Politics & Power Quote by Fred Korematsu

Patriotism, in Korematsu's hands, is less a flag-waving noun than a contested piece of civic property. The line is built like a legal brief with a moral pulse: first, deny the monopoly ("not the exclusive property of any one group"), then assert the broader claim ("belongs to all Americans"). He is arguing over ownership because he lived what happens when the state decides some people are only conditionally American.

The context is unavoidable. Korematsu became the unwilling face of the fight against Japanese American incarceration during World War II, a policy sold as national security and dressed up as loyalty. The subtext here is pointed: if the country can cage citizens and still call itself patriotic, then "patriotism" has been hijacked by power and reduced to obedience. Korematsu is trying to repossess the word from those who use it as a gatekeeping tool.

His phrasing also sidesteps the trap of identity as credential. He doesn't say patriotism belongs to the loudest, the most "real", or the most aggrieved; he ties it to an ethic: love and cherishing, verbs that imply care, responsibility, and a willingness to hold the nation accountable. It's an inclusive definition, but not a soft one. It quietly indicts any politics that equates dissent with disloyalty, insisting that criticizing injustice can be an expression of national commitment, not a betrayal of it.