Karen L. Miksch and David Ghere | Teaching Japanese-American Incarceration | The History Teacher, 37.2

Teaching Japanese-American Incarceration

Karen L. Miksch and David Ghere
University of Minnesota

"History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure."

—Justice Thurgood Marshall (1989)

FEW EVENTS IN AMERICAN HISTORY are so universally deplored as the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. The United States government has acknowledged the error and the injustice that resulted with an official Presidential apology and a Congressional disbursement of reparations to the victims of the incarceration policy. The decision, its implementation, and its consequences for various individuals have been the topics for a variety of historical accounts, museum exhibits, documentary films, short stories, novels, plays and movies. Modern observers are appalled that the United States enacted such an inhumane, unjust and unnecessary policy, yet most citizens at the time thought the policy appropriate, necessary, and humane. The policy was supported overwhelmingly by the American people and the few who opposed the policy were considered unpatriotic and their reasoning bizarre. Most people thought internment of enemy aliens was a normal precaution in wartime situations, made particularly appropriate given the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The residence of Japanese immigrants near military facilities on the west coast and Hawaii seemed to make the necessity of internment obvious and the justifications for the policy overwhelming.

The internment of enemy aliens during wartime has been considered a normal practice in the United States, Canada, Australia, and most European countries, where it has been used frequently during the last two centuries.¹ The incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII, however, is quite a different story as Roger Daniels demonstrates in his recent historiography the episode. It was a wide-scale "incarceration" of United States citizens and non citizens because of their ancestry, something very different from the "internment" of enemy aliens suspected of espionage or sabotage.² While the degree and severity of the incarceration were unprecedented, conditions of discrimination and inequality had been a long-standing reality for Japanese Americans. Not only were Japanese immigrants discriminated against on an individual level due to Anti-Asian prejudice, but racism was built into the legal and institutional structures of the United States. For example, Japanese immigration was severely limited in 1907 by the Gentleman's Agreement between the United States and Japan and then totally eliminated by the National Origins Act of 1924. Immigration of Whites from Great Britain and Canada, however, remained unfettered during the same time period. Unlike most Europeans, immigrants of Japanese descent were not allowed legally to become naturalized citizens, regardless of their interest in citizenship, their length of residence, their future commitments, or the number of their children born in the United States. Japanese immigrants were also legally barred from purchasing land in Washington, Oregon and California due to Alien Land Laws. In California, Japanese were not even allowed to lease land and many Japanese and Japanese American schoolchildren were taught in segregated classes.³ Never the less, in the mass paranoia that followed Pearl Harbor, the Japanese immigrants' failure to become citizens or to own land incited suspicion about their ultimate loyalty. The legal restrictions were unknown to many Americans and conveniently ignored by government leaders, politicians, and reporters.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066 authorized the United States Army to remove persons of Japanese ethnicity, regardless of citizenship or age, from a vast military district encompassing most of California, Oregon, Washington and part of Arizona. This resulted in a massive relocation to remote camps far in the interior of the continent not only of 40,000 long-term Japanese immigrants who had been legally barred from citizenship, but also of 77,000 United States citizens of Japanese descent.⁴ These camps, surrounded by barbed wire and patrolled by armed guards, provided only the basic essentials for survival with limited heating, plumbing and electricity. Each family was assigned a small area in a barracks-like building with no partitions between families. Unlike the internment of enemy aliens, there was no evidence of disloyalty, no review of individual cases, and no appeal process. Though justified at the time as militarily necessary and done for the protection of the Japanese Americans, in 1983 the Report of the Congressional Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians determined that racial prejudice, wartime hysteria and failure of political leadership had led to this oppression and incarceration of Japanese Americans.

The contrast between wartime opinion and this 1983 report provides a fertile area for examination in an educational setting. Most treatments of this topic have focused upon the racial aspects and the inherent unfairness of the policy, or on the illegal seizure of property and treatment of citizens. Lessons designed in this manner typically generate various levels of sympathy for the victims, outrage against government officials, and collective national guilt. While this ethical and moral approach is commendable and the resulting emotional reactions are understandable, one goal of studying history is to be able to recognize and avoid similar deplorable events in the future. This goal requires an examination of the historical context and justifications, logical and legal, that enabled such an oppressive policy to be implemented with popular support.

