In the summer of 1970, hundreds of Japanese Americans from across the country converged at the historic Palmer House hotel in downtown Chicago. It was the biennial convention of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL)

Founded in 1929, the JACL is the oldest and largest Asian American civil rights organization in the United States. The JACL monitors and responds to issues that enhance or threaten the civil and human rights of all Americans and implements strategies to effect positive social change, particularly to the Asian Pacific American community. Read more from Densho

, and attendees were discussing what issues the organization should tackle next.

It was here that Japanese American activists Edison Uno and Raymond Okamura introduced a bold idea: Japanese Americans should be compensated for their World War II incarceration

The day after the attack by Japan on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, the United States declared war with Japan and officially entered into World War II. In the months that followed, anti-Japanese sentiment and war hysteria reached peak levels. On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which authorized the Secretary of War and any military commanders designated by him to create military exclusion zones. As a result of this order, more than 110,000 people of Japanese descent from California and parts of Washington, Oregon, and Arizona were forcibly removed and imprisoned in ten War Relocation Authority concentration camps for the duration of the war.

, and the JACL should lead the effort. Beyond the Japanese American Evacuation Claims Act of 1948

The Japanese American Evacuation Claims Act of 1948 provided compensation to Japanese Americans for losses of real and personal property during their forced removal from the West Coast in 1942. It was the first civil rights-associated law enacted in the 20th century. However, the legislation proved largely ineffectual in practical terms due to excessive burdens for proving losses and red tape that slowed the process. In total, the government paid $38 million to settle damage claims, a fraction of actual losses by Japanese Americans. Read more from Densho

, which was largely ineffective, it was the first public vision for reparations

Compensation paid by one party (typically a government or corporate entity) to another party (typically an individual or group of individuals) in recognition of an historic wrong.

for the community.

The idea hit a raw nerve. Many first generation Issei

A Japanese language term referring to the first-generation immigrant Japanese who were the first to arrive in the U.S.

and second generation Nisei

A Japanese language term referring to second-generation Japanese Americans born in the U.S.

didn’t talk about the wartime years because the pain, shame, and losses experienced were so profound. Some even hid the truth from their third generation Sansei

A Japanese language term referring to third-generation Japanese Americans.

kids to protect them. Why resurface traumatic memories they’d worked so hard to bury for the sake of a false hope?

Then there was the concept of reparations itself. Some community members felt it was shameful to ask for money, especially for something that happened decades ago. Others argued it was impossible to determine the value of years of lost freedom, and to give that freedom a monetary amount would cheapen its worth.

After the convention in Chicago, the debates about reparations continued into the mid-’70s. Meanwhile, the JACL undertook several campaigns related to the incarceration, including the repeal of Title II of the Internal Security Act of 1950

Title II of the Internal Security Act of 1950, also known as the Emergency Detention Act, is a law that granted the government the power of preventive detention during an emergency. Between 1967 and 1971, the Japanese American Citizens League led a successful political campaign to repeal the act, culminating in the passage of repeal bill H.R. 234 on September 14, 1971. The campaign united various factions within the Asian American community and other ethnic and political groups and is considered a precursor to the redress movement. Read more from Densho

, the revocation of Executive Order 9066

Executive Order 9066 was the order signed by President Roosevelt that set in motion the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. On February 19, 1976, as a result of grassroots activism and lobbying in Washington, DC, President Gerald R. Ford issued a proclamation titled “An American Promise” that rescinded the order and called the incarceration a “setback to fundamental American principles.” The proclamation was an important precursor to the redress movement.

, and President Gerald Ford's pardoning of Iva Toguri D’Aquino

Iva Toguri d’Aquino was among the Japanese Americans visiting Japan before World War II who were unable to return to the U.S. once war broke out. She was singled out and accused of being the legendary World War II radio icon “Tokyo Rose” and was tried and convicted of treason after the war. D’Aquino served six years of a ten-year sentence in federal prison. In the 1970s, the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) became interested in her case and developed the JACL National Committee for Iva Toguri campaign in April of 1975. In January of 1977, President Gerald Ford granted d’Aquino a full and unconditional pardon on his last day in office. The pardon restored her U.S. citizenship that was taken as a result of her conviction. Read more from Densho

. These efforts laid the groundwork for relationships with congressional representatives and built momentum for a larger reparations movement.

Another factor that contributed to the growing interest in reparations was the social and political awakening of the third-generation Sansei, many of whom were learning about their family’s incarceration for the first time.

