"As an American citizen, I didn't want to be treated as a spy or an enemy alien, or put in a concentration camp simply because of my ancestry"

Fred Korematsu asserts the most basic promise of American citizenship: the right to be treated as an individual under the law. He distinguishes between ancestry and allegiance, rejecting a wartime logic that blurred heritage with guilt. By invoking the labels spy and enemy alien, he underscores how the government’s racialized assumptions transformed neighbors into suspects and citizens into foreigners. The demand is simple yet profound, judgment based on evidence and conduct, not bloodline.

The phrase concentration camp is deliberate, conveying the severity of mass removal and incarceration without trial. It rejects euphemisms like relocation and internment, insisting that stripping people of liberty en masse because of their ancestry is a grave violation of constitutional principles. The word simply exposes the arbitrariness at play: no charge, no individualized assessment, only ancestry as the trigger. That is the antithesis of due process and equal protection.

Korematsu’s stance also affirms a dual fidelity, to country and to the Constitution. He refuses a false choice between national security and civil rights, suggesting that true security rests on institutions that resist panic and prejudice. In doing so, he positions dissent as a patriotic act, a defense of the nation’s ideals when the state itself falters.

The statement resonates beyond its historical moment. It warns against collective punishment, racial profiling, and the ease with which fear can erode liberty. It reminds us that citizenship is not a revocable privilege subject to the tides of suspicion, but a status that carries guaranteed rights regardless of ancestry. Its moral clarity lies in insisting that loyalty is demonstrated by actions, not inherited traits, and that constitutional protections mean little if they cannot withstand wartime pressure. Korematsu’s words therefore serve as both testimony and instruction: a call to remember, to resist scapegoating, and to measure government power by how it treats the most vulnerable in moments of crisis.