Since the first drafting of this article, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 have generated a new interest in Japanese American incarceration and in the lessons to be learned from this national experience. This World War II event has been in the news,⁵ as columnists and politicians debate the proper balance between civil liberties and security. Debate over the Executive Order allowing the use of military tribunals,⁶ detaining suspects and intercepting attorney-client communications on the mere suspicion of terrorist activity,⁷ as well as the suspension of other civil liberties provide a contemporary link to critically analyze the internment policy. Defenders of the Patriot Act and administration policies portray them as limited steps clearly necessary for national security reasons, and contrast them with the abuses of Japanese American incarceration and the resulting relocation camps. However, opponents of the current administration policy cite similarities such as suspicions based on racial prejudice rather than evidence of disloyalty, government policies motivated by emotion and fear rather than reasoned logic and legal precedent, and a patriotic fervor intolerant of political opposition or the examination of alternative policies.

The following curriculum is designed to provide opportunity for critical thinking on Japanese American incarceration utilizing a variety of classroom techniques, including collaborative and cooperative research projects, simulations, large and small group discussion, and writing assignments. The authors team-taught a seminar titled "History on Trial" during the spring semester, 2001. The newspaper research assignment was developed for the seminar. Author David Ghere developed the writing assignment and discussion questions on internment for his World History and American History courses. Author Karen Miksch designed and implemented the simulated United States Supreme Court oral argument of the Korematsu case and the contemporary debate on the governmental response to the terrorist attacks of September 11 for her undergraduate Law in Society course. Each section of the curriculum includes a description of how the authors have taught the assignment, alternatives to shorten or lengthen the exercise, suggested reading assignments, student response, and instructor critique.

Although this curriculum focuses on analyzing the events immediately surrounding the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, the authors recognize that to truly understand the incarceration policy requires more historical context. Teachers and students should first study the history of Japanese Americans in the United States. The incarceration policy did not occur in a vacuum, rather, it was the consequence of decades of vehement anti-Asian racism on an individual and institutional level. To provide additional context, the authors suggest students first read and discuss the history and consequences of anti-Asian racism in the United States.⁸ There are also a number of videos⁹ that can be shown prior to discussing Japanese American incarceration to demonstrate that it was not just war time hysteria and a failure of political leadership that lead to the incarceration policy, but most importantly the result of racism built into the structure of American society.

I. A Newspaper Research Assignment

Most historical accounts of Executive Order 9066 and the incarceration of Japanese Americans point out that at the time the policy had wide public support.¹⁰ This research assignment requires students to analyze articles and editorials from newspapers from December 7, 1941 through December 1942 concerning Japanese Internment/Japanese American Relocation. This assignment enlightens students about the prevailing regional attitudes toward Japanese incarceration, as well as providing experience in conducting library research using newspapers.¹¹

We conducted this assignment in a Freshman Seminar we team-taught entitled "History on Trial." First, students read background material from the assigned texts on the events leading up to Japanese American incarceration.¹² If your text or local library does not have adequate coverage of the incarceration of Japanese Americans, many on-line sources are also available.¹³ As a large group we made a time-line on the board of important dates for students to research in their assigned newspapers.¹⁴ Next, we met with students at the library and provided a training session on how to use microfiche machines. Students continued to brainstorm a list of important dates using the background reading and the New York Times index. The students were then ready to conduct research in the newspaper archives for related stories.

Most on-line sources only provide news articles for the past 20 years, but a few do provide articles printed between 1940–1945, although cost may be involved.¹⁵ Therefore, the instructor must determine the availability of newspapers in local libraries or area college libraries. We were able to assign newspapers from all four geographic areas, the North, the South, the East and the West. If you or your students do not have access to regional or national newspapers, assign each student to a week or month in the local paper. We divided students into pairs to find relevant newspaper articles and editorials in their assigned paper. Students searched for stories on and around the important dates determined in advance. Student research should be guided by the questions listed below:

How supportive was the newspaper to this policy? (Editorials will be very useful in answering this question.)
What evidence and arguments were used?
What was the primary focus and overall tone of the coverage? Does the newspaper change its position, arguments, focus and/or tone over time?
What articles were selected from other newspapers to be reprinted in this one? If the paper had limited coverage of the policy, why did the newspaper's editor and/or its readers consider this issue unworthy of more attention?

Have students write a short summary of the news articles they gathered, as well as a response to the questions listed above. This prepares students to play an assigned role during an in-class simulation.

In our class, we conducted a mock Senate Subcommittee Hearing with discussion and debate over a Senate Resolution to accompany President Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066. Each student played the role of a United States Senator representing the state in which his or her assigned newspaper was located. Based upon the perspective of their state's major newspaper, they debated with the other Senators whether to support, to modify, or oppose Executive Order 9066. If students do not have access to national and regional newspaper archives, a town hall debate or state senate hearing would be excellent simulations.

