Japanese American Internment: Current Events

Gordon Hirabayashi, who was imprisoned for defying the federal government’s internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, died on January 2, 2012 in Edmonton, Alberta.

The Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality will host a major conference Feb. 11, 2012, to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Ninth Circuit opinion in the Hirabayashi v. United States coram nobis case. The conference will reflect on Mr. Hirabayashi's 1943 Supreme Court case that upheld his convictions and the extraordinary work of his legal team in reopening of his case nearly 40 years later.

California celebrated the first Fred Korematsu Day on January 30, 2011, to honor the Japanese-American activist.