Redress
More than 40 years after 120,000 Japanese Americans were rounded up and sent to internment camps far away from their homes, each of the camp’s survivors received a check for $20,000 and a letter from George H.W. Bush acknowledging that:
“A monetary sum and words alone cannot restore lost years or erase painful memories; neither can they convey our Nation’s resolve to rectify injustice and to uphold the rights of individuals. We can never fully right the wrongs of the past. But we can take a clear stand for justice and recognize that serious injustices were done to Japanese Americans during World War II.
“In enacting a law calling for restitution and offering a sincere apology, our fellow Americans have, in a very real sense, renewed their traditional commitment to the ideals of freedom, equality, and justice. You and your family have our best wishes for the future.” (Mitchell T. Maki: Achieving the Impossible Dream, University of Illinois Press, 1999.
A formal ceremony was held in the Great Hall of the Justice Department where Attorney General Richard Thornburgh presented elderly Japanese Americans representing the community as a whole with $20,000 in redress checks as well as the formal apology from the president. The checks and the apology were given to nine elderly, former internees at the ceremony on October 9, 1990.
https://www.nichibei.org/2013/02/a-look-back-at-the-historic-japanese-american-redress-movement/
Actions most Japanese Americans never expected to happen, an impossible dream, a dream that didn’t even begin to form in the minds of internment camp survivors until the 1970s. Then, in 1989, Japanese Americans finally received redress from the federal government.
The Beginning of the Story
Losses sustained by incarcerated Japanese Americans were first acknowledged in 1946. Two bills were introduced into the US House and Senate to create an evacuation claims commission that would pay for property that had been lost when Japanese citizens were excluded and removed from their homes on the West Coast.
But it took two years before the proposed measures became law and set aside only $38 million to reimburse for lost property—a fraction of the total amount of property lost by Japanese Americans. (Much of the property had to be sold quickly for far less than market value. Total property losses were estimated to be $1.3 billion, and the overall loss in income was about $2.7 billion. https://www.japaneseamericanredress.org/historical-overview)
Even then, most internment camp survivors saw little in recompense: the legislation required proof of ownership and property loss—not exactly something Japanese Americans had time to acquire before they had to report for relocation within days of notification of internment and allowed only a single bag of their belongings. (Achieving the Impossible Dream, p 54)
And the program was hampered by red tape. The Department of Justice processed only 200 of more than 23,000 claims between 1946 and 1950. https://www.japaneseamericanredress.org/historical-overview
In addition to evacuation claims legislation, court cases in the late 1940s ruled that American citizens could not be imprisoned or repatriated if they renounced citizenship while incarcerated, and even after renouncing citizenship during incarceration, they could have their citizenship restored. Other cases ruled state laws that did not allow Japanese Americans to own land were unconstitutional, violating the equal protection clause. (Achieving the Impossible Dream)
The McCarran-Walter Act of 1952 for the first time made it possible for first-generation Japanese Americans to become citizens, and a Supreme Court ruling in 1967 allowed Japanese Americans to recover deposits from the Yokohama Specie Bank, whose assets were seized by the government in the early days of WW II. (Achieving the Impossible Dream)
But the formal redress movement did not begin until 1970 when a resolution introduced at the annual convention of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) called for reparations.
The Redress Movement
A resolution calling for reparations for Japanese Americans who had been interned during WW II was first introduced at the Japanese American Citizens League in 1970 and reaffirmed in 1972. The resolution called for $5 in compensation for every day of incarceration (the same amount paid to POWs) and limiting the total amount of reparations to $400 million.
Despite its popularity (80 percent of Japanese Americans supported the resolution), the first redress bill introduced in the US Congress in 1974 failed to get out of committee.
The JACL convention in 1976 made passing federal redress legislation a priority for the group and established the National Committee for Redress in 1978. A year later, the federal Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC) was authorized by Congress to pursue three goals:
· Review the facts and circumstances surrounding the presidential executive order that excluded Japanese Americans from the West Coast and its effect on resident aliens.
· Review the directives of the US military in relocating and detaining American citizens in internment camps.