We had students conduct this assignment in our "History on Trial" seminar. The students reported that the exchange of information the lesson required improved their understanding of Japanese incarceration. During the mock Senate Hearing and the wrap-up discussion, it became clear that throughout the country, newspaper coverage of incarceration was infrequent and buried deep inside the papers beneath all the war news from the front lines. These articles were usually tied to official policy statements and relied totally on the information and perspective provided by government spokespersons. The terminology used by government officials and journalists quickly shifted from Japanese to the more derogatory "Japs" and inaccurate "enemy aliens."

The students found some differences between West coast newspapers and those throughout the rest of the country. Predictably, there were a few more stories about relocation in West coast newspapers, but these were not noticeably different in tone or substance from those in other regions. However, West coast editorials and letters to the editor were mixed between concern for security and concern for the rights of Japanese-American citizens. Students theorized that neighbors and local editors were able to see the injustice and inhumanity of relocation which the rest of the country did not recognize or was able to ignore. In other regions, editorials and letters to the editor consistently supported government policy and failed to raise concerns about incarceration.

The learning goals of the assignment were met. Students gained insight into the historical context leading to curfews, relocation, and incarceration. Many students found it difficult to play the role of their Senator, especially, when they had mostly positive accounts of the incarceration policy from their regional newspaper. In facilitating the discussion, we broke off the simulation after each "Senator" had weighed in and allowed students to discuss their reactions to the news articles. One student, for example, found an article in the Washington Post noting that the Santa Anita Race Track was closed. While the article did not mention relocation centers, background reading enabled students to discover that the racetrack was closed because Japanese Americans were living in the horse stalls. This "lack of coverage" created the largest reaction from students who were chilled by the lack of information in the regional and national press.

II. Internment Writing Assignment and Discussion

Critical thinking skills can be developed in students by asking them to assume a particular role and reflect on what their actions or decisions would be in that situation. This can be accomplished in both World History and American History courses with short (one page) writing assignments which encourage reading assigned materials and preparation by students for class discussion. Papers can be listed with due dates in the course syllabus or take the form of unannounced in-class writing assignments. In either case, the purpose is to have the student commit to a particular response to a question and to explain his/her reasons for that decision. In the follow up class discussion these responses can be compared and contrasted and the guiding logic can be assessed and analyzed. The following example of a question to be put to students will show the usefulness of an exercise of this kind for understanding historical events.

"In 1942, in the midst of World War II, your government questions your loyalty and orders you to report to the local train station for transportation to a relocation camp. Would you follow the orders and show up at the train station? Why or why not?" This question can be a short writing assignment in either American history and world history and can provide the basis for an active class discussion of student responses and rationales. American history students are likely to assume the question addresses Japanese American Internment while world history students may assume the question focuses on Jews in Germany. After students have committed themselves the instructor facilitates discussion by revealing that the question really refers to the other group being relocated.

This required change in student assumptions creates a teaching opportunity based on cognitive dissonance. Students in American history classes willing or unwilling to follow orders when they thought they were Japanese Americans often reverse their position if they find they are Jews in Germany. (The opposite would likely be true in world history.) Why the change? What were the similarities and differences in the circumstances? To what extent did Japanese Americans and Jews have expectations of what relocation would mean for them? What were the similarities and differences between the two situations concerning legal rights, racial prejudices and social attitudes? Did the general public accept and support these policies? Why? Were the relocations kept secret, or characterized as less objectionable actions, or justified as reasonable and necessary under the prevailing circumstances? Wouldn't your refusal to relocate only serve to confirm the government's suspicions about your loyalty?

There are likely to be similarities and differences in the answers to this question according to the racial background of the student. Based on author David Ghere's experience, most white students said that they would follow the orders despite the injustice and were confident that their government would eventually rectify the situation. A smaller number of white students claimed that they would refuse to be relocated stating some version of the following: "They can't do this to me. I've got rights." A majority of black students rejected the orders but often had a different attitude than their white counterparts. They usually cited the struggles and sacrifices of their ancestors and their determination not to allow any regression of the position of their people. On the other hand, a smaller group of black students claimed that they would abide by the order, stating that their ancestors had survived slavery, lynching, segregation and discrimination and they would survive this, too. Asian American students tended to say that they would follow the order while Native Americans usually responded that they would ignore the order.

