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S3E16: On Asian American History, with Dr. Karen Korematsu
12 Plays2 years ago
Dr. Karen Korematsu, founder of the Fred T. Korematsu Institute, joins Interim Co-Dean Rose Cuison-Villazor to discuss her work advancing education in racial equity, social justice, and human rights, and shares her story as Fred Korematsu's daughter.
The Power of Attorney is produced by Rutgers Law School. With two locations minutes from Philadelphia and New York City, Rutgers Law offers the prestige and reputation of a large, nationally known university combined with a personal, small campus experience. Learn more by visiting law.rutgers.edu.
Series Producer & Editor: Nate Nakao
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Transcript
Introduction to Dr. Karen Karamatsu
00:00:14
Speaker
Hello, my name is Rose Quizan Villazor. I am the interim co-dean of Rutgers Law School in Newark, and this is the power of attorney. I'm joined today by Dr. Karen Karamatsu. She is the founder and executive director of the Karamatsu Institute. Thank you so much for joining us today, Dr. Karamatsu. A pleasure to be with you.
00:00:37
Speaker
You came to Newark today to share the story of your father, the challenges that he faced before the US Supreme Court. And before we get there, I just want to say thank you so much for spending so much time with us, for going to Barringer High School this morning to talk to those students. Why don't we start there? Tell me what it was like for you to talk to the students this morning.
Sharing Family History and WWII Injustices
00:01:06
Speaker
I was so excited to be able to speak to the students of Beringer High School. However, I did not know until I stepped into the classroom that half of the students only speak Spanish. And this is the courtroom that's Moot courtroom, so to speak, at Beringer High School. So the setting was fabulous.
00:01:30
Speaker
And it was truly inspiring to see so many Latino, Latinx students present. And so one of the professors who teaches law had to be the interpreter. And it was great to connect with the students
00:01:55
Speaker
just in general, because even though many of them come from immigrant families, this is America. This is the opportunity and the promise of America. And to me, being an American is to uphold citizens and non-citizens.
00:02:19
Speaker
And that's why I speak across this country to share my father's story, the lessons of history so that we stop repeating them, but it seems like that hasn't happened yet. And to hopefully let people know that one person can make a difference in the face of adversity as my father did.
00:02:45
Speaker
Did the students know about your father's case or cases rather? They did have a little bit of background. I learned from the professor. So they had a bit of understanding, but certainly, you know, it's their facts, right? And what I was trying to do was share the personal side, the challenges. They didn't know that when my father decided to take a stand against the government,
00:03:15
Speaker
to disobey the military order that he would be ostracized and vilified from his own Japanese American community.
Harsh Realities of Japanese American Camps
00:03:25
Speaker
He experienced that after his bail hearing, after his arrest and bail hearing, of course, and then sent to one of the assembly prison centers that were up and down the West Coast of Washington, Oregon, California, and Arizona.
00:03:44
Speaker
which were really converted horse stalls. And what's so appalling to me that I wanted to share during that time in 1942 was the way that Japanese Americans were treated. Two thirds of 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry were American citizens. And all due process of law was denied and they lost their property, they lost their homes, they only could take with them what they could carry in two hands.
00:04:12
Speaker
and we treat animals better than we treated Japanese Americans. These horse stalls and these racetracks, either freestanding or at fairgrounds, were just whitewashed walls, you know, wood slats, gaps in the walls, a light bulb in the ceiling, dirt floors, a iron cot that was thrown in with an army blanket,
00:04:39
Speaker
And that's how people had to live for three or four months before they were sent off to one of the 10 permanent, so to speak, 10 incarceration camps across this country, even as far as Arkansas. And my father said in his hearing, in the Coromobis case in 1983, that horse stalls are for horses, not for human beings.
00:05:09
Speaker
It's interesting to me that you use the word incarceration. Can we talk
Terminology and Historical Accuracy
00:05:15
Speaker
about that? Because within the way that we talk about Japanese American history during this time period, some use internment, some use incarceration, and others use concentration camps. Can you say a little bit more about why you chose to use the word incarceration? Well, thank you, Dean, for asking me because that's an important part of our education.
00:05:37
Speaker
is discussing euphemisms and the power of word. The propaganda trying to have the government really downgrade the impact of the incarceration, they use the word internment, and evacuation. Well, I can tell you that five-year-olds know the difference of what evacuation is.