Ross Harano was one of those Sansei. He was born and raised in one of the Japanese American concentration camps before his family resettled to Chicago’s South Side after the war. It wasn’t until he attended a JACL convention in Minnesota at the age of 19 that he finally connected the dots about his unusual upbringing and his uncles’ military service in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team

This segregated military unit was formed on March 23, 1943 after the army changed its policies to allow male Japanese American incarcerees to serve. More than 800 soldiers were killed or went missing in action during several notable campaigns in Italy and France, and the 442nd RCT emerged as the most decorated unit — taking into account its size and length of service — in U.S. military history. Read more from Densho

in Europe and the Military Intelligence Service

“Under a shroud of secrecy and with the backing of the United States War Department, the Military Intelligence Service (MIS) trained and graduated nearly 6,000 linguists—the majority of whom were Japanese Americans. They ultimately played a decisive role in the victory of American forces over Japan in the Pacific. They were among the first soldiers to arrive in Japan after its surrender, and they became some of the first American observers to witness the destructive effects of the atomic bombs that had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Nisei later served in important positions in the occupation of Japan and more than seventy MIS linguists provided translation and interpreter services for the war crimes trials held in Japan, China, the Philippines, French Indochina, and the East Indies. As Japanese Americans, these linguists turned out to be instrumental in bridging cultural and linguistic differences and helped to establish the foundations for postwar relations between Japan and the United States.” Read more from Densho

in the Pacific.

In 1973, more than a decade later, Harano traveled with a group of thirty Japanese Americans to the former site of Jerome, the camp where he was incarcerated as a toddler. It was part of the first wave of pilgrimages

A journey to a place of personal, moral, or spiritual significance. Starting in the 1960s, many Japanese Americans went on pilgrimages to the former World War II incarceration sites as a way to reconnect with history and their families’ experiences. Read more from Densho

that served the community’s growing interest in commemorating the camp experience. Around the same time, some of the first books about the incarceration were published.

Sansei like Harano infused the movement for reparations with passion and a spirit of social protest. The Sansei generation came of age during the civil rights

The civil rights movement was a movement for justice and equality for African Americans in the United States that came to prominence in the 1950s and 1960s. It was led by people like Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, and many others.

and antiwar movements

The Vietnam War, which lasted from 1955 to 1975, was a war during which the U.S. military supported South Vietnam in its fight against North Vietnam, which wanted to unite the country under communism. It resulted in nearly 60,000 American deaths and in an estimated 2 million Vietnamese deaths. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, as the conflict dragged on and casualties increased, increasing numbers of Americans began to oppose the war. Millions participated in acts of protest including sit-ins, teach-ins, and national protests in Washington, D.C. In 1973, the U.S. signed a peace treaty and withdrew its remaining forces from Vietnam. The Vietnam anti-war movement mobilized a generation of young Americans and had a lasting impact on U.S. politics. Read more from Morningside Center

, which shaped their understanding of race and inequality. To them, Japanese American incarceration was not just a tragedy — it was an example of racial injustice. Reparations, therefore, were part of a much larger fight for justice for all historically marginalized groups.

By the late-’70s, the idea of reparations had gained enough traction to become one of the key focuses of the JACL’s agenda. In 1977, the organization published the booklet, “A Case for Redress,” the first wide-scale effort to educate the community about its incarceration and get buy-in for reparations.

“A Case for Redress” reflected the JACL’s strategy of using the term “redress”

The act of setting right a wrong, or remedy or compensation for a wrong or grievance.

instead of “reparations.” While monetary compensation was still at the center of the campaign, the larger goal of the redress movement was to ensure what happened to Japanese Americans during World War II would never happen again to any other group. This way, it was about more than just compensating Japanese Americans for their grievances — it was about protecting the civil liberties of all Americans.

Still, the question about money lingered. Many debated whether reparations should come in the form of individual payments or a single trust fund. One proposal called the Seattle Plan

The Seattle Plan was a plan for reparations for Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II. It called for individual compensation for every individual forcibly displaced by the government, further compensation for those confined based on the number of days in confinement, and a “tax-checkoff” that gave Japanese Americans the option to designate their federal taxes for a reparations trust fund. The Seattle Plan was first conceived in the 1970s by the Seattle Evacuation Redress Committee (SERC). The plan was voted down by members of JACL's National Committee for Redress (NCR) in favor of advocating for a study commission to investigate the incarceration. In 1979, congressman Mike Lowry of Washington introduced legislation that included many of the key elements of the Seattle Plan, but that bill died in committee. Read more from Densho

suggested a lump sum of reparations for displaced individuals plus additional reparations based on the number of days imprisoned.

In 1978, after painstaking back-and-forth, the JACL’s Redress Committee unveiled a proposal: $25,000 to every former detainee, an apology from the president, and an educational trust fund. Bill Yoshino

Bill Yoshino is a Chicago-based civil rights activist who served as the Midwest Director of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) from 1978 to 2017. During the redress campaign, Yoshino led lobbying and organizing efforts in the Midwest. Later, he became a leader in JACL’s efforts to combat anti-Asian sentiment and hate crimes, and also supported and expanded educational, youth, and leadership programs.

, who served as the JACL’s Midwest Regional Director from 1978 to 2017, says the element of monetary compensation played a controversial but crucial role in the campaign.

