The farm worker movement asks all of our friends to join us in celebrating California’s first-ever Fred Korematsu Day at UC Berkeley’s Wheeler Auditorium on Sunday, January 30. Fred Korematsu was a national civil rights icon from Oakland, Calif. who bravely resisted the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Fred Korematsu Day, now a day of special recognition in California, is the first day in U.S. history named after an Asian American.
There are important paralells between Fred Korematsu’s resistance to civil rights abuses of Japanese Americans seven decades ago and violations of the civil rights of Latinos and immigrants today through measures such as SB 1070 in Arizona.
For this first historic celebration, the Korematsu Institute has lined up a program that includes keynote speaker Rev. Jesse Jackson, a video message from U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, spoken word artist Beau Sia, along with several other speakers. Student tickets are $5. For more information, visit www.fredkorematsuday.org