00:06:05
Speaker
because it's for their own safety, whether you live in hurricane country, tornadoes or floods or earthquakes. It is not the same as being forcibly removed from your home. And it's time that we start calling these past histories what they were. And the word in internment was
00:06:34
Speaker
the soft pedal during that time. And that's why, you know, it's a very, to me, archaic way of describing the experience. I mean, it was incarceration. And concentration camps is the correct term. Even President Roosevelt and one of the justices in the decision in Korematsu versus the United States referred to the Japanese-American, you know, incarceration as concentration camps.
00:07:04
Speaker
And it's—you know, it's—certainly there's different—you know, the concentration camps of the Holocaust, many of them were death camps. But I can tell you many people thought they were going to get shot and killed even when they were incarcerated as Japanese Americans in this country.
Personal Discoveries and Civic Lessons
00:07:22
Speaker
That was how frightening it was for especially the elderly. And it didn't matter if how old you were. I mean, we showed today, actually, in the lecture this morning, a flag that I brought that was 48 stars. That was the current number of states in 1942.
00:07:44
Speaker
and Judge Gogo and Santa Clara, California's period court judge took upon himself after he heard me speak as a project of furthering education and has gone around the country having Japanese American incarcerate survivors sign this flag on the stripes and even the 442 in the stars. As a further way of telling the story,
00:08:13
Speaker
and to let people know that children had to grow up in these prison camps. High schools were created in these camps. And can you imagine if you're in high school that you have to graduate behind barbed wire? That's your graduation? It's pretty outrageous what this government did.
00:08:40
Speaker
And those are the stories that don't necessarily get told. And that's why I'm adamant about sharing these types of details because to show the inhumanity. And this is not just a Japanese-American story or a West Coast story. This is an American story. This is about all of us.
00:09:03
Speaker
It is an American story and when you talk about the experience of high school students such as your father in
00:09:12
Speaker
these concentration camps, it also makes me wonder about how it impacted other individuals who have also been forcibly required to live elsewhere. But then it also makes me think about what you said earlier about how you found out about these details of your father's experience and the atrocious experience that he had in the camps.
00:09:38
Speaker
Tell me a little bit more about how you found out about this history, because it seems as if, in my mind anyway, if it was such an incredibly upsetting and awful experience for thousands of Americans, and yet you shared earlier that you only found out about it in high school.
00:10:00
Speaker
Yes, that's why I love to speak to students and especially high school students. You have to understand the culture. The Japanese culture has always been to keep things to yourself, to endure called gaman is the Japanese term.
00:10:19
Speaker
and not to make waves and just to get on with your life. So it's kind of a difficult situation because how does a parent tell a child, well, gee, I have a federal conviction record, prison record, so to speak.
00:10:43
Speaker
And how do you have that kind of conversation around a dinner table? So it just didn't happen. And my friend, Maya, who is a Japanese-American, and I've known since I was five years old, was assigned a book to read called Concentration Camps USA.
00:11:05
Speaker
And then the other part of the assignment was to get up in front of the class and give an oral book report. I mean, for teachers who are rolling their eyes right now, it's yes, it was a long time ago. But she describes this terrible time in history and then she says, but there was this one man who resisted the military orders and it ended up to be a landmark Supreme Court case called Korematsu versus United States.
00:11:33
Speaker
Oh, that's my name. And I have 35 pairs of eyes turning around looking at me and I'm shrugging my shoulders thinking it's some black sheep of the family because she never said Fred.
00:11:46
Speaker
After class, I asked her, I said, you know, Maya, what's this about? And she goes, this is about your dad. I said, no way. Somebody would have told me. And of course, I go running home and confront my mother and she gives me the standard answer. Yes, you'll have to wait until your father gets home to ask him. And not only did my father have as many Asian American families, you know, have housing discrimination, but he also had employment discrimination.
00:12:12
Speaker
and worked late hours and so sometimes two jobs. And by the time he arrived home, it was eight o'clock at night and I had calmed down and told him what I had learned that day. And he knew my friend, my, of course, the families. And he simply said, it happened a long time ago and what he did, he thought was right and the government was wrong.
00:12:42
Speaker
It was that clear and simple. And I couldn't ask him any more questions. It's like somebody gave me a soccer punch in the stomach. But I did ask him, could he vote?