Ultimately, the JACL’s national council approved the proposal calling for $25,000 in individual compensation. But this was just the first step in what would become a decade-long quest.

The road to reparations for Japanese Americans involved years of organizing and lobbying, the unearthing of traumatic memories, and heated debates over what would adequately compensate for the trauma and losses experienced.

But it also involved a much-needed reckoning with history, intergenerational collaboration, and ultimately, healing from the guilt and shame that had haunted the community for decades.

In late January of 1979, the JACL tested the waters with its reparations proposal. The audience? Four powerful Japanese American members of Congress — U.S. Senators Daniel Inouye

Daniel Ken Inouye was the first U.S. representative from Hawaii from 1959 to 1963 and served as a U.S. Senator from 1963 until his death in 2012. During World War II, Inouye served in the U.S. Army’s 442nd Regimental Combat Team, a segregated Japanese American unit. Inouye was critical in getting Senate support for the passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. Read more from Densho

and Spark Matsunaga

Spark Matsunaga was an American politician who for nearly four decades represented Hawaii in the Territorial Legislature and later in the House of Representatives and Senate. During World War II, he earned a Bronze Star for his service in the 100th Infantry Battalion, a predominantly Japanese American unit established in Hawaii that served in the European theater during World War II and eventually became part of the 44nd Regimental Combat Team. Matsunaga was the main Senate sponsor of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which granted redress and reparations to Japanese Americans for their World War II incarceration. He also paved the way for other Asian Americans to be elected to Congress and supported legislation around civil rights, space exploration, renewable energy, and the establishment of peace institutes. Read more from Densho

from Hawaii and U.S. Representatives Robert Matsui

Read more from Densho

and Norman Mineta

Norman Y. Mineta is a Japanese American politician from northern California who served in Congress for 21 years. In 1994, he co-founded and served as the first chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. As a young boy, Mineta was incarcerated at Heart Mountain in Wyoming because of his Japanese ancestry. He was a fierce advocate for Japanese American redress and reparations and was instrumental in passing the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. Read more from Densho

from California.

The meeting was held in Senator Inouye’s office in the U.S. Capitol building. A group of JACL leaders presented the idea for $25,000 in individual compensation through an appropriations bill

An appropriation, also known as a supply bill or spending bill, is a proposed law that authorizes the expenditure of government funds. In most democracies, approval of the legislature is necessary for the government to spend money.

. According to John Tateishi, the National Redress Director for the JACL, Mineta and Matsunaga initially seemed receptive to the idea, but then Inouye interjected with a question.

“Have you fellows thought about a commission?”

Mineta quickly objected to the idea, but Inouye persisted. The core issue with going straight for an appropriations bill, he explained, was that Congress and the American public knew hardly anything about Japanese American incarceration. They were already facing criticism from another Japanese American senator, S.I. Hayakawa, who publicly deemed the incarceration of Japanese Americans “perfectly understandable,” although he himself never experienced incarceration. If Hayakawa and others weren’t convinced a wrong ever happened, why would they support reparations?

That’s where the commission would come in, Inouye continued. The commission would be a government-appointed group tasked with investigating the incarceration and deciding whether a legal wrong had been committed. As part of its research, the commission would hold public hearings around the country, generating publicity and furthering public education on the issue. This approach would take much longer, but it would help build the case for an eventual appropriations bill.

After the meeting at the Capitol, the JACL leaders felt conflicted. Most strongly preferred going straight for a compensation bill, but they also couldn’t ignore Senator Inouye’s warnings about the political realities in Washington. Plus, it was crucial they have the support of their Japanese American congressmen in any legislative fight.

Ultimately, the pragmatic approach won out. In March of 1979, the JACL’s National Committee of Redress voted in favor of legislation seeking the creation of a federal commission. That vote was followed by another vote including all JACL chapters nationwide, which narrowly favored the commission approach.

Almost immediately, the strategy received harsh criticism from the Japanese American community. The JACL was accused of selling out to politicians and for being cowardly and soft in its approach to reparations.

In fact, the JACL’s controversial decision to pursue a commission bill led to the rise of two other grassroots organizations, each with their own approach to redress and reparations.

Mostly based in California and New York, the National Coalition for Redress/Reparations

The National Coalition for Redress/Reparations (NCRR) was formed in 1980 in part to challenge the leadership, perspective, and strategy of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL). NCRR took a more confrontational approach that emphasized the importance of direct monetary compensation and drew parallels between Japanese American incarceration and other instances of racial injustice. At the 1981 hearings of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC), NCRR arranged for the attendance and testimony of a wide range of Japanese American community members. In 2000, the organization renamed itself Nikkei for Civil Rights & Redress. Read more from Densho

, or NCRR, advocated for the original JACL proposal of a reparations bill. To them, monetary compensation was the most important and urgent goal of the redress movement — and they saw reparations as part of a larger movement for racial justice.

