Korematsu v.

United States

Josh Andersen

Senior Division

Individual Website

Process Paper Korematsu v. United States was the Supreme Court case that decided whether the internment of the Japanese during WWII was constitutional. I chose this topic because for several years now, all of my topics have been World War Two related, ranging from U.S involvement to the Atomic Bomb. This year, I wanted to stick to something I knew the context of, but plunge into a less well known narrowed topic. I started out with just Japanese Internment camps, but was advised to focus in on one specific topic more and use the camps as background for my story. I chose Korematsus fight for the rights of the Japanese Americans rights. I began my research by getting a general understanding of the court case itself and learning more about the camps. I was given three books, only two of which I really used. One book, called Us and Them, include details of life in the camps. The other book gave me a broad understanding of the case, as well as the 1980s Commission. I then began to look for newspaper articles from the time in an effort to build more of a context as to why the Japanese-Americans were relocated. What I found was an entire data base of news articles from around this time, and it proved to be extremely helpful. Then I set out to find out about Korematsus life and involvement. I found the website for the institute erected in his honor, and it too became very instrumental in my final website. Along with these documents, I set out to find specific documents that pertained to my topic, such as Executive Order 9066, The War Powers Act of 1941, and the Opinion of the Court in the Korematsu Case. These all ended up in my final project, and I consider myself very fortunate for have found them. I chose to do a website because I have had plenty of experience and making them. I have done them at least three times before, and I continue to advocate them for an extremely easy way to represent something. On top of that, most of my sources were found on the internet, and therefore were easier to put on a website than on a board. I could include specific PDF files and links leading to the

websites I used. I also find myself thinking more linearly and clearly online than I do on a board or a paper. I realized it would be easier to organize specific things on a website and stick to my strong suit as it would probably yield the best result. On my website I have images from the time of Fred Korematsu and the camps, as well as images and documents from the time of the internment. As a citizen of the United States, being born and raised in America, Korematsu had rights to a fair trial. America had a responsibility to uphold those rights given to him as an American citizen, and therefore were violating the promises made to all citizens in the constitution. But it wasnt just his rights. It was the rights of hundreds of thousands of aliens and citizens, all who were promised these rights when they came here from other countries.