00:12:56
Speaker
because voting was very important to my parents. And so my other message to everyone is to be sure that you vote, register to vote. If you can't do that, younger people can help.
Reopening Korematsu's Case
00:13:08
Speaker
People get registered to vote in carpools or shuttles or whatever it takes because that is a precious right we have as Americans.
00:13:19
Speaker
And we need to uphold and keep fighting for it. We obviously need to do that in so many different states. So that's the other big issue of being an American that I advocate for and encourage is voting.
00:13:37
Speaker
Earlier today, during the lunch talk about the need to remember history, so we do not repeat the mistakes that we've made here in the United States, Assemblymember Raj Mukherjee of the New Jersey General Assembly described your father as patriotic. He was brave. And I can see here, the audience can't see, but you're smiling and you agree with that.
00:14:02
Speaker
You've been lobbying across the country for a Korematsu day, so to remember his work in civil rights and civil liberties. You probably know Korematsu both cases, more than anybody, more than constitutional law professors in the country. So to our audience, can you just explain in general terms what the Supreme Court said in Korematsu versus United States?
00:14:30
Speaker
The original case was a 6-3 decision, so it wasn't unanimous. So they did uphold my father's federal conviction of disobeying the military orders. What's important is the dissenting opinions, just as Robert Jackson referred to my father's case as this lies around like a loaded weapon ready for
00:14:56
Speaker
and he wanted to pick up and use with a plausible cause. I'm paraphrasing, of course. Justice Murphy called it the ugliness of racism, and Justice Owen Robertson was unconstitutional. My father was totally disappointed, but that didn't stop him from not believing in the Constitution, this country, and the Supreme Court.
00:15:21
Speaker
He always had hoped he could reopen up his case, but he didn't know how to do that. And it took almost 40 years.
00:15:34
Speaker
So now we fast forward to the core of Nobis' case. You said earlier your father would not even talk to you about the details of what happened to him in the concentration camps, but then years later he wants to reopen it. What brought him to that place that compelled him or encouraged him to reopen this wound that he kept hidden for so long?
00:15:58
Speaker
Evidence. Professor Peter Irons, whose legal historian was doing research in Washington, D.C., as he wanted to write a book about the World War II Supreme Court cases, and he found the smoking gun.
00:16:12
Speaker
He found a box and on top of the box in an actually immigration naturalization files department, the memo from the Department of Justice saying that we are lying to the Supreme Court. So they had withheld evidence, destroyed evidence and altered evidence. And then on that technicality, since we're speaking to a legal audience, my father had served his sentence of probation
00:16:41
Speaker
And on that basis, when an error has been made before the court, i.e. in writ of error petition Coram Nobis, that's the Latin for Coram Nobis, they were able to reopen up his case along with Gordon Hirabayashi and Minyasui. And so Peter Irons came to my father and showed him the file, the paperwork, the files and the memos
00:17:09
Speaker
And this is the kind of thing that my father had been looking for. It's not like you can go up to an attorney and say, gee, by the way, I have a Supreme Court case.
Continuing the Legacy of Civil Rights
00:17:19
Speaker
Do you mind reopening it? No, it doesn't work that way. And then Professor Irons contacted Dale Menami, who became the lead counsel for the Quorum Novus team, who organized the Quorum Novus team members
00:17:38
Speaker
And they all worked pro bono, day and night, weekends, but they had to work in secret. They didn't want the government to know what evidence they found. So it was an important process.
00:17:56
Speaker
And when the hearing took place on November 10th, 1983 in San Francisco in the federal district court of Northern California, it was really the day that all Japanese Americans who had been incarcerated never had. It was also their day in court because they had been denied due process. And that's what
00:18:22
Speaker
why my father reopened up his case. He didn't do it just for himself. Yes, he wanted to have his name cleared. When you have a federal record conviction, you can't work for the government. There's a lot of things that you can't do. You can't vote. You can't vote in some states. But he did this for his own Japanese-American community, even though they had ostracized him from day one. They vilified him and
00:18:52
Speaker
and didn't want anything to do with him. And so my brother and I were never part of the Japanese-American community growing up. But even when his case was reopened, at the time was redressed in reparations for the Japanese-Americans.
