Densho Digital Archive - Eric K. Yamamoto Interview (denshovh-yeric-01-0009)

<Begin Segment 9>

LB: So can you tell me the first time you learned about the Korematsu case and the internment?

EY: Sure.

LB: Was there a consciousness about the internment in Hawaii?

EY: There wasn't when I was growing up. And I knew about it a little bit, I'm not sure where. We might have had a little bit in the, my social studies class. But it certainly wasn't discussed, it wasn't talked about. I didn't know that there had been a much smaller internment in Hawaii. I didn't have any real sense of what it meant. And so my first real knowledge of it was when I was in New College, realizing that my New College classes were great but also too limited. So I started just sitting in on the new ethnic studies classes that were part of the regular university. And it was there, in a classroom of 150 people and reading the material even though I wasn't in the class, that I became aware of the internment, and I became aware of the political implications of the internment. It wasn't just a horrible human tragedy for an entire group of people, but the implications about how race is handled in American society and in particular through law just jumped out at me. So it was really these ethnic studies programs and ethnic studies teachers that really opened my eyes. So that was still, I was eighteen or nineteen at the time, but I still didn't have a firm grasp on it. And when I did my upper-level study into Hawaii and race relations in Hawaii, I began to realize the significance of this piece. But again, I hadn't really, it wasn't what I focused on.

LB: Do you remember learning, reading Korematsu in law school?

EY: You know, in law school we didn't read Korematsu. And I remember thinking, "Wow. I remember this internment case, are we going to get to it?" And we got to it in a flash, and then it was gone and we didn't study the case. And so it was, it was a compressed Con Law, constitutional law class. Instead of two semesters, it was compressed into one, and so partly it was understandable that we couldn't cover anything in depth. But I remember thinking, "Wow." But I didn't know what to do about it after that.