The other organization that developed around the same time was the National Council for Japanese American Redress

The National Council for Japanese American Redress (NCJAR) was formed in May 1979 in Seattle and later moved its base to Chicago when Chicago-based civil rights activist William (Bill) Hohri agreed to lead the group. NCJAR initially backed the Japanese American Citizens League’s legislative approach to reparations but in 1979 broke away from those efforts in favor of a judicial approach to reparations. In March of 1983, NCJAR filed a class action lawsuit against the U.S. government seeking $27 billion for injuries suffered as a result of the exclusion and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. The lawsuit was eventually dismissed on a technicality in October of 1988, two months after the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 was signed. Read more from Densho

, or NCJAR. Initially formed in Seattle, the group moved its headquarters to a Methodist church in Chicago when Chicago-based computer programmer and activist William Hohri

William “Bill” Hohri was a Nisei, or second generation Japanese American, who was incarcerated at Manzanar camp during World War II. He later became a writer, civil rights activist, and leader of the National Council for Japanese American Redress (NCJAR), which formed in 1979 in Seattle and later moved its headquarters to Chicago. In the 1980s, Hohri served as lead plaintiff in NCJAR’s class action lawsuit, which sued the U.S. government for $27 billion for injuries suffered as a result of the exclusion and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. The lawsuit was eventually dismissed on a technicality in October of 1988, two months after the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 was signed. Read more from Densho

agreed to lead the group.

NCJAR opposed the JACL’s commission bill approach and initially threw their support behind a proposed direct compensation bill that was inspired by the early Seattle Plan

The Seattle Plan was a plan for reparations for Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II. It called for individual compensation for every individual forcibly displaced by the government, further compensation for those confined based on the number of days in confinement, and a “tax-checkoff” that gave Japanese Americans the option to designate their federal taxes for a reparations trust fund. The Seattle Plan was first conceived in the 1970s by the Seattle Evacuation Redress Committee (SERC). The plan was voted down by members of JACL's National Committee for Redress (NCR) in favor of advocating for a study commission to investigate the incarceration. In 1979, congressman Mike Lowry of Washington introduced legislation that included many of the key elements of the Seattle Plan, but that bill died in committee. Read more from Densho

. After that bill died in committee, NCJAR altered its strategy of pursuing reparations through Congress. Instead, the group decided to file a class-action lawsuit to demand remedies for the government’s violation of Japanese Americans’ constitutional rights.

Former board member Mary Samson says the goal of the lawsuit was to set a legal precedent that would protect the civil liberties of other groups, and to hold the government accountable for the wrongdoings it committed.

As NCJAR prepared to file its lawsuit, the Chicago chapter of the JACL was busy lobbying for a commission bill. Getting regional support for the legislation was crucial since the Midwest had far more votes in Congress than the West Coast.

Ross Harano was involved in these early lobbying efforts. He says a core challenge was convincing people that the issue was about Japanese Americans, not about Japan. It highlighted the need for education about Japanese American incarceration and the stereotype of Asian Americans as perpetual foreigners

A racialized form of xenophobia in which naturalized and even native-born citizens, including families that have lived in a country for generations, are perceived as foreign because they belong to a minority group. The perpetual foreigner stereotype casts Asian Americans as not truly “American,” regardless of how long one has lived in the U.S.

.

Despite these early challenges, the commission bill eventually gained enough support to pass in the House and Senate. In late July of 1980, President Jimmy Carter signed a law creating the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians

Congress created this bipartisan federal commission in 1980 and tasked it with reviewing the facts and circumstances surrounding Executive Order 9066 and its impact on Japanese Americans as well as Alaskan natives in the Pribilof and Aleutian Islands. In addition to extensive archival research, the nine-member commission held 20 days of public hearings across the U.S. and heard testimonies from more than 750 witnesses. The commission published its conclusions in 1983 in the report, “Personal Justice Denied,” which formed the basis for the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. Read more from Densho

, or CWRIC. The commission had two years to complete an investigation into the incarceration, a process that would involve extensive research and a series of hearings during which former detainees had the chance to testify publicly about their experiences.

With the creation of the CWRIC, Japanese Americans had overcome the first legislative hurdle. The stage was now set for them to finally share their story with the nation.

For two days in September of 1981, the auditorium at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago was packed to the brim with hundreds of Japanese Americans. They’d come from all corners of the Midwest — many to share their stories, but most simply to bear witness.

Bill Yoshino could hardly believe the scene in front of him. Just a few months ago, Chicago wasn’t even included in the lineup of nationwide commission hearings. He’d fought for Chicago to be added to the schedule because he felt the Midwest community had a unique perspective to share. Tens of thousands of former detainees ended up resettling in the region.