00:19:06
Speaker
And a group of them said to my father, well, Fred, if you reopen up your case, you may lose our chances to win. But my father was determined that because he wasn't doing just this for himself, he was doing this for the Japanese-American community, but for all Americans, because he didn't want something like the Japanese-American incarceration to happen again.
00:19:33
Speaker
Working on civil rights, it takes a lot of work, a lot of collaboration that needs to happen within your own community, with members of other communities. And tell us the kind of work that you do in order to build coalition, to collaborate with others in advancing rights of all Americans
00:19:55
Speaker
citizens and or and or non-citizens What are some important lessons that we can learn from the work that you do on collaboration and coalition building? Well, you have to get out of your own comfort zone and certainly for me this didn't happen overnight you know, I wasn't even exposed to to civil rights advocacy until
00:20:20
Speaker
you know, my father's case was reopened in 1983. So I was, you know, as you said, 33 years old, and found a whole new world of how we can make a difference. And in learning how to work with other organizations, when my father's case was reopened, the, you know, MALDEF, the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund was there in support.
00:20:48
Speaker
The African-American legal community, NAACP, was there in support. All these other different communities were part of that effort.
00:21:02
Speaker
And because this is about standing up for our rights as Americans, what I say is prejudice is ignorance. And the best way, the best tool, the most powerful tool we have is education, but also to work across communities to get out of our silos.
00:21:23
Speaker
Yes, you're not going to agree on everything, but to start with what you do agree on and work from there and finding like-minded people that will help you. You don't have to do this yourself. It does take a village. It does take many.
00:21:44
Speaker
You will get doors that are closed and people saying no. You know, my father never took no for an answer. He kept looking. He kept working in all of his years of, you know, of advocacy, especially after his case was reopened in 83 and his conviction was overturned.
Honoring Fred Korematsu and Civil Liberties Education
00:22:03
Speaker
And so I learned from him.
00:22:05
Speaker
And I feel responsibility as Fred Kormatsu's daughter to carry on my father's legacy.
00:22:17
Speaker
and to encourage others, especially young people now, that we have so much divide in this country, which is such a big worry, not to be discouraged, that we need to just keep at it, work together to build coalitions, to work in solidarity, to reach out,
00:22:42
Speaker
and not be afraid that your hand might be snapped at. That's just part of life and these are life lessons that now we need to use even in government and in our community.
00:23:04
Speaker
It's never-ending. Yes, we get a little discouraged. But I do want to make one correction because the Fred T. Korematsu Institute is a nonprofit organization, and so we don't really lobby. What we do is educate. So we educate elected officials about my father's story and about civil rights. And Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties in the Constitution
00:23:31
Speaker
is, yes, it honors my father, but it's about our civil liberties and the Constitution that we need to protect and uphold our democracy. When people, elected officials, take an oath for office, they swear to uphold the Constitution. They raise their hand. This is the document that we all need to live by and to uphold and remember. But for some reason, we
00:23:59
Speaker
continually forget that or people challenge it or they want to ban books or ban words or to ban certain types of education. That's not American. That's what happened with the Nazis during World War II. We can't allow that to happen again if we're going to move forward. We have too many other problems. One big one, obviously, is climate control.
00:24:28
Speaker
So that's my other advocacy, is that we need to keep working at climate control, what we can do as individuals in our communities, our states, that we can take the leadership individually and in groups and uphold our elected officials, the ones that you think are doing the right job.
00:24:48
Speaker
and, and to participate. My father was always speaking about supporting our elected officials. If you don't want to run for office yourself, uh, then, and then support, you know, find someone that you, that you want to support. Um, it, it doesn't necessarily always have to be a big money. It could be in little money or it can be in time. Right. And, uh, it's this, this is a part of what it means to be an American. Now I've traveled around the world.
00:25:18
Speaker
and especially seeing where countries in China, where they have limited rights, even more so now, because I traveled with my husband to Hong Kong, which has all changed. It's very disheartening to see what's happened to Hong Kong. But we can't give up. We need to make people accountable. The U.S. can do that.
