Redress: An American Issue
May 25, 2000
Those of us raised on fast-paced half-hour sit-coms are not used to scenarios that proceed unevenly or haltingly. On television, problems are solved in 30 minutes. In real life, they may go on for decades.
Here in the real world in Washington, D.C., the API community is watching the latest chapter unfold in the struggle for redress for Japanese Americans interned by our own government during World War II. Against all odds, Japanese Americans were granted reparations for their wartime incarceration by an act of Congress in 1988. Yet even that monumental effort did not result in complete justice. As well crafted as that legislation was, the interpretation of the resulting regulations was too narrow. Some people were left out, and now those people are back, asking to get the redress that so far has been out of their grasp.
Congressman Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) recently announced in a press conference in his district in Los Angeles that he was going to introduce the Wartime Parity and Justice Act of 2000, a legislative initiative to provide “redress to individuals of Japanese ancestry who were abducted by our government from their homes in Latin American countries and interned in the United States during World War II” and to others deserving redress but not deemed eligible under the Civil Liberties Act of 1988.
The Japanese American redress movement of the 1980s was one of the most successful social justice efforts of all time, for a number of reasons:
First, it was a clear case of discriminatory treatment by the federal government, as documented in official government sources uncovered by Michi Weglyn, Aiko and Jack Herzig, and other scholars.
Second, it affected a group that subsequently went on to gain public support through the wartime valor of the 44th Regimental Combat Team and the 100th Battalion, which suffered heavy casualties fighting in the European Theater of engagement.
Third, the movement benefited from a race-conscious social justice ethos that had emerged since the 1950s, and an Asian American consciousness that emerged in the 1960s.
Fourth, it combined the wisdom and energy of the nisei (second-generation Japanese Americans) with the legal skills and greater sense of entitlement of the sansei (third-generation Japanese Americans).
Fifth, it grew out of a distrust of government that was fostered in the post-Watergate years.
Sixth, it became a cause célèbre to a broader social justice community, both secular and religious, which was critical of government because of the Reagan Administration’s opposition to many of this community’s goals.
Seventh, it benefited from a multi-faceted strategy that included a legislative strategy, a coram nobis courtroom strategy focused on clearing the names of those who had lost cases in the wartime Supreme Court, and a class action courtroom strategy (William Hohri et al. versus the United States).
Finally, it included public education that took place all over the nation on campuses, in civic organizations, in religious circles, and in professional organizations. The effort ultimately made a new generation aware of the dangers of mass-based injustices, and led to camp survivors getting $20,000 and a governmental apology.
In retrospect, however, the movement did not go far enough. Japanese Latin Americans kidnapped from their homes in Peru and other countries were not included because they were “illegal aliens” at the time of the internment—despite the fact that they came here against their wills and United States officials took away their passports, making them stateless. More fundamentally, some backers of the 1988 redress bill felt that getting redress for the domestic Japanese Americans was difficult enough; including the international dimension of the Japanese Latin Americans was felt to be too difficult. Others did not know the history of the Japanese Latin Americans, or did not want to speak up for a group that was not “Americanized” (English-speaking, with birth or long residence in the United States) during the wartime internment.
Whatever the reason for their exclusion in 1988, however, now is the time when all Japanese Americans—and all Asian Americans—can show the full measure of their compassion and thirst for justice. The fact that a Latino Congressman is backing this bill is just as significant as the fact that Congressman Mike Lowry, an American of European ancestry, backed the first redress bill in 1979.
This is an American issue, not just a Japanese American issue. It affected the Japanese Latin Americans, the Japanese American railroad workers, and others who were affected in ways that the bill describes.
Congressman Becerra estimates that the total cost will be $100 million or less, including over $40 million that was not allocated under the 1988 act’s provision for a Redress Education Fund. He is to be commended for his sense of justice.
For more information or to support the bill, contact the following CFJ members: Mariko Nakanishi: tel/fax: 323/549-9425; P.O. Box 251425, Los Angeles, CA 90025; email: mjnakanishi@hotmail.com or Grace Shimizu: tel/fax: 510/528-7288; P.O. Box 1384, El Cerrito, CA 94530; email: jpohp@prodigy.net.
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