Teachers may find a different mix of answers in their class and a number of other possible responses may emerge. Whatever the results, it opens up a great opportunity to discuss cultural perspectives. Why do most African Americans and Native Americans believe they would reject the order? This would be construed by some as a lack of support for the country, yet African Americans and Native Americans have served in the United States military, particularly during warfare, in much higher percentages than any other groups of Americans. Are "loyalty" or "patriotism" the determining factors in either decision? What cultural traits or social dynamics account for this unwillingness to relocate but willingness to die for their country? Compare this with the fact that the Japanese American soldiers recruited from the camps earned more awards and honors for bravery in combat than any other military units in World War II.

III. Simulated Supreme Court Oral Arguments

Several Japanese American citizens challenged the military implementation of Executive Order 9066 in the federal courts.¹⁶ Military restrictions began with curfews and eventually led to forced removal to relocation centers further inland. Gordon Hirabayashi and Minoru Yasui each challenged their arrests for violating curfew on the grounds that the Order discriminated against those of Japanese ancestry, both United States citizens and aliens. The United States Supreme Court upheld the curfews in Hirabayashi v. United States¹⁷ as a proper exercise of the war powers of Congress. Toyosaburo (Fred) Korematsu was arrested and convicted for being in a "military area" in California and not reporting to a relocation center. He appealed his conviction and challenged the incarceration of Japanese Americans. In 1944 the United States Supreme Court heard the case of Korematsu v. United States.¹⁸ In the infamous case, the Court upheld the exclusion of all persons of Japanese ancestry from particular "military areas" without requiring a determination as to whether any particular individual actually posed a threat of sabotage or espionage.¹⁹

The Korematsucase provides a variety of arguments concerning Japanese American internment that lend themselves to a simulation of the Supreme Court's action upholding the incarceration of Japanese Americans. The majority of the Court ruled that Mr. Korematsu was not excluded from the military area because of his race, but "because we are at war with the Japanese Empire...and because there was evidence of disloyalty on the part of some [Japanese-Americans], the military authorities considered that the need for action was great and the time was short."²⁰ In his dissent, Justice Murphy conceded that in time of war great respect must be given to the judgment of military authorities. However, Murphy argued that the exclusion of all persons of Japanese ancestry from the Pacific Coast "goes over the very brink of constitutional power and falls into the ugly abyss of racism."²¹ Justice Jackson in his dissent accused the majority of upholding the principle of racial discrimination under the guise of military necessity.²²

The overwhelming public support for relocation and incarceration and the general acceptance of their justifications delayed any official censure of the policy for over three decades. It wasn't until documents were declassified that critics of the policy had proof that the incarceration policies were not based on military necessity. Then, in 1980, Congress established a Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians. The Commission issued a report in 1983 unanimously agreeing that Japanese Americans had suffered a "grave injustice" and that Executive Order 9066 and the subsequent military restrictions were "not justified by military necessity.... The broad historical causes which shaped these decisions were race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership."²³

In 1983 Fred Korematsu filed a petition asking a federal judge to vacate his wartime conviction. The judge found that during the original case, "the government deliberately omitted relevant information and provided misleading information in papers"²⁴ to the Supreme Court. The judge overturned Fred Korematsu's conviction to "achieve justice and to correct errors of the most fundamental character."²⁵ The district judge further noted:

As historical precedent [the Supreme Court Opinion in Korematsu] stands as a constant caution that in times of war or declared military necessity our institutions must be vigilant in protecting constitutional guarantees. It stands as a caution that in times of distress the shield of military necessity and national security must not be used to protect governmental actions from close scrutiny and accountability. It stands as a caution that in times of international hostility and antagonisms our institutions, legislative, executive and judicial, must be prepared to exercise their authority to protect all citizens from the petty fears and prejudices that are so easily aroused.²⁶

Four years later, in 1988, Congress passed a bill apologizing to Japanese Americans for the injustice done them and authorizing twenty thousand dollars in redress to each of approximately 60,000 survivors of the American relocation camps.²⁷

An assignment that will now be discussed allows students to understand the political, military, and legal arguments that were espoused during the incarceration of Japanese Americans. An instructor should start by having students read the factual background of the now infamous Supreme Court case, Korematsu v. United States.²⁸ When this case was heard the United States Supreme Court had already upheld the curfews in 1942 in Hirabayashi v. United States²⁹ as a proper exercise of the war powers of Congress. The 1944 Korematsu case focused on the removal of Japanese Americans from designated areas. Exclusion order No. 34 issued by General DeWitt, the Commanding General of the Western Command in May 1942, had barred all persons of Japanese descent from the "military area" of San Leandro, California. Mr. Toyosaburo Korematsu (who later refers to himself as Fred), an American citizen of Japanese ancestry, had failed to leave the "military area" where his home was located, and had been convicted of violating the act passed by Congress making it illegal to act contrary to restrictions placed on a military area. He appealed his conviction all the way to the United States Supreme Court.

