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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A man who challenged the World War II internment of Japanese-Americans will be honored in California every year under a bill signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The governor on Thursday signed legislation designating Jan. 30 as Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution in California.
Korematsu, who died in 2005, was arrested in Oakland in 1942 after refusing to enter an internment camp. His case led the U.S. Supreme Court to examine the internment order’s legality.
About 120,000 Japanese-Americans and resident aliens were sent to so-called relocation centers. California was home to two of them — Tule Lake and Manzanar.