Yoshino turned to the front of the auditorium, where the panel of nine commissioners sat at a long table. Chaired by Washington lawyer Joan Z. Bernstein

Joan Z. Bernstein is a lawyer who specializes in the consumer protection and environmental fields. In 1981, President Jimmy Carter appointed her as chairperson of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC). As chairperson, Bernstein led the commission's efforts to conduct hearings and research that culminated in Personal Justice Denied, a comprehensive report on the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans. The report subsequently led to the passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. Read more from Densho

, they were a distinguished group hand selected by President Carter and members of the House and Senate. Only one, Judge William Marutani, was Japanese American. The group’s composition was intentional — Senator Inouye believed that to sell Congress on redress, it was best if the commission was majority non-Japanese American.

Opposite the commissioners was a table where more than 100 witnesses would testify

To make a solemn declaration under oath for the purpose of establishing a fact.

over the next two days. To prepare witnesses for the hearings, the JACL’s Chicago chapter hosted several workshops for people to practice delivering their testimonies in a safe space.

Chiye Tomihiro, who led witness recruitment efforts for the hearings, recalls these practice sessions were raw and emotional. Many of the witnesses were processing memories they’d suppressed for decades.

In the end, only a fraction of those who submitted testimonies were selected to speak at the Chicago hearings. The chosen witnesses testified about the many hardships of the incarceration experience, from the profound economic losses to the lasting psychological trauma. Veterans of the 442nd spoke about their experiences fighting on behalf of the U.S. while their families were imprisoned behind barbed wire.

The testimonies were deeply personal. Grace Watanabe Kimura recounted the heart-wrenching experience of leaving her dying father behind when she and her siblings were forcibly sent to the desert. Shiro Shiraga talked about how he gave an impassioned speech about patriotism and the Constitution for his high school commencement address, only to find himself incarcerated in a horse stable a couple of months later. Shizu Sue Lofton described how hard she tried to make the long journey to Manzanar an adventure for her 2-year-old. After stepping into the family’s designated barrack, her daughter announced, “Let’s go home now, Mommy.”

Bill Yoshino says the hearings became a form of collective catharsis for the community.

The hearings also included elements of resistance. Reverend Jitsuo Morikawa used his testimony to denounce the hearing process, arguing that capping witness statements to 5 minutes was just another form of injustice towards Japanese Americans. NCJAR board member Merry Fujihara Omori walked out of the auditorium after she was cut off before finishing her testimony.

Some NCJAR members stood at the beginning of each testimony as a form of protest, and urged others to do so too — they believed there was sufficient evidence of an injustice and found it unnecessary to ask victims to relive their trauma. After the hearings, though, Hohri wrote that he couldn’t deny the role they played in the community’s healing process.

Including Chicago, the commission held 20 days of hearings in ten cities across the country. More than 750 witnesses testified, a group that included former detainees, constitutional scholars, and the government officials responsible for the incarceration. To supplement the testimonies, lead commission researcher Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga

Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga was a Nisei, or second-generation Japanese American, who was incarcerated at Manzanar, Jerome, and Rohwer camps during World War II. Later, she played a crucial role in the redress movement by discovering and disseminating documents that provided evidence of deliberate governmental misconduct during World War II. Herzig-Yoshinaga was also the lead researcher for the CWRIC and spent thousands of hours examining records in the National Archives. Her expertise and findings were essential to the coram nobis cases, the NCJAR lawsuit, and to “Personal Justice Denied,” the final report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC). Read more from Densho

and her husband Jack Herzig

John “Jack” Herzig was a former military officer who worked with Japanese American interpreters during the U.S. occupation of Japan. He was also the husband of Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga, and the couple played a pivotal role in the redress movement through their historical research on Japanese American incarceration. Their discoveries contributed to “Personal Justice Denied,” the final report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, and also to the Supreme Court coram nobis cases.

found and organized primary government documents that formed the core of the commission’s findings.

In February of 1983, the CWRIC published its findings in a damning report titled “Personal Justice Denied

In February of 1983, after a year and a half of research and twenty days of public hearings in cities across the country, the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC) published their findings in the 467-page report, “Personal Justice Denied.” The report concluded that Executive Order 9066 was not justified by military necessity but was rather the result of “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.” A list of recommendations for remedies was later released in June of 1983. Based on the report’s conclusions, supporting documentation, and recommendations, Congress eventually passed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. Read more from Densho

.” It called the incarceration a “grave injustice” not determined by military necessity but rather the result of “race prejudice, war hysteria and a failure of political leadership.”

Four months later, the commission issued its recommendations for redress. The proposal included a formal apology, an educational trust fund, and $20,000 for each living survivor of the camps. It wasn’t the $25,000 that the JACL initially proposed, but it was a call for monetary compensation nonetheless. The total costs of implementing the recommendations were estimated to be around $1.5 billion.

Ross Harano says the strength of the commission was that the official proposal for reparations didn’t come from Japanese Americans — it came from the U.S. government itself.

Because of the commission, the decades-long silence around the incarceration was broken and the evidence of an injustice was incontrovertible. The next step was to push for a reparations bill.

