In the 1970-1971 school year I was a social studies teacher at San Lorenzo High School, an east San Francisco Bay suburban community sandwiched between the towns of San Leandro and Hayward. I was teaching several classes of U.S. History. In going through the textbook to create lesson plans, I had come across the KORSAMATSU VS. UNITED STATES case in the chapter on World War 2. It so happened that in one of my U.S, History classes there was a young man named Ken Koramatsu, of obvious Eurasian descent. I asked Ken if he was any relation to the Koramatsu in this case. He quickly and proudly answered: “That’s my father. And we are very proud in my family that he stood up for the rights of Japanese when the government put them in prison.” Later that year, at parent’s night, I met Mr. and Mrs. Fred Koramatsu. He, a tall erect Japanese man, and she, a quiet spoken caucasian woman. They had been engaged when he was snatched up by the F.B.I. and sent to an internment camp in Utah. Their marriage plans were scrapped, but his future wife waited for him and they married after he was released from the camp in 1945. They resettled in San Leandro and had three children, all of whom went through San Lorenzo High School and then went on to college. I had a chance to talk to Fred Koramatsu a little about the camps that night. And, in subsequent years, I heard him speak at various historical seminars about the internment camps. Fred Koramatsu never considered himself a hero, He always maintained that he did what every American citizen has a right and duty to do--stand up for violations of their constitutional rights, even if those rights are taken by the government. But Fred Koramatsu is a hero, and he did a heroic thing when he opposed the internment camps. At first, he was a hero only to the Japanese-American community as the tragic story of the camps began to come to light in the years after the end of the war. But as the civil rights struggle broadened and flowered by the 1960’s, Fred Koramatsu’s story began to be known and celebrated by many other groups. In 1995, he was recognized by President Bill Clinton with the Medal of Freedom, an award given to Americans who advance the ideals and principles of this country His wife and family stood proudly by his side at this ceremony. Fred Koramatsu died in 2006 at age 85. He had been a loving husband and father, helped raise three fine children, and had been a model American citizen. Fred Koramatsu can take his place alongside Martin Luther KIng, Rosa Parks, Malcom X, Frederick Douglass, Cesar Chavez, William Lloyd Garrison, Elizabeth Cady-Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and Alice Paul as champions of human and civil rights. May he rest in peace...