Cover Page

Table of Contents

Abstract

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Essay

Brief History

Gila River

Granada

Heart Mountain

Jerome

Manzanar

Minidoka

Poston

Rohwer

Topaz

Tule Lake

Isolation Centers

Add'l Facilities

Assembly Centers

DoJ and US Army Facilities

Prisons

References

Appendix A

Appendix B

Appendix C

Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II Japanese American Relocation Sites by J. Burton, M. Farrell, F. Lord, and R. Lord

Chapter 3 (continued)
A Brief History of Japanese American
Relocation During World War II

Supreme Court Cases

The constitutional questions raised by the relocation of Japanese Americans were left to the U.S. Supreme Court to decide. The Hirabayashi, Korematsu, and Endo cases respectively dealt with the curfew, evacuation, and detention (tenBroek et al. 1954:211-223).

In Hirabayashi v. United States on June 21, 1943, the court unanimously decided that due to "the gravest imminent danger to the public safety" the military did have the right to enforce a curfew for a specific group of people, on the grounds of military necessity. They ruled that the curfew was not motivated by ethnic identity or race, but by an actual threat.

The final two cases were decided December 18, 1944. In Korematsu v. United States, in a split decision, the court upheld the government s right to exclude people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast based on military necessity. "Military necessity" was purposely not defined — if the military did it, it must have been necessary.

In Endo v. United States it was unanimously decided that Mitsuye Endo, a loyal U.S. citizen, should be released unconditionally, that is, without having to follow the indefinite leave procedure established by the WRA. The court stated that the WRA "has no authority to subject citizens who are concededly loyal to its leave procedure." The government therefore did not have the right to confine any loyal Japanese American. While sidestepping the constitutional question of the right of government to hold citizens without cause in wartime, it did in effect free all loyal Japanese Americans still held in Relocation Centers. The WRA had simply exceeded its authority.

Continued

Last Modified: Fri, Sep 1 2000 07:08:48 pm PDT
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