Thirteen years after Edison Uno and Raymond Okamura gave their speech at the Palmer House Hotel in Chicago, the idea for Japanese American reparations had grown from a distant hope into a true possibility. With the commission’s work complete, the battle was now about pushing Congress to pass redress legislation. The bill would require a majority in both the House and Senate.

The political climate of the early 1980s, however, presented unexpected challenges. The country was in the midst of a deep recession, and the 1980 election of President Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan was the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. Before that, he was a Hollywood actor and served as the Republican governor of California from 1967 to 1975. His economic policies became famously known as “Reaganomics” and involved widespread tax cuts, increased military spending, and the deregulation of domestic markets.

ushered in an era of tax cuts and reduced government spending. Republicans had also gained control of the Senate for the first time since 1954. For Congress, the idea of spending $1.5 billion of taxpayer money on a redress bill was not so appealing.

At the same time, Japan was experiencing explosive growth in its manufacturing and technology sectors, threatening U.S. economic domination. Many blamed the decline of the U.S. auto manufacturing industry on the rise of Japanese car manufacturers. Consequently, Asian Americans became scapegoats for the country’s economic hardship.

During this time, the Midwest became a flash point for anti-Asian sentiment and violence since the region’s economy depended heavily on manufacturing giants like Chrysler and GM. In some cities, people smashed Japanese cars with baseball bats to express their anger. Then, in the summer of 1982 in Detroit, a Chinese American man named Vincent Chin

On the night of June 19, 1982, a Chinese American man named Vincent Chin was out with friends in Detroit celebrating his bachelor party. At the time, the Detroit auto industry was suffering while Japan was experiencing explosive growth in its manufacturing. Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz, two white male auto workers, mistook Chin for being Japanese and beat him to death with a baseball bat. Chin’s killers each received a $3,000 fine and zero prison time. The lenient sentencing fueled a national movement for Asian American civil rights. Read more from NPR

was beaten to death with a baseball bat. His killers were two white auto workers who mistook him for being Japanese.

It was within this environment that the JACL had to convince members of Congress to support a redress bill. In the Midwest, Bill Yoshino and Ross Harano urged city and state representatives to pass local resolutions in support of a redress bill.

Harano said his history of interracial activism helped him build a broad coalition of support for redress in the Midwest.

While the JACL was busy lobbying for a redress bill, new legal developments furthered support for the redress movement. Between 1983 and 1987, Fred T. Korematsu

In 1942, 23-year-old Fred Korematsu refused to go to the Japanese American incarceration camps. After he was arrested and convicted of defying the government’s orders, he appealed his case all the way to the Supreme Court. The court ruled against him, arguing that the incarceration was justified due to military necessity. In the 1980s, legal historian Peter Irons and researcher Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga discovered documents proving the U.S. army had seen no “military necessity” for the incarceration. A legal team petitioned for Korematsu’s case to be reopened on the basis of governmental misconduct. In November of 1983, Korematsu’s conviction was overturned in federal court in San Francisco. He remained an avid civil rights activist for the remainder of his life. Read more from the Fred T. Korematsu Institute

, Gordon K. Hirabayashi

Gordon Hirabayashi was a college student at the University of Washington in Seattle who refused to obey the curfew or register to be incarcerated with other Japanese Americans in the aftermath of Executive Order 9066, which was signed in February of 1942. Instead, he turned himself in to the FBI for arrest, hoping to test the constitutionality of the government’s incarceration of Japanese Americans without due process of law. Ultimately, the Supreme Court upheld the incarceration orders as a “military necessity.” In the 1980s, a team of lawyers reopened Hirabayashi’s wartime conviction on the basis of governmental misconduct. In 1987, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Hirabayashi's coram nobis case, vacating his conviction. Read more from Densho

, and Minoru Yasui

On an evening in March of 1942, Min Yasui walked through downtown Portland, Oregon to deliberately break the curfew established against Japanese Americans. When nobody noticed him, he went to the police station and demanded to be arrested. In 1983, Yasui filed a motion requesting not just to have his conviction overturned, but also to acknowledge governmental misconduct and unconstitutional actions. Dissatisfied that the court granted the former without the latter in 1984, he appealed again, but died before his case could be heard in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Upon his death the case was closed.English. Read more from Densho

petitioned to have their historic Supreme Court cases reopened. The process they used was a writ of error coram nobis

The coram nobis cases refer to the 1980s reconsideration of the three Supreme Court cases of Japanese Americans who challenged the exclusion orders or curfew in the 1940s. The reconsiderations were based on findings by legal scholar Peter Irons and researcher Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga that revealed the U.S. government had knowingly presented false charges of Japanese American disloyalty and espionage. These discoveries led attorneys for Gordon Hirabayashi, Fred Korematsu, and Minoru Yasui to petition for a writ of error coram nobis, a procedure used to correct a fundamental error of fact in a trial after the defendant has been found guilty and served his sentence. The coram nobis cases happened around the same time as leaders of the redress movement sought reparations in Congress. Read more from Densho

, a legal order allowing a court to correct its original judgement.

