History, Documentary, War | 01 March 1986

Amy Hill

Spring, 1942: F.D.R. signs executive order 9066, and more than 110,000 Japanese Americans, most of them U.S. citizens, are sent to internment camps. Three young men - Min Yasui, an attorney from Oregon, Gordon Hirabayashi, a Quaker college student in Washington, and Fred Korematsu, a Bay Area welder - serve jail sentences for violating laws against Japanese Americans; the U.S. Supreme Court upholds their convictions. Forty years later, the three file suits to have their sentences overturned. This documentary tells their stories and helps break 40 years of silence and shame. By the end of the documentary, the court proceedings remain unfinished.