Discussion: Was Japanese Internment Constitutional?

For this assignment, you will be assigned to one of two teams. One team will have the responsibility of stating an argument for this discussion question (should be at least 4 sentences). Make sure to support your statement with evidence. The other team will comment on your argument with questions, insights, and/or experiences.

For this particular question, team one will make an argument and team two will comment. Team one, make sure to support your argument, particularly from Supreme Courts cases. Next time, the teams will swap positions.

This should be fun, so have at it!

I AM AN AMERICAN: Reactions to Pearl Harbor

This picture was taken December 8, 1941, the day after Pearl Harbor. This store was owned by a Japanese American who was also a graduate of University of California, Berkeley.

Think about the following question and respond (you can even respond to another student's comment and pose another question if you'd like)

1. After September 11, 2001 many people of Middle Eastern descent hung an American flag outside of their homes. How is this event similar or different to what the store owner did in 1941?

http://images.google.com/images?q=September%2011&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi

2. Do a Google search and find a photo, a newspaper ad, a video representing feelings either from Japanese Americans or "native" Americans in response to Japanese internment. Make sure to cite your source!

3. Lastly, write a five sentence response to this question. Was Japanese Internment constitutional? Support your opinion with Supreme Court cases from the time. Make sure to look at the Constitution itself. See cases such as Korematsu, Hirabayashi, and Endo.

Respond to this comment:

"We're charged with wanting to get rid of the Japs for selfish reasons. We do. It's a question of whether the white man lives on the Pacific Coast or the brown men… If all the Japs were removed tomorrow, we had never miss them in two weeks, because the white farmers can take over and produce everything the Jap grows. And we do not want them back when the war ends, either."

How does this kind of racism in the 1940s compare to racism encountered in the U.S. today? Is there the same amount of racism? Have we become a less racist society? Are there any ethnic/minority groups that face similar discrimination in the present?

(See Korematsu v. United States dissent by Justice Frank Murphy, footnote 12, reproduced at findlaw.com, accessed 11 Sept. 2006)

Effects of Pearl Harbor on Japanese Internment

On December 7, 1941 the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, located on the west side of Honolulu in Hawaii. The Americans were not prepared for this surprise attack. Out of the U.S. fleet, nine ships were sunk and twenty-one were damaged. This attack not only launched the United States into World War II, but it affected thousands of Japanese Americans who were largely viewed as disloyal to the American nation.


The U.S. government established internment camps throughout the western United States. Because of Executive Order 9066 issued by President Roosevelt, those Japanese Americans who lived in the western U.S. were forced to leave their homes, their jobs, and their entire livelihood to then be relocated to exclusion zones across the United States.