Google Challenges Trump With a Google Doodle

Google honored Fred Korematsu on Monday in its daily Doodle in celebration of what would have been his 98th birthday. It isn't a milestone year, but the homage may just be a reference to Donald Trump's "Muslim ban," which put a 120-day halt on the entry to the U.S. of any refugees, a 90-day halt for all citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries, and an indefinite halt on all refugees from Syria. Perhaps Google has thrown shade before, but it's abundantly clear that one of the world's largest tech companies — that is headquartered in America and co-founded by an immigrant — is not holding back against Trump's executive order. Google cofounder Sergey Brin was spotted protesting at San Francisco International Airport Saturday.


Back in 1942, Korematsu, along with thousands of other Japanese-Americans, was forced to leave his home under an executive order by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Following Japan's bombing of Pearl Harbor, the president demanded law enforcement to identify and move Japanese-Americans into designated military zones. Korematsu refused to go into the government's internment camps and was arrested and convicted of breaking military law. With the help of the ACLU, Korematsu appealed in the landmark Supreme Court case of Korematsu v. United States, but in 1944 the court ruled against him. He and his family were then sent to the Central Utah War Relocation Center until the end of the war in 1945. Korematsu remained an activist throughout his life, becoming a member of the National Coalition for Redress and Reparations, where he lobbied for a bill that would grant an official apology from the government and compensation of $20,000 for the Japanese Americans who were held in internment camps. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the reparations legislation and redress into law.



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http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/01/30/512488821/its-fred-korematsu-day-celebrating-a-foe-of-u-s-internment-camps