Fred Korematsu (1919 – 2005)
One of the more shameful events in American history during the 20th Century was the internment of Japanese Americans, citizens of the United States, in concentration camps during World War II. This action, mandated by Executive Order 9066 issued by President Franklin Roosevelt, called for the removal of all individuals of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast and was in direct response to the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 by the Japanese Navy. One brave American turned the pain of his and his family’s ignominious treatment by the country of his birth into a lifetime of advocacy for justice and an end to racial discrimination. His name was Fred Korematsu.
Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu was born in Oakland, California in 1919, the third of four sons. His parents immigrated to the United States from Japan in 1905 and started a successful nursery business in Oakland. He attended public schools, participated on the tennis and swimming teams and worked in his family’s business. Although he had experienced some racism in high school, he believed these were isolated instances. When, however, he was rejected from military service, comments made by officers in charge led him to believe that his Japanese ancestry had become a liability and a reason to distrust him and question his loyalty to the United States. Korematsu then worked at the docks in Oakland as a shipyard welder thereby contributing to the defense effort. Despite good reviews, he was fired from this job. His fellow workers told him it was due to his Japanese ancestry. He was similarly fired from his next two jobs and was unable to find other work anywhere. In May of 1942, all Japanese Americans were ordered to report to Assembly Centers as a prelude to being sent to internment camps. Korematsu defied the order and was soon arrested and imprisoned.
While in prison awaiting trial, he was visited by Ernest Besig, the director of the San Francisco office of the American Civil Liberties Union. Besig asked Korematsu if he was willing to become the test case to challenge the constitutionality of the government’s imprisonment of Japanese Americans. Because Korematsu strongly felt that the government’s treatment of him, his family and other Japanese Americans, was unjust, he readily agreed. Several months later, he was convicted in federal court of violating the military orders issued under Executive Order 9066, placed on a five-year probation and then sent to a series of incarceration camps along with the rest of his family. Appeals of his case followed, culminating in the Supreme Court which ruled that Korematsu’s conviction and incarceration were justified due to military necessity. This however was not the end of Fred Korematsu’s struggle for justice and exoneration. His cause would be taken up by many others, in the decades that followed and, in the end, a measure of recognition would be won.
In 1983, Peter Irons, a political science professor at the University of California San Diego and Aiko Herzig- Yoshinaga, a political activist, found evidence in government archives that the Justice Department had withheld documents that refuted the Army’s claim that the incarceration of Japanese Americans was a military necessity. Instead, these official documents which relied on memos from the FBI, FCC, the Office of Naval Intelligence and other authoritative intelligence agencies, categorically denied that Japanese Americans had committed any wrongdoing or acts of treason and concluded that Japanese Americans posed no threat to the United States. These official reports were intentionally suppressed and never presented to any courts reviewing the matter.
As a result of the discovery of governmental misconduct, a team of pro-bono attorneys, including those at the Asian Law Caucus, reopened Korematsu’s case in 1983 and were successful in having his criminal conviction overturned. The Supreme Court’s 1944 ruling, however, still stands.
Korematsu remained an activist throughout his life and worked on behalf of the National Coalition for Redress and Reparations for many years. The work of this group succeeded in obtaining an official apology from the government and compensation of $20,000 for each surviving Japanese American who had been incarcerated. Korematsu received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bill Clinton; was invited to speak about his experience at many universities; and filed many “Friend of the Court” briefs with the Supreme Court in cases involving what he believed to be unlawful detainment of Muslims after 9/11.
In 2010, California passed the Fred Korematsu Day bill, making January 30 the first day in the United States named after an Asian American. Fred Korematsu dedicated his life to fighting for justice and his legacy continues to inspire all Americans to follow his example.
Mabel Ping-Hua Lee (1896 – 1966)
In 1912, in New York City, a sixteen-year- old high school student, riding on horseback, proudly led a contingent of Chinese and Chinese American women in one of the largest suffrage parades in United States history. That young woman was Mabel Ping-Hua Lee. On this momentous day, the young Mabel Lee’s nascent interest in women’s suffrage and for their equal educational and occupational opportunities, was publicly proclaimed and became her life-long defining commitment.
Mabel Ping-Hua Lee was born in China where she was raised by her mother and grandmother while her father, a Baptist minister, was doing missionary work in the United States. During this time, she attended missionary schools where she learned to speak English proficiently. In 1905, the young Mabel and her mother immigrated to the United States and joined her father who was then minister at the Morning Star Mission in New York City.
A gifted student at Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn, Mabel Lee went on to receive bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Barnard College. She majored in history and philosophy in college and participated in the debating club and the Chinese Students’ Association. She became an editor of The Chinese Students’ Monthly, her first forum for espousing her views on women’s rights. In 1921, she became the first Chinese woman to be awarded a Ph.D. in economics in the United States which she received from Columbia University.
While she was an indefatigable advocate for women’s suffrage in the United States, she also remained committed to improving the lives of women and farmers in China. Her goal always was to return to her native land and apply her knowledge of economic theory to farming there. This was clearly articulated in her book, The Economic History of China: With Special Reference to Agriculture. To further her preparation for her ultimate goal, she traveled to Europe to study postwar economics. During this time, she had offers to work for Chinese firms engaged in international trade, and in academic institutions in China. Her plans were thwarted, however, by the untimely death of her father and her decision to return to New York to care for her mother. She was appointed Chairman of the Morning Star Mission and assumed her father’s former duties. While she initially continued to travel to China in the hopes of one day joining those working to improve working conditions and opportunities for the Chinese people, due to recurring tensions between Japan and China and the solidifying of long existing racial and sexist discrimination in China, advancing a new reality there became far less likely in Lee’s immediate future. She eventually decided to remain in the United States and continue her work in ministry serving the Chinese community in New York City. She founded the Chinese Christian Center which offered English classes, health services, a kindergarten, and job training to people in the community. Throughout these years as a religious leader of the First Chinese Baptist Church and the American Baptist Home Mission Society, she never ceased campaigning for women’s rights.
The sad irony of Mabel Lee’s life and work is that although women in the United States received the right to vote in 1920 with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, it was not until 1943, when the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was repealed, that Chinese immigrant suffragists were able to vote. It is not known however, if Mabel Lee ever became a U.S. citizen or if she ever voted. Nevertheless, through all her work, Mabel Lee became an example of what a woman can do when given the chance to learn and lead. Despite setbacks to her lifelong goals, she found many ways to do meaningful and important work for others. In recognition of her life of advocacy for those in her community, the Chinatown U.S. Post Office near where she lived in New York City, was renamed in her honor in 2017.
The members of the God’s Diversity Committee invite our Trinity Community to join us this month in celebrating Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month. We begin the month with the prayer printed below. Thank you for celebrating with us.
Loving God, we praise you for your endless creativity made manifest in the diversity of all people. Each tribe, ethnicity and culture is an expression of your expansive grace that nourishes us all. We especially praise you for the goodness and wisdom of the peoples of Asia and the Pacific Islands.
For the name and story of each person who claims this heritage, we praise your love. For the art, music, innovations, food and culture they share with the world, we praise your goodness. For the security and peace of their homes, businesses, and places of worship, we ask your protection.
Keep all descendants of Asia and the Pacific Islands in your care, hold them in your love and make us fierce advocates and allies for welcome, inclusion and the common good. Amen.
Adapted from a prayer by The Catholic Health Association of the United States