A classroom simulation of the oral arguments and court deliberations will enable students to recognize pertinent issues and articulate the various arguments. Students should be assigned the roles of Supreme Court Justices, attorneys representing Mr. Korematsu, and attorneys representing the United States. If a student does not want to represent the United States position, an instructor can honor this request and assign the student to another role. Using assigned reading, students should first determine what issues are involved in the case, what the arguments for each side are, and what questions are raised by these arguments.³⁰ Military necessity during time of war was the justification the Supreme Court relied on in the Korematsu majority opinion. Ruling that relocation and incarceration did not violate the United States Constitution, the Court deferred to the military and did not require proof of sabotage or "Un-American" activities. The dissenting opinions claimed the Constitution was violated by the racially discriminatory policy.

Once students have had an opportunity to determine the issues and main arguments, the attorneys representing Mr. Korematsu should make a brief oral statement of their position. After the presentation, each Justice will ask a question concerning the issues and arguments raised. Next, the attorneys representing the United States should give a brief statement of their position, followed again by Justices' questions. At the end of the hearing, each side should provide a short summation, and then the Justices deliberate the merits of the arguments that have been presented. Although in the real Supreme Court, deliberation is done in secret, in the simulation those students who act as attorneys should remain in the classroom to listen to the Justices deliberate. At the end of the deliberation, the student assigned the role of Chief Justice will announce the opinion of the court and explain the justification for the decision. The instructor should then provide students with excerpts from the opinions in the "real" Supreme Court case, contrast them with the student simulation, and discuss the various reasons for the differences.

Having completed the simulated Supreme Court case, students should be prepared to consider "the rest of the story": the 1983 lawsuit which overturned Korematsu's conviction [Korematsu v. United States]³¹ which ultimately led to military documents being made available to a Presidential Commission; the report of the Presidential Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians that concluded that the internment of Japanese Americans was not justified by military necessity but by race prejudice, war hysteria, and failure of political leadership; and the 1988 actions of Congress which passed a bill of apology and authorized payment of redress to about 60,000 survivors of the 10 Japanese American internment camps. Discussing the reasons given in 1944 versus the subsequent reversal of Fred Korematsu's conviction should allow students to more fully understand how internment happened, and also possible ways to avoid this situation in the future.

Over the past six years, author Karen Miksch has used the simulated Supreme Court oral argument assignment with approximately 250 first and second year students in her undergraduate introduction to law classes. Students who are assigned the role of government attorneys are often initially unhappy because they do not agree with the position they must advocate. Setting ground rules early to remind all participants that attorneys do not necessarily have to agree with their assigned role, and further pointing out that understanding the "other side's" argument helps to strengthen your own points, generally alleviates student concerns. Student response to the simulation has been overwhelmingly positive. In particular, students appreciate the opportunity to learn about the incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII. An informal poll showed that over half of the students had not known about the incarceration of Japanese Americans until they entered college. Of those students who had learned about the incarceration, only ten percent had spent more than a class period discussing the event.

We believe that this simulation meets the goal of introducing students to the political and legal arguments used to justify Japanese American incarceration and to critique the purported reasons for incarceration. The oral arguments underscore the tension between security and liberty. The lack of military necessity, and the subsequent documentation that government lawyers knew at the time that there was no military necessity, outrages students and has led to lively discussions of the checks and balances needed to uphold the Constitution in time of war.

IV. Contemporary Debate

Once students have had the opportunity to critically examine Japanese American internment, the instructor can introduce contemporary parallels, such as governmental response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. For example, the following topics lend themselves to discussion and debate:

(1) The Executive Order allowing military tribunals to try non citizens suspected of terrorist activity.³² This is a debatable issue that parallels that of Japanese American internment. As a follow-up to the Korematsu simulation, author Karen Miksch conducted a debate in her spring 2002 Law in Society class. Many students were unaware of the Executive Order regarding military tribunals. Students first read the Executive Order and then in small groups came up with arguments both for and against the use of military tribunals. Interesting subtopics the students also explored included: detention of non-citizens suspected of terrorist activity without due process protections, the applicability of the Geneva Convention when the enemy is not a foreign nation, and intercepting communications between attorneys and clients.³³ Once the small groups had come up with both pro and con positions on the use of military tribunals a classroom debate followed. Randomly chosen groups of students were asked to provide at least one argument in support and one against the use of tribunals. Small groups got one point for each argument and an additional two points if they could make a counter argument. Students responded positively to the debate and wanted more time to discuss the issue. This indicated that two fifty-minute sessions are probably needed too ensure a thorough exploration of the issue.