00:25:43
Speaker
Actually, it reminds people that it was Justice Robert Jackson who headed up the Nuremberg trials. There's that connection as well that we need to remember because I think
00:26:00
Speaker
We're going to be addressing some human rights issues in the years to come in courts. Nationally overseas, especially what's happening in Ukraine, is really not acceptable. It's just a clear—
00:26:18
Speaker
And clear and simple, but even though it's more complicated, human rights violation. Our organization's mission is education to uphold our civil liberties, social justice, and human rights for everyone. And I take that to heart.
00:26:47
Speaker
because that's what my father believed in. And I feel that if I've been given this voice, and I feel really a responsibility to use his voice as he would if he was still living. It's a very small club that the King family and the Cesar Chavez family have worked with.
00:27:11
Speaker
some of the grandchildren, Rosa Parks Institute. It's a very small club that we carry seriously on our backs in honoring our family's legacy, but because we feel like we have a responsibility to educate and to carry on that message.
00:27:35
Speaker
It is a big responsibility. It's both a privilege, but it must also feel like a burden sometimes. I mean, you're invited to speak at multiple gatherings, and you're visible. You have this platform to share your father's story, to talk about the importance of civil rights, protecting human rights,
00:27:58
Speaker
But tell me a little bit about there must be some burden associated with this visible work that you do.
00:28:08
Speaker
Well, I don't look at it really as a burden. It's daunting, certainly. That's kind of the way I feel because I, you know, it's like, I only have so much time left on this planet, you know, and I've got so much work to do and I've got to get it done. And, you know, not only do we want, you know, Fred Kormatsu Day of Civil Reason, the Constitution for the state of New Jersey, but for, you know, other states and hopefully a national
00:28:37
Speaker
I'm sure everybody else would like to have a holiday like we do for Martin Luther King, Jr. But the point is, you know, before I didn't think it was important when Assemblymember Warren Furtani of California brought this to me to ask if I would, it would be okay to have a day named after my father, and he said it's going to, you know, encourage civil liberties in the Constitution.
00:29:03
Speaker
I said, you know, yes. But, you know, state by state, and of course, this doesn't cost any money for the states. It's just—it's to honor that day to actually encourage education through the department—the individual departments of education, superintendents.
00:29:22
Speaker
and free help for students and also public programming, but then I found because even though the day is maybe in perpetuity in California, Hawaii, Vermont, Florida, believe it or not, and now Arizona,
00:29:41
Speaker
And Governor Ducey, who is a Republican, just signed that bill, which is encouraging. If it's not a holiday, then there doesn't seem to be the remembrance or the recognition of what the day means, of the importance that, especially at this time, a divide of our country, that our civil liberties and the Constitution are important to uphold because our democracy is fragile.
00:30:11
Speaker
We see that. We saw that on January 6th. And we need to have this generation and future generations be sure that we preserve that democracy. That's certainly what Ukraine's trying to do.
Legal Legacy and Modern Implications
00:30:28
Speaker
And it's important that we encourage that, that we support it. And
00:30:38
Speaker
and have people participate. So civic education and participation is another one of our efforts at the Korematsu Institute, that in order to make a difference for ourselves, our family, this country, that civic participation is key.
00:30:58
Speaker
And, you know, as I talked about elected officials, but it could be as simple as, you know, Board of Education, parent teachers, a student association, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, any of the organizations. Those are all ways of supporting our community. I learned from my parents because that's what they did. And we want to encourage
00:31:25
Speaker
students to let them know that they belong here. This is about belonging. This is about being accepted. But that they are important. And we all have legacies and we need to learn our own stories so we can appreciate other people's stories.
00:31:46
Speaker
Thank you for sharing the work that you do in the Karamazoo Institute. One of the recent cases that you worked on is Trump versus Hawaii. And in that case, your father's case came back again. Tell me about the work that you did with respect to that case. When, uh, when that was, uh, uh,
00:32:10
Speaker
issued, it was certainly disappointing. Unfortunately, the former president had issued his first executive order on January 27th, 2017. That was really first the Muslim ban and then became, because there's pushback, then became the immigration ban and then finally the travel ban because they added Venezuela and some other kinds of issues.
00:32:40
Speaker
And, you know, it was—it was just appalling that we had not learned the lessons of history, clearly. And when this suit came up, then my father's Quorum Novus legal team,
00:33:02
Speaker
And I, and even Holly Asui, who was Minyasui's daughter, and who also had a Supreme Court case.
