The Japanese American Incarceration Was Illegal: A Conversation with Peter Irons and David Loy

Program Type:

Featured, Miss Breed, Citizenship and Immigration, Community Engagement

Age Group:

Adults
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Event Details

Join Peter Irons, UCSD legal scholar and political science professor and David Loy, ACLU San Diego legal director for an eye-opening and thought-provoking dialogue about the U.S. government incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. This event will also be livestreamed on the San Diego Public Library YouTube channel.

Dr. Irons was part of the legal team in the successful effort in the 1980s to reverse the criminal convictions, upheld by the Supreme Court in the 1940s of Fred Korematsu, Gordon Hirabayashi and Minoru Yasui who challenged the constitutionality of Executive Order 9066, which had ordered Japanese Americans into incarceration camps during the war. 

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In 1981, Dr. Irons uncovered documents proving that government officials had intentionally suppressed and altered evidence in lawsuits challenging the incarceration orders. That discovery led to the reopening of the cases against Korematsu, Hirabayashi and Yasui who had been convicted for violating the military's wartime orders. 

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This conversation is part of the program series The Rebellious Miss Breed: San Diego Public Library and the Japanese American Incarceration. This project was made possible with support from California Humanities, a partner of the NEH. Visit calhum.org.

Accessibility

Need disability-related modifications or accommodations? Information and program content can be made available in alternative formats upon request by emailing JFRogers@sandiego.gov.