Students also examined the current executive order of President Bush and Roosevelt's World War II orders and were asked to consider the following questions: How specific are the provisions of each? What are the guidelines for implementation? Could they be implemented in unforeseen ways? What limitations are placed on government action and what processes are incorporated to prevent their abuse? These discussions ultimately lead to students brainstorming how to balance security against causing injustice.

(2) Does vibrant debate about American policy during a proclaimed war time emergency solidify or undermine public support for government policy? During every major war, the United States government has sought to unite the country behind the war effort. This has been accomplished by the curtailment of free speech through some combination of government restrictions, legal prosecutions, and non-government intimidation.³⁴ In the current situation a report, "Defending Civilization,"³⁵ issued in November 2001, lists 117 statements heard on college campuses after the events of September 11 that the American Council of Trustees and Alumni determined were anti-American. The "Defending Civilization" report has been criticized for potentially having a chilling effect on public debate. Is this report defending civilization or attacking democratic society, or both? Is America more threatened by those who advocate "tolerance and diversity as antidotes to evil" than by those who condemn any analysis and discussion of the international situation as "anti-American"? The report found a wide variety of views to be "anti-American" statements. One example cited the claim that Osama bin Laden should be tried for crimes against humanity before an international tribunal. Another stated "ignorance breeds hate" while a third urged America to "build bridges and relationships, not simply bombs and walls."³⁶

Dividing students into small groups and giving each group ten of the 117 statements to analyze is one way to organize a classroom discussion on the issue of free speech in time of war. Students should be asked to consider why statements were deemed to be anti-American and what characteristics prompted that determination. Which ones advocate a change in policy, a minor variation from current policy, or merely more effective methods to achieve current policies? Which statements are not critical of American policy but are condemned because of the identity of the spokesperson?

(3) Comparing newspaper coverage then and now. Ask students to compare and contrast the newspaper coverage leading up to Japanese American internment (from the first assignment in the curriculum) with news coverage of the debate and passage of the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act, better knows as the USA Patriot Act.³⁷ Civil liberties organizations objected strongly to the infringements of civil rights that they perceived in both cases.³⁸ However, the USA Patriot Act was overwhelmingly approved by both houses of Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush.

After reading the news coverage of the Act (available on-line or via local newspaper archives) an instructor might work with the students in class to come up with major positions by supporters and critics of the Act and other public and governmental responses to the events of September 11. A number of debate topics are possible. For example, the USA Patriot Act allows the Executive Branch to conduct covert searches and track email and Internet usage with minimal judicial and Congressional oversight.³⁹ Students could debate whether these are "unreasonable" searches and seizures. Ultimately, students must discuss where to draw the balance between security and civil liberties.

Conclusion

The classroom activities described in this paper are designed to engender discussion concerning Japanese American incarceration. Four very different teaching ideas are proposed for addressing various aspects of this topic. Each should stimulate engaging classroom discussions, facilitates a variety of active learning, and provide the basis for challenging student assignments. The purpose of these learning activities is to enable students to understand how institutional racism and racial prejudice, wartime hysteria and failure of political leadership led to the oppression of Japanese Americans. Ultimately, the primary goal of the curriculum is for students and instructors to understand the social and historical forces that led to the policy, so that such policies will not be repeated.

Notes

^1. Panikos Panayi, ed., Minorities in Wartime: The Experience of National and Racial Groupings in Europe, North America and Australia During the Two World Wars (Oxford: Berg, 1993).

^2. Roger Daniels, "Incarceration of the Japanese Americans: A Sixty Year Perspective" The History Teacher, 35:3 (May 2002), 297–310.

^3. Roger Daniels, Sandra Taylor and Harry Kitano (eds.) Japanese Americans from Relocation to Redress (Salt Lake City: University of Utah, 1986), xv–xxi. Most of these legal restrictions do not actually mention specific racial groups but refer to aliens "ineligible to naturalize." Until 1952, persons born in Japan were ineligible to naturalize and become U.S. citizens. This racialized restriction applied to other "non white" persons. For example, Chinese persons were ineligible to become U.S. citizens from 1882 when the Chinese Exclusion Act became law, until during World War II. During the war it was "embarrassing" to have China as an ally, and yet refuse to allow Chinese nationals to become U.S. citizens. The racist national origin restrictions were not completely removed from U.S. immigration and naturalization laws until 1965.