00:33:13
Speaker
Gordon Hirabayashi's son Jay, we all were discussing of what we could do. And it was decided that the most powerful amicus brief, Friends of the Court brief that we could submit would have the names of Korematsu Hirabayashi and Yasui on it. Mine came first, so that's why it was cited in Justice Sotomayor's
00:33:38
Speaker
dissenting opinion. But the reason that we wanted to submit an amicus brief was to remind the court of the dangers of overreaching of power. And because that was what seemed to be happening was the overreaching of power. And then to remind them of Korematsu versus the United States, because even though people don't realize that even though my father's federal conviction was overturned and vacated in 1983 with the Korem Novus case,
00:34:06
Speaker
The Supreme Court case still stood. Only the Supreme Court can reverse itself. No other lower court can. And so that's why we reminded the court that it was still there. I mean, of course we were hoping that they would.
00:34:22
Speaker
would overturn Korematsu vs. the United States, but certainly only if the majority opinion also was against Trump vs. Hawaii. But that didn't happen. What are your thoughts about the majority's opinion? Well, certainly I found it disappointing.
00:34:45
Speaker
And, you know, the audience should know this was a five to four decision. So the majority was five. And obviously there was, you know, dissent in the court. But Justice Sotomayor wrote a scathing dissenting opinion. And the answer
00:35:12
Speaker
to her dissenting opinion, Chief Justice Roberts said, and I quote, the dissents reference to Korematsu, however, affords this court the opportunity to make express what is already obvious. Korematsu was gravely wrong the day it was decided, has been overruled in the court of history, and to be clear, has no place in law under the constitution, unquote.
00:35:43
Speaker
Now, at first, we were under the opinion, or I was under the opinion, that this meant Korematsu versus the United States was overruled. Well, a few days later, wrong, I was told, by Neil Katia, who presented in front of the Supreme Court in Trump versus Hawaii. And he said that
00:36:13
Speaker
for all you attorneys out there, that this opinion from the Chief Justice was dicta, meaning it was his opinion. The overruled in the court of history is his opinion and has no meaning in upholding the Trump vs. Hawaii decision.
00:36:36
Speaker
So therefore it's not overruled. Uh, it still stands now, whether it could be used as a precedent in another Supreme court case, stay tuned. Uh, for you young aspiring attorneys, you never know when you're going to be coming across another Supreme court case where you may be able to cite Korematsu versus United States.
00:36:59
Speaker
and try to finally put it in its rightful place where it doesn't have impact.
00:37:07
Speaker
in this country, but just as Sotomayor's opinion, and if you, I encourage you all to read it because it is so well written and, you know, it was an honor to have her cite, you know, my name. She writes a brief for Karen Korematsu et al. as Amika Karai.
00:37:30
Speaker
and has gone to great lengths to shield the Secretary of Homeland Security report from view. I mean, that's what we're saying. And as here, there was strong evidence that the impermissible hostility and animus motivated the government's policy, as in this Trump versus Hawaii.
00:37:52
Speaker
And then she goes on to say that our, quote, our Constitution demands and our country deserves a judiciary willing to hold the coordinate branches to account when they defy our most sacred legal commitments. Because the court's decision today has failed in that respect with profound regret, I dissent.
00:38:21
Speaker
And that was pretty powerful for Justice Sotomayor because, in my opinion, she went for the juggler. And that's not a legal term. And because she usually ends her dissenting opinions with, I respectfully dissent. And in this case, she just dissented full stop.
00:38:43
Speaker
And I think that's a caution about our judiciary. Now, I do want to add how thrilled I am to have the first black African-American woman on our Supreme Court, Kintaji Brown Jackson.
00:39:06
Speaker
It's a step forward, as she said, long decades, decades and decades. But we got here. And hopefully, the next Supreme Court justice will be an Asian-American. We need
00:39:28
Speaker
to push for diversity, equity, and inclusion. We need to be purposeful. It's not going to just happen by osmosis, folks, that we all have the responsibility and the capability to push that forward, not only for us, but for future generations.
Unity, Diversity, and Anti-Asian Violence
00:39:52
Speaker
because it's so heartbreaking to see the divide in this country. And believe you me, I have friends on both sides of the aisle, but it's about respect. I didn't think I would get to this age in life when we would have to teach about respect, but we do, and we need to be purposeful about appreciating each other's differences, learning from each other,
00:40:17
Speaker
and to get out of our silos and to work across the aisle and neighborhoods in our communities. This is what it's going to take if we're going to have a country that is going to stand up to its image. I mean, the rest of the world looks to us.
