Chapter 16, Free to Go Summary and Analysis

As early as 1942, there are constitutional challenges to the internship of the Japanese-Americans brought before the United States Supreme Court. The first case challenges an arrest on the basis of breaking curfew, racial bias, and the abuse of civil rights by the forced evacuation. The court upholds the evacuation on basis of "wartime necessity" (p. 113).

The second case is based on the exclusion order. A young Japanese man changes his name and appearance through facial plastic surgery, trying to stay with his girlfriend. When arrested, he argues that there is a racial bias, for the German and Italian Americans have not been evacuated. He argues that his civil rights had been violated. The Supreme Court upholds the Army's evacuation of the Japanese.

The third and final case taken to the Supreme Court challenges the internment...