^4. Leslie T. Hatamiya, Righting a Wrong: Japanese Americans and the Passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993), 6; Roger Daniels, Prisoners Without Trial: Japanese Americans in World War II (New York: Hill and Wang, 1993), 46, 57; Roger Daniels, The Decision to Relocate the Japanese Americans (Malabar, FL: Robert E. Krieger Publishing, 1975), 18–20.

^5. For example, Ajay Singh, "The Lessons of History," Los Angeles Times, 6 November 2001; Peter Grier, "Fragile Freedoms," Christian Science Monitor, 13 December 2001; Mark Jurkowitz, "The Big Chill: One Casualty of the War on Terrorism is America's Boisterous Discourse," The Boston Globe, 27 January 2002.

^6. Executive Order, "Detention, Treatment, and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens in the War Against Terrorism," Federal Register 66, 57833 (16 November 2001).

^7. Executive Order, "Interim Rule Allowing Monitoring of Communications With Attorneys to Deter Acts of Terrorism," Federal Register 66, 211 (31 October 2001).

^8. See, Jules Becker, The Course of Exclusion 1882–1924: San Francisco Newspaper Coverage of the Chinese and Japanese in the United States (San Francisco: Mellen Research University Press, 1991); Roger Daniels, The Politics of Prejudice: The Anti-Japanese Movement in California and the Struggle for Japanese Exclusion (Berkeley: University of California, 1977); Ronald Takaki, Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans (Boston: Back Bay Books, 1998).

^9.See, Jeremy Cooper and R.A. Maidment, From a Different Shore: An American Identity (Princeton, NJ: Open University, Films for the Humanities, 1996), video recording; Bonnie Dry and Dolores Danska, Japan Bashing (New York: Carousel Film and Video, 1992), video recording; Heather Searles and Christine Tanaka, We Came to Grow: Japanese Americans in the Central Valley, 1869–1941 (San Francisco, CA: National Asian American Telecommunications Association (NAATA), 1999), video recording.

^10. See Roger Daniels, Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life (New York: Harper Collins, 1990) 304.

^11. Instructors may want to review academic scholarship on coverage of Japanese American Internment. Ronald Takaki, A Different Mirror: A Multicultural History of America (Boston: Little Brown, 1993), 378–382; Peter Irons, A People's History of the Supreme Court (New York: Penguin Books, 1999), 348–351. For a comprehensive look at images of Japan in U.S. newspapers, see Susan D. Moeller, "Pictures of the Enemy: Fifty Years of Images of Japan in the American Press, 1941–1992, Journal of American Culture, 19, 1 (spring 1996), 29–42. For more historical context on anti-Asian racism in California and an excellent example of research using news coverage, students and instructors may also want to review Jules Becker, The Course of Exclusion 1882–1924: San Francisco Newspaper Coverage of the Chinese and Japanese in the United States.

^12. In our class, we assigned excerpts from the following works: Ronald Takaki, A Different Mirror, 378–382; Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present (New York: Harper Collins, 1999 20^th Anniversary Edition), 407–425. We also encouraged students to review the excellent "Chronology of Japanese American History" in the introduction to Roger Daniels, Sandra C. Taylor & Harry H. L. Kitano, (eds.) Japanese Americans: From Relocation to Redress (Chronology of Japanese American History pages xv–xxi) to find important dates to research in their assigned newspaper.

^13. For example, the following web sites include background information and photographic essays regarding incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII: Japanese American National Museum <http://www.janm.org/events/digital.htm>; National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) <http://www.archives.gov/research_room/alic/reference_desk/military_resources/japanese_internment.html>; "War Relocation Authority Camps in Arizona, 1942–1946" from the University of Arizona library <http://www.library.arizona.edu/wracamps/> (this site includes the full text of Executive Order 9066 as well); Santa Clara University's homepage on diversity <http://www.scu.edu/SCU/Programs/Diversity/scvasian.html>; "Japanese-American Internment Camps During World War II" from the Special Collections Department, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, and Private Collections <http://www.lib.utah.edu/spc/photo/9066/9066.htm>; The Japanese American Exhibit and Access Project, a permanent Web site providing access to the University of Washington Libraries holdings <http://www.lib.washington.edu/exhibits/harmony/>.

