8Asians.com is partnering with the Fred T. Korematsu Institute to #NeverForget 75th Anniversary of #9066 – the Executive Order that led to the mass incarceration of 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry.
When Japanese American Incarceration during WWII was cited as a precedent for a proposed Muslim registry, it became immediately clear that this upcoming Fred Korematsu Day program would be substantially more important.
Coming this Sunday is the 7th Annual Fred Korematsu Day Of Civil Liberties And The Constitution, being held:
I’ve attended almost every, if not all, Fred Korematsu Day celebrations since its inception. This year’s theme is:
Mass Incarceration Across Communities: WHAT’S NEXT?
Special Guests including:
Alicia Garza, Co-founder #BlackLivesMatter
Farhana Khera, Muslim Advocates
David Ono, ABC7 Anchor Los Angeles
Film by Jeff Adachi, SF Public Defender
Performances by:
Ruby Ibarra Young, Gifted & Black
Cal Raijin Taiko–UC Berkeley
Fred T. Korematsu Middle School
Tickets:
Before attending the first Fred Korematsu Day event, I knew of Executive Order 9066 and the internment of Japanese Americans in concentration camps during World War II. But I never knew about Fred Korematsu and his efforts, which eventually lead to the Supreme Court in Korematsu v. United States, to challenge the the constitutionality of Executive Order 9066.
Now with Trump in The White House, the relevance of Korematsu Day is even more relevant as Americans await whether or not a Muslim ban and registry is implemented as Trump campaigned. A photo tweeted at a Women’s March last Saturday says it all:
You would think that the United States would have learned its history lesson … As the saying goes: “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.”
