Item No: #308174 Case for the Nisei: Brief of the Japanese American Citizens League. Japanese American Citizens League.

On the Korematsu and Endo Cases

Case for the Nisei: Brief of the Japanese American Citizens League

Notes: A collection of the key legal works affecting the internment of Japanese Americans during the Second World War, published by the leading Japanese American civil rights organization.

The three documents reprinted here are the amicus curiae brief of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) in the Fred Korematsu case, the Supreme Court's decision in the Mitsuye Endo case, and the Supreme Court's decision in the Korematsu case.

Fred Korematsu resisted the forced relocation of persons of Japanese descent by military commanders on the West Coast of the United States. He challenged his detention and with the support of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), his case reached the Supreme Court, which decided that the military had the right to relocate Japanese Americans based on their "ethnic affiliation", at least until their loyalty was determined. This is widely considered a low point in American judicial decisions.

Less well known is the case of Mitsuye Endo, a native of Sacramento who was working as a clerk for the California Department of Employment when the Japanese military attacked Pearl Harbor. She was interned first at Tule Lake and then at Topaz. She was the plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging forced internment and stayed in the camp when the government tried to release her to remove the grounds for the lawsuit. Unlike Korematsu, Endo won her case, with the Supreme Court deciding that while the government had the right to relocate and temporarily detain people, they could only do so until the loyalty of the detainees could be determined. Endo kept a low profile after the war and her role in fighting the Japanese Internment has not received as much attention, in part because she won her case. If the war had continued, it is likely that thousands of interned Japanese Americans would have sought release under the Endo precedent.

xii, 143 pages. Introduction by Saburo Kido.

Edition + Condition: First edition (first printing). About very good in the original printed wrappers. The staples are rusting and there is a short tear at the bottom of the front cover, which extends to several interior leaves. With the Tokyo ownership stamp of George T. Hagen who was involved with the war crimes trials in Japan in the late 1940s.

Publication: Salt Lake City, UT: Japanese American Citizens League, [1945?].

Item No: #308174

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