BILL ANALYSIS
AB 1775
Page 1
ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
AB 1775 (Furutani)
As Amended May 11, 2010
Majority vote
EDUCATION 8-0
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|Ayes:|Brownley, Nestande, Ammiano, | | |
| |Arambula, Carter, Eng, Miller, | | |
| |Torlakson | | |
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| | | | |
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SUMMARY : Designates January 30 of each year as Fred Korematsu
Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution, a day of special
significance. Specifically, this bill :
1)Makes legislative findings and declarations regarding the
life, career, contributions and death of Fred Korematsu, as
well as his life-long fight for the constitutional rights and
civil liberties of all.
2)Adds January 30 of each year as Fred Korematsu Day of Civil
Liberties and the Constitution to the list of days having
special significance; encourages all public schools and
educational institutions to observe this day and conduct
exercises remembering the life of Fred Korematsu and
recognizing the importance of preserving civil liberties, even
in times of real or perceived crisis; and requires the
Governor to annually proclaim January 30 as Fred Korematsu Day
of Civil Liberties and the Constitution.
3)Restructures the section of the Education Code related to days
of special significance so as to avoid current and future
technical conflicts.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Requires public schools to close on or for specified holidays,
including, January 1, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Lincoln
Day, Washington Day, Memorial Day, July 4, Labor Day, Veterans
Day, Thanksgiving Day, December 25, all days appointed by the
Governor or the President for a public fast, thanksgiving or
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holiday, and any other day designated as a holiday by the
governing board of the school district; also requires, for
some of these specified holidays, schools to conduct exercises
or instruction that focus students on the purpose of that
holiday.
2)Authorizes public schools to close on or for specified
holidays, if the governing board pursuant to an agreement
under collective bargaining agrees, that include Cesar Chavez
Day and Native American Day; also authorizes schools to
conduct exercises or instruction that focus students on the
purpose of these holidays.
3)Requires public schools to remain open, but to celebrate
specified holidays with appropriate commemorative exercises;
these days include the anniversary of the adoption of the
Constitution of the United States, the birthday of Luther
Burbank, Susan B. Anthony Day, and the anniversary of the
death of Crispus Attucks (Black American Day).
4)Designates a number of days as days having special
significance, when public schools are encouraged to observe
and conduct suitable commemorative exercises, as specified.
These days include the Day of the Teacher, John Muir Day,
California Poppy Day, Harvey Milk Day, and Welcome Home
Vietnam Veterans Day.
FISCAL EFFECT : This bill is keyed non-fiscal.
COMMENTS : Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu (January 30, 1919 - March
30, 2005) was one of approximately 120,000 Japanese-American
citizens and permanent residents living on the west coast of the
United States at the outbreak of World War II, who were removed
from the communities in which they lived and imprisoned in
internment camps without due process. More than 2/3 of the
individuals of Japanese ancestry who were imprisoned in the
spring of 1942 were citizens of the United States. Korematsu
was born in Oakland and resided there continuously until 1942;
he attended public schools, including Castlemont High School,
from which he graduated in 1937. He worked in his family's rose
nursery in nearby San Leandro, California, and later became a
master welder working in the Oakland shipyards. He lost his
employment because of his ancestry after the United States'
entry into World War II in December 1941 following the Japanese
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attack on Pearl Harbor.
On February 19, 1942, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
authorized the forced relocation and internment of "any or all
persons" with Executive Order 9066, which allowed local military
commanders to designate "exclusion zones," from which
individuals could be excluded. On March 27, 1942, General John
L. DeWitt, commander of the Western Defense Area, prohibited
Japanese Americans from leaving the limits of Military Area No.
1, effectively the entire Pacific coast including all of
California and most of Oregon and Washington, in preparation for
their eventual removal to internment camps. On May 3, 1942,
DeWitt ordered Japanese Americans to report to Assembly Centers,
which included Tanforan and Santa Anita race tracks where
internees were housed in horse stalls; internees were later
removed to one of ten internment camps, the majority of which
were located in the high desert or mountains of the interior
West, where they were held behind barbed-wire fences guarded by
armed military personnel and were housed in, according to the
War Relocation Authority, "tarpaper-covered barracks of simple
frame construction without plumbing or cooking facilities of any
kind." Heating fuel was scarce, and food, rationed out at a
daily expense of 48 cents per internee, was served by fellow
internees in a mess hall seating 250-300 people.