00:40:38
Speaker
to set the example. And right now, they're just kind of wondering what the heck is happening to us. I know people across other countries that are friends that are saying, wait, what's happening to America? I mean, even though we kind of keep trying to push in the right direction, we've got to do better.
00:40:56
Speaker
We can't be complacent. And it's going to take all of us, and I mean all of us, and everybody has, you know, people will say, well, gee, right now I don't have much time. Well, that's okay. It's, you can do it by voting to support you. You know, everyone has eps and tights in their, their ability to participate civically. Uh, maybe not a lot now, maybe later, maybe if you're retired and you've got more time, you can do it then.
00:41:22
Speaker
but there's different stages in your life and different times in your life. And if we all did just a little bit, then we would have a better country and to make people accountable for what they say. If you disagree with someone, they're being rude and the microaggressions that we see, call them out.
00:41:51
Speaker
and say, hey, you can't say that. No, you can't do that. What happened to our moral principles? Why should I be having to talk about moral principles in 2022? But it's clear that we seem to have lost that. And we all can be a part of that. You don't have to have a PhD to have moral principles. It should just be part of who we are as individuals.
00:42:21
Speaker
and to keep working at it and encouraging young people that they can make a difference. Fred Korematsu was one person who made a difference in the face of diversity. And so can you. It's important to remember that we all have that ability. You just have to reach deep down inside
00:42:44
Speaker
and look for that help, that inspiration, whoever your motivation is or those leaders that you admire. It could be Fred Korematsu. It could be Mahatma Gandhi. It could be Martin Luther King Jr., Cesar Chavez, Rosa Parks. All those leaders were leaders of peace.
00:43:11
Speaker
And we need to remember that, that we have that capability of reminding each other that we can make a change for the positive. And as my father said, stand up for what is right and don't be afraid to speak up.
00:43:33
Speaker
And you're doing that. You are speaking up for so many of us as an Asian American, Filipino American. I'm really grateful to you for the advocacy and the work and the visibility that you have taken on in order to share the stories and the struggles of your father, other Japanese Americans, and other Asian Americans. Next month, as you know, is
00:43:59
Speaker
May is Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month. What do you do? What would you like to do during AAPI Month? Well, I've got so many speaking engagements, but I think sharing stories, sharing stories of our own community.
00:44:21
Speaker
and learning about other cultures. I'm always encouraging, especially like students, to get together and share food. Now, who doesn't like food? I mean, we've got such a diversity of food in this country. And there's so many different types of Asian American foods that we could share. So have a movie night and bring food like a potluck and share food and tell stories. That's how we learn from each other.
00:44:51
Speaker
And bring a speaker that's Asian-American, that you are interested in. It could be an elected official. It could be a teacher. It could be a student, somebody from your own family.
00:45:07
Speaker
that could come and speak, especially in the schools, but any organization. I know you're doing things here at the law school. So these are the opportunities and why we need to recognize our different ethnicities, why we have Mexican-American Heritage Month and Black
00:45:26
Speaker
American Heritage Month and all these, you know, all these Indigenous, we need to make that concerted effort to remind everyone that we all have something to contribute, that we are proud of our ethnicities and sharing that and working together is what it means to be an American.
00:45:49
Speaker
The last two years have been incredibly hard on millions of people in the United States. There's the pandemic, racial reckoning. Within our community, many of our people within the community, AAPI individuals, were subjected to anti-Asian violence, hate crimes. Tell me about the work that the Fred Korematsu Institute has done with respect to addressing anti-Asian
00:46:18
Speaker
anti-Asian hate and violence? Well, thank you for asking me that question, Dean, because it's been a certainly important part of our work. And people will finally are recognizing Asian Americans in this country with what's happened during the pandemic. The Asian American community has always supported Black Lives Matter.
00:46:43
Speaker
and with the killing of George Floyd, which was so outrageous, and we even spoke out against that. But when you talk about other Asian Americans, because it's the vulnerable and the elderly that were attacked, the killings in Atlanta, these are definitely hate crimes, and we need to recognize what they are.
