that until the legal system is framed in a way that addresses racism, the law will be inadequate protection.
On 7 December 1941, Japan bombed a military base at Pearl Harbor, Hawai'i, initiating the Pacific War. In the following days, more than 130,000 Canadians and Americans of Japanese descent embarked upon a journey of horror.
On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which required the "evacuation" of Japanese Americans from military. 110,000 Issei and Nisei were shipped from "assembly centers" along the Pacific coast to concentration camps in the interior states. Despite their location in the Pacific theatre, Japanese Americans in Hawai'i were not uprooted, although selected individuals were interned. By 1943 several thousand Nisei men had joined the military, and formed the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. Also in 1943, the U.S. Army and the War Relocation Authority initiated procedures for "Loyalty Registration." Men who refused to sign the form (known as the "no-no" boys) were sent to federal penitentiaries. In three court cases, the Supreme Court upheld the government's exclusion and imprisonment of a group of citizens based solely on their "race." (See Hirabayashi v. U.S., 320 U.S. 81 1943; Yasui v. U.S., 320 U.S. 81 1943; and Korematsu v. U.S., 323 U.S. 214 1944). Over this time period, eight prisoners were shot to death by guards and a number wounded. In December 1944, Public Proclamation No. 21 allowed those interned to return home and the Supreme Court ruled that "loyal" citizens could not be interned because of their "race" (Endo, Ex Parte 323 U.S., 283 1944). The camps were dosed.
In 1981, following intensive lobbying by Japanese Americans, including a group of federal politicians, the U.S. government set up a "Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians," which recommended redress for internees. In 1984, Fred Korematsu's conviction for being unlawfully in a place where Japanese Americans were not allowed was vacated. Yasui's conviction...