Michi Weglyn, 1926-1999

Michi Nishiura Weglyn, whose book Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America’s Concentration Camps fueled a movement that eventually led to reparations for more than 80,000 Japanese Americans interned during World War II, died Sunday of natural causes at her apartment in New York City. She was 72.

Ms. Weglyn was born in 1926 to Tomojiro Nishiura and Hisao Yuwasa Nishiura of Stockton, Calif. Recognized as a promising scholar, the young farm girl was admitted to Mount Holyoke College, after being interned for years during World War II.

After the war, Ms. Weglyn moved to New York City, where she designed costumes for The Perry Como Show for eight years and also painted and wrote poetry. Her residence was Columbia University’s International House, where she met her husband, Walter Weglyn. They married in 1950.

Having been one of the few Jewish children in his hometown to survive the Holocaust, Walter Weglyn understood well his wife’s mission to document her own people’s internment—a mission that came about as she questioned her government’s actions in the wake of the Vietnam War and Watergate. A tireless critic and editor,Walter Weglyn, who died in 1995, urged his wife always to tell the truth in her writing, even if the truth was not palatable or popular.

Working without pay, Ms. Weglyn spent years reading through dusty boxes of documents at the National Archives, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library, and other institutions. She was usually there when the doors opened at 9 a.m., ate a carefully-wrapped sandwich at midday, and did not leave until closing time, so consumed was she with searching for proof that there was no “military necessity” for internment as the government had claimed.

“Curiosity led me into exhuming documents of this extraordinary chapter in our history,” Ms. Weglyn once said. “Among once-impounded papers, I came face-to-face with facts, some that left me greatly pained. ... At a time when angry charges were being hurled at heads of state, the gaps of the evacuation era appeared more like chasms.”

Her best finds sometimes came from tips she had received from curators or librarians, but increasingly were the result of a finely honed instinct in uncovering the truth. “Persuaded that the enormity of a bygone injustice has been only partially perceived, I have taken upon myself the task of piecing together what might be called the “forgotten” or ignored parts of the tapestry of those years,” she said.

Her effort to debunk the “military necessity” excuse led to a book whose title, Years of Infamy, ironically echoed President Roosevelt’s often-quoted reference to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Ms. Weglyn shopped the work to several publishers. Eventually, she found an empathetic ear at William Morrow, where Howard Cady persuaded higher-ups to publish Years of Infamy in 1976.

The book’s irrefutable analysis, supported by numerous photos, photocopies of government documents, notes and references, gave it—and the nascent movement for redress—a crucial boost in credibility. More so than ever before, Japanese Americans had an unequivocal refutation of the claim that the president and other high officials had made in 1941—that the internment was military necessity.

Ms. Weglyn’s work also brought sadness, including to herself. As she wrote in the preface: “With profound remorse, I believed, as did numerous Japanese Americans, that somehow the stain of dishonor we collectively felt for the treachery of Pearl Harbor must be eradicated, however great the sacrifice, however little we were responsible for it. ... In an inexplicable spirit of atonement and with great sadness, we went with our parents to concentration camps.”

Ms. Weglyn’s research and that of other activist-scholars, including Aiko Yoshinaga-Herzig, made the difference for many Congressional skeptics and critics of redress. In 1988, then-President Reagan signed into law the Civil Liberties Act, through which more than 80,000 ex-internees received $20,000 each over the next 10 years. Ms. Weglyn’s crusade did not end there. She went on to back railroad workers, draft resisters and Japanese Latin Americans—all also inspiration for Years of Infamy.

Ms. Weglyn’s book was also among the first to expose the kidnappings of thousands of Japanese Latin Americans to serve as POWs in U.S.-Japan bartering. In that regard, she was 20 years ahead of her time, with some of those ex-internees having received only last year a token payment of $5,000 apiece.

The book received wide acclaim, with former ambassador to Japan Edwin O Reischauer praising it as a “truly excellent and moving book,” saying that it did away with the “silver lining” so often included before.

“Years of Infamy is hard-hitting but fair and balanced. It is a terrible story of administrative callousness and bungling, untold damage to the human soul, confusion, and terror.”

No formal funeral services will be held, though informal gatherings of friends are planned nationwide. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Cal Poly Pomona Foundation, which is administering the Walter and Michi Weglyn Endowed Chair in Multicultural Studies at the school. For more information, call 909-869-2289 or write to President Bob Suzuki, Cal Poly Pomona, 3801 West Temple Ave., Pomona, Calif., 91768.