THE case
As said previously, I disobeyed the curfew and the exclusion order. But because I had served out my sentence for both, the violation of the exclusion order was not going to be looked at. The only one that was going to be looked at was my disobedience of the curfew. I was one of the four cases to be brought all the way up to Supreme Court level, but I didn't start there immediately. I had to work my way up. I first started at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco but the court "invoked certification." This basically meant that they refused to rule and sent me up to a higher court to receive my ruling. At that point, I was sent to the Supreme Court. While I was being tried in the lower courts, the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) became interested in my case. They were going to represent me but experienced conflicts and couldn't represent me anymore (I was then supported by Mary Farguharson). But then when I went up to the Supreme Court, the ACLU popped up again. This time, they could represent me. It was a long and tedious process but finally on June 21, 1943, the Supreme Court ruled on my case. Unfortunately for me, I lost the case. The court had made a unanimous decision against me. The court argued that "some infringement on individual liberty" was allowable in time of war and that the government could adopt "measures for public safety, based upon recognition of facts and circumstances which indicate that a group of one national extraction may menace that safety more than others."
Then on December 17, 1944, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt announced the end of the Japanese internment. He allowed the Japanese to finally return home after more than 2 years of being in confinement.
More than four decades later, my case was reopened. The year was 1987 and new information had been discovered that supported my side. This evidence contained documents that explained the loyalty of Japanese in the U.S. and how it was very high. These events eventually led to the official apologies from the U.S. Government on August 10, 1988. This apology came in the form of President Ronald Reagan signing The Civil Liberties Act of 1988. This law provided an apology to those of the evacuees who were still alive. This apology also came with a sort of "remedy" for the living Japanese residents. The Japanese who were interned received $20,000 as part of their apology. Of course, this was not even close to the proper amount for the internees had endured worse than $20,000 could compensate for. They had lost all their land and all their property and belongings. They very near lost everything and in return they were given $20,000, not a satisfactory amount at all.
Then on December 17, 1944, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt announced the end of the Japanese internment. He allowed the Japanese to finally return home after more than 2 years of being in confinement.
More than four decades later, my case was reopened. The year was 1987 and new information had been discovered that supported my side. This evidence contained documents that explained the loyalty of Japanese in the U.S. and how it was very high. These events eventually led to the official apologies from the U.S. Government on August 10, 1988. This apology came in the form of President Ronald Reagan signing The Civil Liberties Act of 1988. This law provided an apology to those of the evacuees who were still alive. This apology also came with a sort of "remedy" for the living Japanese residents. The Japanese who were interned received $20,000 as part of their apology. Of course, this was not even close to the proper amount for the internees had endured worse than $20,000 could compensate for. They had lost all their land and all their property and belongings. They very near lost everything and in return they were given $20,000, not a satisfactory amount at all.
Left: Hirabayashi stated that "This is a great Constitution, but if it doesn't serve you during a crisis, what good is it? We faltered once, but to show how good out Constitution is, we were able to apologize and acknowledge an error, and we're going to be stronger for it." He also said, "If you forget about it, you're more vulnerable to having it repeated, and we don't want to have this ever happen to any citizen again."
|