00:47:11
Speaker
But the thing is, is people don't realize, and this is where education has fallen down, that the history of violence and hate against Asian Americans didn't just start with the pandemic. There's a long history, but even before the Chinese Exclusion Act. And that's why we have been promoting through the Korematsu Institute, even ethnic studies, as part of this action.
00:47:41
Speaker
to talk about all of us, to educate about all of us. But we, you know, we have promoted the Hallback Harassment Training as part of recognizing what happens in the streets to either be, you know, when you're a bystander to either, you know, you don't want to confront the hateful act
00:48:08
Speaker
but try to deflect and or report it or help the victim, those types of things. But we also need, this is why we don't know about each other, the ignorance. The ignorance has shown up now because unfortunately with COVID, when the former president called it the kung flu,
00:48:30
Speaker
and also created these hateful remarks about the COVID pandemic. That's kind of where it stemmed from, right? So we have to call that out and say, this is not right. Words matter. I talk about power words. Words matter. And it's all up to us to make sure that we're
00:49:00
Speaker
addressing those kinds of issues. The microaggressions is when you see someone that's saying something hateful about, go back to where you belong from, go back to China where you belong. I even had that kind of treatment when I was growing up. Go back during Pearl Harbor time. Go back to Japan. It's your fault for the bombing of Pearl Harbor. There was no one around. I never told anybody, but there wasn't any around in the students
00:49:28
Speaker
who would say, hey, you can't say that to Karen. That's not right. So kids learn these kinds of microaggressions at an early age. And part of the education is now we have organizations. So the solidarity is what we support for fighting this Asian American hate and violence and the education advocacy. So I was appointed by the superintendent of public construction
00:49:58
Speaker
for the state of California as one of the ambassadors of education for
00:50:02
Speaker
my work in ethnic studies, which includes AAPI, Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander education and ethnic studies or curriculum. So this is, we take our stand seriously and our advocacy seriously and looking at those opportunities. But we still need to create laws. We have some laws that hopefully will help with these hate crimes.
00:50:30
Speaker
But we need to pay attention because it's still happening, especially in Chinatown areas or areas where there are more Asian Americans. And they always seem to be the most vulnerable. That's what's so appalling. People prey on the weak, not on the strong. So we all need to become strong and to work together.
00:50:57
Speaker
to support our elected officials that are trying to fight for these kinds of legislative changes, whether it's in Congress or states that are upholding AAPI history, but also, we're really working hard on ethics studies as being part of our curriculum in each state.
00:51:17
Speaker
We have a traveling exhibit that we're working on that talks about the Japanese-American incarceration, but also includes the history of AAPI in this country to go around to different cities and have discussions in libraries and communities.
00:51:36
Speaker
about these kinds of situations. And because people feel like they can't, you know, they don't feel like they can make a difference, and they can. And just showing up for these community programs is good. I mean, now that we're hopefully getting out of the pandemic, I can say it's been a challenge, certainly. But we have those opportunities.
00:51:57
Speaker
And when one group says, Karen, will you sign on to this letter of support of, you know, whatever it's about for against hate crimes? Yes. That's where I feel like I can, you know, put my name to.
00:52:13
Speaker
support letters, petitions, legislative bills, whether it's local state or Congress. So it's just stepping up to those possibilities and being aware of them. Or if you see, you know, find what your interest is.
00:52:32
Speaker
If you find organizations where maybe you can volunteer, where they need help answering phones or writing letters or even, like I said, voting is to help people to register to vote. So these are the types of things that everyone can do. Maybe it's only one hour. Maybe you only have 30 minutes to make a call.
00:52:56
Speaker
whatever it is, you will feel better about yourself by helping to support our community in this country. Well, Dr. Karamatsu, thank you so much for everything that you do, for all the advocacy, the educational outreach, and sharing your father's story with the world. We appreciate your time with us here at Rutgers Law School in Newark, and thank you again for being with us today.
00:53:26
Speaker
Well, thank you. It was my pleasure and I'll say it again, my father's words, stand up for what is right and don't be afraid to speak up. The Power of Attorney is produced by Rutgers Law School. With two locations minutes from Philadelphia and New York City, Rutgers Law offers a prestige and reputation of a large, nationally known university with a personal small campus experience. Learn more by visiting law.ruckers.edu.