WASHINGTON, D.C. (Jan. 6, 2012) — Gordon Hirabayashi died on Jan. 2, 2012. He was 93 years old and living in Edmonton, Alberta.
Asian Americans remember the contribution to civil rights from a young Japanese American man who made an unpopular decision at the time — even among many in his own community — in refusing to be interned against his will in WWII. His example today has serves as an alarm bell every time a disenfranchised community faces the threat of mob rule.
The Fred T. Korematsu Institute for Civil Rights and Education in San Francisco remember Hirabayashi as a 24-year-old student at the University of Washington in 1942. When President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, ordering the incarceration of 120,000 innocent people of Japanese ancestry. Hirabayashi, an American citizen, turned himself into the FBI in order to intentionally defy a curfew law imposed on all west coast residents of Japanese ancestry.
After he was arrested and convicted, Hirabayashi appealed his case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Similar to Korematsu v. United States (1944), and Yasui v. United States (1943), the Supreme Court sadly ruled in Hirabayashi v United States (1943) that the curfew law was justified due to military necessity. Hirabayashi was sent to a prison camp in Arizona.
In 1983 and 1987, after the discovery of new evidence proving the government had known there was no grounds for the mass incarceration, both Korematsu and Hirabayashi re-opened their cases, leading their convictions to be overturned in the U.S. District Court N.D. Cal. and the U.S. Court of Appeals 9th Cir., respectively.
Their cases never reached the U.S. Supreme Court again, and the high court’s decisions in Korematsu v. United States and Hirabayashi v. United States are widely condemned as one of the darkest chapters in American legal history. Min Yasui’s case was also re-opened in the 1980s, but Yasui passed away in 1986 before his second case was decided.
“Gordon Hirabayashi was a principled man of peace who, with the courage of his convictions, left us with an enduring legal and social legacy,” says Rodney L. Kawakami, lead attorney for the Hirabayashi 1980s legal team. “He inspired us to remember that our Constitutional rights come with a price and that we have an obligation to be constantly vigilant to protect these cherished rights by speaking out in times of crisis, even when unpopular.”
Hirabayashi went on to teach sociology for many years at the University of Alberta in Canada. In 1999, the former Catalina Federal Honor Camp near Tucson, AZ, where Hirabayashi was sentenced to hard labor in the 1940s, was renamed the Gordon Hirabayashi Recreation Site.
Since 2007, the East West Players, an Asian American theater company, has produced stage productions based on his life. In May 2011, acting U.S. Solicitor General Neal Katyal released an unprecedented “confession of error” in the Korematsu and Hirabayashi cases.
Months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hirabayashi purposefully defied a curfew targeting citizens of Japanese ancestry, refused a directive to report to an internment camp, and was later jailed. His case was appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ultimately ruled against him and upheld the government’s argument that such restrictions were necessary.
Hirabayashi would spend a year in federal prison for refusing to complete a form to enter the armed forces that required Japanese-Americans to renounce any allegiance to the emperor of Japan. He argued that the prompt was discriminatory because it implied that Japanese Americans were loyal to a foreign power when other Americans were not required to make similar pledges.
In 1986, after his case and those of other internees were reopened, he was cleared of his past convictions. As a result of this ruling, Congress passed legislation providing reparations for Japanese American internees. He stated that his case was not a Japanese-American issue, but “an American case, with principles that affect the fundamental human rights of all Americans.”
“Gordon Hirabayashi’s passing marks a sad loss for our community and country,” said Congresswoman Judy Chu, Chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.
“At a time when Japanese Americans were suffering from discrimination and internment at the hands of their own government, he stood up to challenge an unjust law and took his case all the way to the Supreme Court.
“It wasn’t until decades later that justice was finally served, and that was only as a result of his tireless efforts and unflinching faith in the protections of the U.S. Constitution,” she added. “Every generation needs someone like Dr. Hirabayashi. He was a great American, and he will be missed.”
“Gordon Hirabayashi’s dedication to the most cherished principals of American democracy created an iconic moment in the history of the civil rights movement,” said Congressman Mike Honda, CAPAC Chair Emeritus. “Gordon’s defiance of the incarceration of more than 120,000 Japanese Americans is an indelible reminder that we must never let ‘war hysteria, racial prejudice and a failure of political leadership’ derail the continuing mission of America – to live as one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Gordon’s legacy is a lodestar for every American – inspiring us to work tirelessly to forge a more perfect union.”
Hirabayashi’s former wife, Esther Hirabayashi, passed away in Edmonton just hours later on the same day. She was 87. He is survived by his wife, Susan, his children, Marion, Sharon, and Jay, his brother, James, and his sister Esther (also known as Tosh Furugori).
“He was a great father who taught me about the values of honesty, integrity and justice,” says his son, Jay Hirabayashi. “He was rightly recognized as a hero, but he never saw himself that way. He saw himself as someone who did what he had to do to stand up for the rights he believed in.”
On February 11, 2012, the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality at Seattle University School of Law will hold a day-long event commemorating the 25th anniversary of the overturning of Hirabayashi v. United States. The event will feature multiple panels and an exhibit. For more information, visit www.law.seattleu.edu.