JLA War Reparations Plan
By Brendan Riley/AP

Art Shibayama was just 13 when he and other family members were forced from their home in Peru in 1944 and put on a ship for a three-week voyage to the United States—and an internment camp in Texas. The Shibayamas and tens of thousands like them who lost their freedom and property were guilty only of being of Japanese ancestry and living in the Americas at a time when the United States was at war with Japan.

They were rounded up and placed in camps either out of fear they might assist Japan in the war effort or, in other cases, to be used as part of prisoner exchanges. Many, including the Shibayamas, were held long after World War II had ended.

The U.S. government compensated most of the victims and their families for their losses. But many others, including Shibayama, a retired service station operator in San Jose, Calif., were left out.

Now there’s a new congressional effort to help Japanese Americans and Japanese Latin Americans who didn’t benefit from earlier reparations: Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Los Angeles, plans soon to introduce a measure to pick up where the original restitution plan left off when it expired in 1998 after providing $1.65 billion in benefits.

A 1998 court settlement plus supplemental appropriations from Congress provided $50 million more for the Japanese-ancestry victims of wartime excesses. Becerra says his proposal is a final, necessary step.

Becerra isn’t sure of the amount he will propose, but says it won’t come close to the earlier restitution plan. Money’s not the issue anyway, he adds. “These are people who deserve to have some justice. When you tell people what happened to them, they say ‘you’ve got to be kidding.’ That’s what we’re fighting against.”

Leaders in the push for the legislation include Grace Shimizu, whose father was taken from Peru—where he had lived for 20 years—and confined in the same camp near San Antonio, Texas, where the Shibayamas were held for 21/2 years. The families were kept in one of several federal camps that, along with 10 relocation camps, held people of Japanese ancestry during the war years. Most were in the West.

Hundreds of Japanese who had spent years in Latin America, including Shibayama’s grandparents, were involved in the little-known exchanges.

The 1988 Civil Liberties Act provided for reparations, and some 80,000 survivors applied for payments for lost property and freedom. Most were paid $20,000 each under the restitution law.

Because they weren’t citizens or legal residents of the United States during the war, Japanese from 13 Latin American countries—mainly Peru—weren’t eligible for the $20,000 payments. But some received $5,000 as a result of the 1998 court settlement.

Shibayama says he feels some bitterness, but still thinks “the United States is the best country to live in.”

“But people made mistakes, big mistakes. I was discriminated against so many times,” he says. “I was offered the $5,000 settlement but I opted out because it was another discrimination, a slap in the face,” he adds. “The offer said nothing about how we were brought here—not even an apology.”

“I tell people what happened and they don’t believe it. They say, ‘We did that to you? No.’ I say, ‘Yes, you did.’”