The impetus for the petitions was groundbreaking research by legal scholar Peter Irons

“Peter Irons is an attorney, political science professor and author who in 1981 uncovered documents proving that government officials during World War II had intentionally suppressed and altered evidence in lawsuits challenging curfew and forced exclusion orders imposed on Japanese Americans. That discovery led to the reopening of the cases of Fred Korematsu, Min Yasui, and Gordon Hirabayashi, three Japanese Americans who had been convicted for violating the military's wartime orders.” Read more from Densho Read more from Densho

and Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga

Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga was a Nisei, or second-generation Japanese American, who was incarcerated at Manzanar, Jerome, and Rohwer camps during World War II. Later, she played a crucial role in the redress movement by discovering and disseminating documents that provided evidence of deliberate governmental misconduct during World War II. Herzig-Yoshinaga was also the lead researcher for the CWRIC and spent thousands of hours examining records in the National Archives. Her expertise and findings were essential to the coram nobis cases, the NCJAR lawsuit, and to “Personal Justice Denied,” the final report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC). Read more from Densho

, the lead commission researcher who was also a supporter of NCJAR. The two discovered documents proving the U.S. army had seen no “military necessity” to incarcerate Japanese Americans. Their research also revealed the Department of Justice deliberately suppressed evidence to mislead the Supreme Court. The coram nobis cases put Irons’ and Herzig-Yoshinaga’s findings into the public spotlight and helped discredit arguments that the incarceration was justified.

The same research that fueled the coram nobis cases also formed the backbone of NCJAR’s class action lawsuit. Filed in the spring of 1983 with William Hohri as the lead plaintiff, the lawsuit sought $27 billion in damages from the incarceration, a figure that reflected both the value of property losses and the value of constitutional and civil rights violations.

In 1987, the case went before the Supreme Court but was eventually dismissed on a technicality. Nevertheless, NCJAR supporters later felt the lawsuit had been worth pursuing because it was important to hold the government accountable and because it fueled important research about the incarceration. Additionally, some congresspeople admitted that the pending $27 billion lawsuit compelled them to support the redress bill, which had a much more moderate $1.5 billion price tag.

As NCJAR’s lawsuit was making its way through the judicial system, the redress bill was gaining an increasing number of cosponsors in both the House and Senate — but still not enough support to make it out of the respective subcommittees. In 1985, the bill was reintroduced by Democratic House majority leader Jim Wright as “H.R. 442

First introduced in Congress as the Civil Liberties Act of 1987, House Resolution 442 was named to honor the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, a segregated Japanese American unit during World War II. The bill offered a way to atone and apologize for the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans. It granted $20,000 in reparations to all living former incarcerees and created a trust fund to support public education projects around the incarceration. The law also led to a presidential apology that recognized the incarceration as the result of “race hysteria, war prejudice, and the failure of political leadership.” The Civil Liberties Act was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan on August 10, 1988.

,” a reference to the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the most decorated U.S. military unit for its size and length of service. The following year, Democrats regained control of the House and Senate and appointed new subcommittee chairs who were sympathetic to the cause of redress. It was the perfect window of opportunity.

The groups that had sometimes been at odds were united during the leadup to the votes in Congress. The Japanese American members of Congress spoke one-on-one with their colleagues about what the bill meant to them personally. The JACL used its Washington connections to build more legislative support for redress. During the summer of 1987, NCRR arranged for 120 Japanese Americans of all ages and backgrounds to visit members of Congress. At the time, it was the largest Asian American lobbying campaign to converge in D.C. in a concentrated period of time.

In September of 1987, on the 200th anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution, the House passed H.R. 442 with a majority vote. The following April, the Senate passed a similar bill by a two-thirds margin. Finally, on August 10, 1988, President Reagan signed H.R. 442, also known as the Civil Liberties Act

Congress passed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 as a way to atone and apologize for the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. It granted $20,000 in reparations to all living former incarcerees and created a trust fund to support public education projects around the incarceration. The law also led to a presidential apology that recognized the incarceration as the result of “race hysteria, war prejudice, and the failure of political leadership.” The Civil Liberties Act was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan on August 10, 1988. Read more from Densho

, into law.

In 1990, almost half a century after their imprisonment during World War II, the first group of elderly Japanese Americans received their apology letters and $20,000 checks. The long journey towards reparations was finally over.

The movement for redress and reparations had a profound effect on the Japanese American psyche. In the years after the passage of the Civil Liberties Act, many Nisei started talking openly with friends and family about the war years for the first time. In Chicago, there was a surge of interest in documenting and sharing the community’s history. In the early 1990s, local leaders founded the Chicago Japanese American Historical Society, which led the Chicago portion of “REgenerations,” an oral history project of the Japanese American National Museum supported by the redress educational trust fund. The Chicago JACL chapter also recruited Nisei to speak to school classes about the incarceration.

