Constitutional SurveyKorematsu v. United States (1944)Korematsu v. United States (1944) actually began December 7, 1941 with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The attack on Pearl Harbor then began the conquering of Wake, Guam, Philippines, Malaya, Singapore, Dutch East Indies, New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Burma. With the attack on Pearl Harbor, racism, which was hardly unfamiliar, became an even greater problem. The Japanese Government's attacks on Americans including; torturing, raping, and murdering was an excuse for Americans aversion towards the Japanese. Public officials began to lock up the Japanese people simply for their own good, for protection against the hate crimes.Economic interest also encouraged the racism against the Japanese. Tough Japanese work ethics made Japanese businesses competition for Americans. Interest groups and individuals demanded legislators take action against all Japanese. All persons of Japans ancestry, including American citizens of Japanese ancestry, called Nisei, were reported to concentration camps. In reading American Constitutional Interpretation, it states, "General DeWitt explained, it was legitimate to put the Nisei behind barbed wire Page Twowhile allowing German and Italian aliens to remain free because "a Jap is a Jap" and World War II was "a war of the white race against a yellow race." (pg., 89).In 1943 a student Gordon Hirabayashi disobeyed a report for evacuation and curfew. Hirabayashi v. United States (1943), was the first judicial test of the statute that was signed into law by Franklin Roosevelt to make it a crime to remain in a military zone, that was put to use towards an American citizen. Hirabayashi was convicted of both counts, evacuation and curfew, in Federal District Court. In the Court of Appeals he lost, and then received certiorari from the United States Supreme Court. Chief Justice Stone affirmed Hirabayashi's conviction on both counts, meaning Gordon...