^14. Students came up with the following dates to research: December 7, 1941 (attack on Pearl Harbor); December 11, 1941 ("enemy aliens" detained by FBI); December 29, 1941 (enemy aliens in West ordered to surrender "contraband" including radios); February 4, 1942 (curfew orders); February 19, 1942 (Executive Order 9066 signed by President Roosevelt); March 2, 1942 (General DeWitt issues Public Proclamation No. 1 designating military areas in West); March 18, 1942 (President Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9102 creating the War Relocation Authority (WRA)); March 24, 1942 (travel restrictions, curfew, and contraband restrictions extended to all Japanese Americans); June 7, 1942 (General DeWitt reports removal of 100,000 Japanese Americans from Military Area No. 1).

^15. On-line newspaper archives include <http://www.newspaperarchive.com/> (it is free to search, however, there is a cost to order full size prints); NY Times "On this Day" in history has a free full text copy of the Dec. 7, 1941 news story regarding the attack on Pearl Harbor <http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/>.

^16. For a comprehensive account of the legal challenges to Executive Order 9066 and wartime restrictions of Japanese American civil liberties, see Peter Irons, A People's History of the Supreme Court (New York: Penguin Books, 1999) 348–364. There are also two video recordings available: Eric Paul Fournier, Of Civil Wrongs & Rights: The Fred Korematsu Story (San Francisco, CA: NAATA, 2000), video recording; Gordon Hirabayashi, John de Graaf, and Scott Simon, A Personal Matter: Gordon Hirabayashi v. the United States (San Francisco, CA: Cross Current Media, 1992) video recording.

^17. 320 U.S. 81 (1943).

^18. 323 U.S. 214 (1944).

^19.Ibid, 215–216.

^20.Ibid, 223–224.

^21.Ibid, 234.

^22.Ibid. 246.

^23. Report of Congressional Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, Personal Justice Denied (1983).

^24.Korematsu v. United States, 584 F. Supp. 1406 (N.D.Cal. 1984), 1439.

^25.Ibid., 1438.

^26.Ibid., 1441.

^27.Restitution for World War II Internment of Japanese Americans and Aleuts, Public Law 100–383, 10 August 1988, § 2, 102 Stat. 903;reprinted in50 USCS Appx § 1989a (2001). For an account of the struggle to obtain redress for Japanese Americans and a discussion of the African American reparation movement, see Eric K. Yamamoto, "Racial Reparations: Japanese American Redress and African American Claims," Boston College Law Review, 40 (Dec. 1998), 477–523.

^28.Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 215–217. The full text of the opinion is available on line at <http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/cases/name.htm>. For a short background discussion of the Korematsucase and an excerpt of the majority opinion, see <http://www.civnet.org/resources/teach/basic/part10/65.htm>.

^29. 320 U.S. 81 (1943).

^30. The facts from the Korematsu case and an excerpt from Peter Iron's account of the events leading up to the case is recommended. Peter Irons, A People's History of the Supreme Court, 348–351.

^31.Korematsu v. United States, 584 F. Supp. 1406 (N.D.Cal. 1984).

^32.Federal Register 66, 57833 (16 November 2001).

^33.Ibid. See Also, Federal Register 66, 211 (31 October 2001).

^34. For a comprehensive account of the suspension of civil liberties in the United States during times of war, see Michael Linfield, Freedom Under Fire: U.S. Civil Liberties in Times of War (Boston: South End Press, 1990).

^35. Jerry L. Martin, Anne D. Neal, "Defending Civilization: How Our Universities Are Failing America and What Can Be Done About It, American Council of Trustees and Alumni. The report is available on line at <http://www.goacta.org>.

^36.Ibid.

^37.USA PATRIOT Act, Public Law, 107–156, 115 Stat. 272 (2001).

^38.See, Nancy Chang, "How Does USA PATRIOT Act Affect Bill of Rights?" New York Law Journal, 6 December 2001; Testimony of Nadine Strossen, President of the American Civil Liberties Union, before House Judiciary Committee, January 24, 2002.

^39. For a discussion of how the USA PATRIOT Act makes it easier for law enforcement to conduct searches and monitor criminal activity, see "News" National Law Journal, 21 January 2002, Vol. 24 (20), p. B11. For a detailed discussion of the Act's impact on the internet, see Ronald L. Plesser, James J. Halpert and Emilio W. Cividanes "USA PATRIOT Act for Internet and Communications Companies" The Computer and Internet Lawyer, March 2002, Col. 19 (3), p. 1.

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