Former JACL Chicago president Jane Kaihatsu, who helped with redress efforts, says the movement had an invaluable effect on the community’s ability to tell its story with the larger public. Without it, Japanese American incarceration would have been a missing chapter of American history.

In the early 2000s, the Japanese American story gained new relevance. On September 11, 2001 — sixty years after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor — militants associated with the Islamic extremist group Al-Qaeda

Al-Qaeda is a militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden in 1988. It seeks to rid Muslim countries of Western influence and replace their governments with fundamentalist Islamic regimes.

flew planes into the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon building in Arlington, Virginia. Also known as 9/11

9/11, also known as the September 11th attacks, were a series of airline hijackings and suicide attacks committed in 2001 by terrorists associated with the militant Islamic extremist group al-Qaeda. The attacks involved the hijacking of four planes, three of which were used to strike the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. Nearly 3,000 people were killed, making it the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

, the attacks killed nearly 3,000 people and injured thousands more.

As the terrorists were identified, Bill Yoshino felt an eerie sense of déjà vu as Arab and Muslim communities in the U.S. quickly became targets of suspicion and hate. Just like Japanese Americans, they were visible scapegoats for an attack by a foreign enemy.

At the time, Yoshino was leading the JACL’s anti-hate crime initiative. He says the September 11 attacks compelled many older Japanese Americans to publicly share their stories. Yoshino credits the redress movement for emboldening Japanese Americans to speak up on behalf of other communities.

In recent years, the organizing and activism work within the Chicago Japanese American community has expanded beyond supporting Arab and Muslim communities. In 2019, several Japanese American organizations led an Asian American coalition protesting the family separation and indefinite detention of migrants from Central America seeking asylum in the U.S. In 2020, as part of a larger national social justice movement called Tsuru for Solidarity

Tsuru for Solidarity was formed in 2019 in response to the detention of asylum-seeking mothers and children from Central America at a facility in Dilley, Texas. “Tsuru” means “crane” in Japanese and symbolizes transformation, healing, and nonviolence. Tsuru for Solidarity is now an independent project working to end detention sites and support immigrant and refugee communities targeted by racism, state violence, injustice, and oppression in the United States. Read more from Tsuru for Solidarity

, several dozen Chicago Japanese Americans hung paper cranes at the Cook County Jail to protest mass incarceration and police brutality toward Black and brown people. Since then, members of the local organization Nikkei Uprising have committed to prison and police abolition causes in Chicago, including regular demonstrations at the jail.

Chicago JACL chapter president Lisa Doi says she and other community members continue to make connections between Japanese American incarceration and a broader pattern of racial injustice in the United States.

In 2020, the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery sparked conversations around racial justice and the need to reckon with the country’s legacy of slavery and discrimination.

In particular, there was renewed interest in H.R. 40

The Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act is a bill introduced in 1989 by U.S. Representative John Conyers of Michigan. The act proposes a commission to study the impacts of slavery and discrimination in the colonies and the U.S. from 1619 to the present, and to recommend appropriate remedies for African Americans, including but not limited to reparations. Conyers reintroduced the bill every year from 1989 until his retirement almost 30 years later.

, the first legislative proposal for reparations for the African American community. The bill was first introduced in Congress in 1989 — less than a year after the signing of the Civil Liberties Act — by the late Representative John Conyers, the longest serving African American member of Congress. Conyers modeled the bill after the Japanese American reparations strategy. If passed, it would establish a commission to study the history of slavery and discrimination in the U.S. That commission would also develop proposals for reparations for African Americans.

The bill has been introduced every year since 1989, but it wasn’t until early 2021 that it gained enough traction to receive a proper congressional hearing. In anticipation of that hearing, members of Congress and supporting organizations asked Japanese Americans to write testimonies in support of the bill.

In April of 2021, the bill cleared the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary and is heading to the floor of the House of Representatives for a full vote.

Doi says the act of writing testimonies — this time in support of reparations for a different community — was a powerful exercise for Japanese Americans.

In addition to pushes for federal legislation, there have been other local reparations efforts in the Chicago area. In March of 2021, the city of Evanston, Illinois approved a reparations program that grants $25,000 in housing assistance to certain African American residents or their descendants harmed by past discriminatory housing policies. The program makes Evanston the first city in the U.S. to pay reparations to African American citizens.

While Doi acknowledges the significance of legislation like the Civil Liberties Act and local reparations efforts like the one in Evanston, she believes they still fall short of true repair. As the Japanese American community has learned by experience, this process also involves community dialogue, education, and storytelling.

When it comes to reckoning with an injustice as great as slavery, Doi says she’s hopeful that all Americans — especially Japanese Americans — will play an active role in that process.