Assemblymember Chiu had the honor of welcoming guest Karen Korematsu, in recognition of Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution. Karen Korematsu is the daughter of Fred Korematsu, who was part of a small group of courageous Japanese-Americans who resisted the Japanese American internment during World War II. Arrested for refusing to go to internment camps, he appealed his case to the US Supreme Court, but the Supreme Court in 1944 decided that an entire ethnic community could be incarcerated due to military necessity. Decades later, Mr. Korematsu and a team of young Asian American civil rights attorneys and researchers again challenged the Supreme Court. In 1983, the case was vacated, which laid the groundwork for an official apology and reparations to the Japanese American community.
