Fred Korematsu

One person can make a difference, even if it takes forty years.

As long as my record stands in federal court, any American citizen can be held in prison or concentration camps without a trial or a hearing.

I lost everything when they put us in prison. I was an enemy alien, a man without a country.

All of them turned their backs on me at that time because they thought I was a troublemaker.

Every day in school, we said the pledge to the flag, 'with liberty and justice for all,' and I believed all that.

I'm Asian, so they assumed I'm not an American and that I come from Japan. Restaurants would refuse to serve me, and places would refuse to give you a haircut.

My folks were so worried about what they were going to do. All they can take was what they could carry with their hands. What they had for twenty-five years of building their business was going to go out the door, or they're going to lose it.

That was it - I lost my job... I was very discouraged. I wanted to be in defense work... I'm an American, and I have nothin' to do with Japan, and so it's sort of an insult to me.

Before the war, my parents were very proud people. They'd always talk about Japan and also about the samurai and things like that. Right after Pearl Harbor, they were just real quiet. They kept to themselves; they were afraid to talk about what could happen. I assume they knew that nothing good would come out of it.