Encore: Supreme Court Landmarks | Loaded Weapon | 4

American History Tellers

Wondery

Society & Culture, Kids & Family, History, Education For Kids

4.7 • 18.3K Ratings

🗓️ 9 August 2023

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Through most of 1941, as fighting raged across Europe, the United States held back from entering the war. That all changed in December, when Japanese fighter planes bombed Pearl Harbor and the nation found itself mobilizing for World War II. Suddenly, the frenzy to fight enemies abroad turned to suspicion against those at home.

President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, giving the military the power to detain and permanently jail over 110,000 Japanese Americans living on the West Coast. But three young detainees would defy their fate.

Fred Korematsu, Gordon Hirabayshi and Mitsuye Endo would challenge the U.S. policy of Japanese internment and bring their cases all the way to the Supreme Court — pitting the wartime powers of the United States against the constitutional rights of American citizens.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is a special encore presentation of our seven-part series on Supreme Court landmarks.
0:05.6	We're taking a look back at crucial Supreme Court decisions that fundamentally changed the legal
0:10.4	landscape of our nation. But just as with today's court, social movements and partisan politics
0:15.6	often influence those decisions sometimes in unexpected ways.
0:30.4	Imagine it's a bright Sunday morning in December 1941. You're 21 years old. You've parked
0:37.9	the car at the top of a hillside, looking down on the San Francisco Bay and you kneel to share a
0:42.6	blanket with your fiance. Music plays from the car radio. She flips through a newspaper while you
0:48.6	look at the ocean below. Maybe we should move up to Washington State. Maybe? I asked Walt if he knew
0:54.4	whether Japanese could marry white women up there, he said he didn't know. Well Walt doesn't know
0:58.4	everything. Maybe there's a number we could call. Like, uh, hello? Yes, I'd like to find out
1:04.5	where your state stands on racial intermarriage, please. You try and chuckle, but all you can manage
1:10.0	is a smirk. The two of you have been dating for three years, but when you got engaged, both your
1:15.3	family and hers objected. Ah, it's gonna be crazy. A Japanese American man in an Italian American
1:21.9	woman, both had the word American in them. There shouldn't be any problem. She nods, but doesn't say
1:28.8	anything. And why should she? You're the one who looks different. She could be Irish or French,
1:33.6	like a lot of Americans, but you'll always be seen as Japanese, even though you were born here.
1:49.3	We scramble up off the blanket, move towards car radio.
1:59.0	You turn the radio off. As if turning it off could make the news stop. The drumbeat of war has been
2:04.4	intensely, but the thought that Japan just attacked you and other Americans on your own soil
2:10.0	leaves you shaken. Your stomach tightens up as you feel a sickness coming over you. We need to get
2:14.9	going. I need to see my parents. But you don't think it's going to be okay. You're worried about
2:22.8	your parents, your brothers, your family who lives in the city. What will happen to all of you once
	...

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