· Recommend appropriate remedies. (Achieving the Impossible Dream, p 96)
The nine members of the federal commission held hearings in ten cities between July and December, 1981, as well as legislative hearings in Washington over two days, where members of Congress heard from Japanese Americans who had been interned as well as opponents of any form of redress. (Leslie T. Hatamiya: Righting a Wrong, Stanford University Press, 1993)
The Work of the CWRIC
The commission analyzed archival material, government documents, personal papers, and scholarly publications. Members heard testimony from 750 people, 500 who had themselves been interned, and heard how families had been separated, how poor medical care led to infection and sometimes death, and how difficult it was for the handicapped or mentally retarded to move about in common areas, such as latrines, laundry rooms, and mess halls. https://www.japaneseamericanredress.org/historical-overview
One woman recalled how she, as a child, thought about incarceration in Heart Mountain and tried to avoid the “truth”: “The truth was that the government we trusted, the country we loved, the nation to which we had pledged loyalty had betrayed us, had turned against us.” (Achieving the Impossible Dream, p 107)
One of the strongest voices against redress was that of Lillian Baker, who formed Americans for Historical Accuracy in 1976 to work against reparations for Japanese Americans. She testified that internment camps had been "a military necessity" filled with "enemy aliens loyal to the Emperor of Japan." At the same time, she maintained that many in the camps were there "voluntarily," that there were "no machine guns in the guard towers," and the barbed wire fences "were to keep the cattle out, not the people in." Photos showing deplorable conditions in the camps, such as California’s Manzanar, were “doctored,” she said. https://www.japaneseamericanredress.org/historical-overview
“During her testimony in front of the CWRIC in Los Angeles,” writes Mitchell T. Maki, “over 200 Japanese Americans walked out in silent protest amid what a JACL newsletter at the time described as her ‘hysterical diatribes against evacuees.’ Her testimony aside, Baker is perhaps best remembered for the police escort she received out of the hearing after trying to incite an altercation with former internee and World War II veteran, James Kawanami, during his testimony. Kawanami served as president of the Southern California 442nd Veterans Association. The 442nd ranked as one of the most decorated units in World War II, and was composed entirely of Japanese American soldiers, many of whom were freed from the camps to serve in the war effort.” https://www.japaneseamericanredress.org/historical-overview
The commission concluded in February, 1983, that President Roosevelt’s use of Executive Order 9066 to exclude and intern Japanese Americans was “not justified by military necessity.” The causes leading to exclusion and internment were “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership. Widespread ignorance of Japanese Americans contributed to a policy conceived in haste and executed in an atmosphere of fear and anger at Japan. A grave injustice was done to American citizens and resident aliens of Japanese ancestry who, without individual review or any probative evidence against them, were excluded, removed, and detained by the United States during World War II.”
Its recommendations, released on June 16, 1983, included a joint congressional resolution with the president’s signature that apologized for injustice, appropriated funds for research and public education about the Japanese American experience, restored “positions, status, or entitlements” that had been lost during the war, and allocated $1.5 billion to provide $20,000 to every survivor of evacuation and internment. (Achieving the Impossible Dream, p 111)
(The National Archives, photo no. 75856233)
After legislative to’s-and-fro’s over the next few years, President Ronald Reagan signed The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 into law. The law granted redress to Japanese Americans who had been interned during WW II. President George H.W. Bush signed the appropriations bill into law in 1989 that made redress for Japanese Americans an entitlement, and finally, in 1992, President Bush signed the law that ensured all eligible Japanese Americans would receive redress money and extended redress to non-Japanese spouses or parents who had been interned. (Righting a Wrong, Stanford University Press, 1993)
Sources:
Mitchell T. Maki: Achieving the Impossible Dream, University of Illinois Press, 1999.
Leslie T. Hatamiya: Righting a Wrong, Stanford University Press, 1993
https://www.japaneseamericanredress.org/historical-overview)
https://archive.org/details/japaneseamerican00unse_0
https://densho.org/catalyst/japanese-americans-demand-justice-long-overdue-at-1981-redress-hearings/