Existing comment:
Fred T. Korematsu and Family:
Fred T. Korematsu (center, left) appears in this group portrait with his parents and brothers in a greenhouse at the Stonehurst Flower Nursery that the Korematsu family owned and operated in East Oakland, California. In 1942, after President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued the executive order that paved the way for the forcible removal and detention of persons of Japanese ancestry during World War II, Korematsu's father approached his bank to find a renter for the family's home and adjacent nursery. He hoped that both properties could be cared for during the family's internment, but when he and his wife were finally allowed to return to East Oakland after the war, they were devastated to find that all the nursery's plants had been sold off and that vandals had smashed the glass in every greenhouse. It took the Korematsus years to rebuild their lives and their business.
Unidentified photographer, 1939 |