Fred Korematsu refused the May 3rd evacuation order and went
into hiding in the Oakland area; he was later arrested in San
Leandro on May 30, 1942. He was subsequently held in the
stockade at the San Francisco Presidio for more than two months,
was held at the Tanforan Assembly Center, was tried and
convicted of violating the military orders issued under
Executive Order 9066 in federal court on September 8, 1942, and
was eventually moved with his family to the internment camp at
Topaz, Utah. During his trial he was defended by an attorney
from the northern California branch of the American Civil
Liberties Union. His case was appealed to the U.S. Court of
Appeals, which upheld the original verdict in January of 1944,
and to the United States Supreme Court, which in a 6-3 decision
issued in December of 1944 held that compulsory exclusion,
though constitutionally suspect, is justified during
circumstances of "emergency and peril". In 1944, two and a half
years after signing Executive Order 9066, President Roosevelt
rescinded the order; the last internment camp was closed by the
end of 1945. After release from camp, Korematsu moved to Salt
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Lake City and later to Detroit, Michigan; subsequently he
resettled in the Oakland area.
In the early 1980s, after President Jimmy Carter rekindled
national interest in the internment by appointing a special
commission to investigate the plight of Japanese-Americans
during World War II, researchers in California uncovered
evidence that the Solicitor General of the United States, who
argued Korematsu v. United States before the Supreme Court, had
deliberately suppressed reports from the FBI and military
intelligence which concluded that Japanese-American citizens
posed no security risk, that the military had lied to the
Supreme Court, and that government lawyers had knowingly and
willingly made false arguments.
In 1983, as a result of this evidence, the U.S. District Court
in San Francisco formally vacated Korematsu's conviction.
Korematsu in a statement to U.S. District Judge Marilyn Patel
said, "I would like to see the government admit that they were
wrong and do something about it so this will never happen again
to any American citizen of any race, creed, or color." He
continued, "If anyone should do any pardoning, I should be the
one pardoning the government for what they did to the
Japanese-American people."
In 1988, Congress passed, and President Ronald Reagan signed,
legislation which apologized for the internment on behalf of the
United States government and awarded formal payments of $20,000
each to the surviving internees-60,000 in all. In 1998
Korematsu was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the
highest civilian honor in the United States; in making the
award, President Bill Clinton said, "In the long history of our
country's constant search for justice, some names of ordinary
citizens stand for millions of souls. Plessy, Brown, Parks ...
to that distinguished list, today we add the name of Fred
Korematsu." Throughout the latter part of his life, Fred
Korematsu continued to speak out in favor of the protection of
constitutional rights and civil liberties, and against issues
such as racial profiling. After September 11, 2001 when some
Americans of Middle-Eastern descent were being detained or
arrested, and when other prisoners were detained at Guantanamo
Bay for a long period of time without due process, Korematsu
filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the Supreme Court and
warned the Justices not to repeat the mistakes of the Japanese
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internment. Fred Korematsu said that "No one should ever be
locked away simply because they share the same race, ethnicity,
or religion as a spy or terrorist. If that principle was not
learned from the internment of Japanese Americans, then these
are very dangerous times for our democracy." Nearing the end of
his life he offered this advice: "protest, but not with
violence, and don't be afraid to speak up. One person can make a
difference, even if it takes forty years."
This bill requires the Governor to proclaim January 30 as Fred
Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution, and
designates January 30 as a day having special significance.
This bill does not result in additional average daily attendance
or funding for a school district, nor does it result in an
additional holiday or day of school closure. The designation of
a day of special significance simply triggers statutory
encouragement for public schools to observe the day and to
conduct commemorative exercises suitable to the day, as
specified in law; however, the decision as to whether to observe
any day of significance or to conduct suitable commemorative
exercises is left to the local district. If this day is
observed, then suitable exercises would recognize Fred
Korematsu's life and accomplishments, as well as the
contributions that he made to this state and country.
Analysis Prepared by : Gerald Shelton / ED. / (916) 319-2087
FN: 0004288