The Bracelet

Emergency does not create new power, it creates the exercise of power. In Ex Parte Milligan 1866, the court made the following observations about civil liberties. The birthright of every citizen when charged with a crime is to be tried and punished by law. If the laws are ineffectual there is immunity from punishment. Even the wicked individual cannot be punished if the law is not in effect. By protection of he law human rights are secured and the withdrawal of that protection puts the individual at the mercy of wicked rulers. The trial of all crimes shall be by jury. The right to trial is the exercise of the judicial power. The constitution is a law for rulers and people equally in war and in peace. When courts are open and their processes unobstructed then due process of the law is mandated and cannot be preempted. Courts are designed by the founding fathers to hear criminal accusation and redress grievances. No usage of war can sanction a military trial when a full functional civil court is available. The right of trial is preserved for everyone accused of a crime, who is not attached to the army, navy, or militia in actual service. Martial law does not have a broad range of freedom. According in the Lincoln interpretation of executive powers, the doctrine of Martial law suggests, in time of war the commander of the armed forces has the power within the lines of his military duty, to suspend all civil rights and their remedies, and subject citizens as well as soldiers to the rule of his will. If true the republic has failed and there is an end to liberty regulated by law, destroying the civil liberties guaranteed by the constitution and making the military independent of a superior civil power. Civil liberty and this kind of power cannot dwell together. Martial law cannot arise from a threatened invasion. The necessity must be actual and present, the invasion real, such as effectually closes the courts, and deposes the civil administration. Next, the writ of Habeas corpus to a speedy trial and the right to face ones accusers was established legal mechanism allowing Justice to be administered and the citizen protected from oppression. 180,000 Japanese were sent to ten internment camps and two thirds of these individuals were citizens. The Korematsu case occurred when Mr. Korematsu would not leave his home and report for internment camp. The Supreme Court case sealed off appeal for legal protection for the Japanese from higher federal courts for appeal and liberation. In the bracelet, one shop owner placed a sign on his store saying, "We are loyal citizens"; there were no cases of insurrection or rebellion; each Japanese was given a prison number and report date and location; soldiers guarded the prisoners, as they traveled by bus to the horse racetrack; Reiko tells Emi that the soldiers will shoot them, if they try to escape. No Japanese citizen received a military trial and a sentencing punishment term. T

I used this book to introduce my 10-year-old twin daughters to this bad time in our usually-praiseworthy US history. They were very moved by the story, identifying with Emi and her sadness and fear. In the story, the bracelet assumes the importance of a link to Emi's past; its importance lessens as difficult losses are suffered by Emi and the rest of her family. If you need to begin to address the topic of prejudice with your children, this story might be a sad yet somehow gentle way to begin.

In the first illustration we see two typically Californian homes with cars in their driveways. One has a "For Sale" sign on its front steps. Emi, a second grader, sits and waits. Her father has been sent to a prison camp in Montana, and soon the FBI will take her, her sister, and her mother to a detention center and then to a detention camp in Utah. Emi and her family are Japanese Americans in California. It is 1942, and the United States is at war with Japan. Emi and 120,000 other Japanese Americans (80,000 of them citizens) were sent to detention centers due to their ethnic heritage by the U.S. government; their rights were abrogated. There is a knock at the door. Is it the FBI? No, it's her friend and neighbor Laurie. She gives Emi a gift, a bracelet, with which to remember her by. They hug. Emi and her family, allowed just a couple of suitcases, are sent with other from San Francisco to a racetrack which has been converted to a detention center. They see guards with guns and bayonets, and as they pass a boarded up grocery store, we see a sign in the drawing, saying that the store owners are "loyal Americans." When Emi loses the bracelet after arriving at the detention center, she learns that a person can remember people and families in the absence of physical items and personal effects. An afterword explains the historical events and the redress made by the US Federal government under Presidents Ford and Carter. Yoshiko is also the author of The Invisible Thread, her account of a childhood in detention.

This book is a must for any classroom library. The children in my classroom had fantastic and thoughtful things to say about this book, in third grade! This book deals with tough subjects and still has a beautiful moral.

This is a wonderful story about friendship. A young Japanese girl is sent to an internment camp. Before she leaves an American friend of hers gives her a bracelet to remember her by. When the bracelet is lost, the little girl is heart broken. Later she realizes that one does not need material objects to symbolize a friendship.