 Constitution of Oregon |
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Oregon became a state with a Black exclusion law in its constitution. Drafted in 1857 by delegates at a territorial convention, several sections of the constitution reflect Oregon voters' goal of creating a white-only state.
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| Executive Order 9066 - Authorizing the Secretary of War to Prescribe Military Areas |
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This executive order by President Franklin D. Roosevelt was a federal law that forcefully removed persons deemed a national security threat to relocation centers in the western United States. While the act did not include racialized language, it was created with the intent to target Japanese Americans.
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| Public Law 280 |
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This law gave California, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon, and Wisconsin criminal and civil jurisdiction on Indian reservations, as the U.S. government resolved to terminate the special trustee relationship tribes held with the United States, eroding tribal sovereignty.
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| United States v. Cartozian |
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In this case, the District Court of Oregon debated whether an Armenian immigrant was white enough to be naturalized. Just two years after the Supreme Court ruled that Ozawa, a Japanese man, and Thind, a South Asian man, were not white enough for naturalization, the Oregon court ruled that people from Asia Minor were close enough to European descent to be naturalized.
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| Yasui v. United States |
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In this case, the Supreme Court held that curfews against minority groups were constitutional at a time of war against the country that group's ancestors originated from. After the Executive Order 9066 was issued in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese Americans were subject to curfews and other restrictions in addition to being removed to internment camps. Minoru Yasui was convicted of violating the curfew. This was a companion case to Hirabayashi v. United States, decided on the same day.
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