When President Roosevelt signed Declaration 9066 around 120,000 Japanese within the U.S. were relocated to internment camps along the west coast. Japanese Americans were interned for as long four years at these camps, often with meager food and facilities, as the camps were required to be entirely self-sufficient. Upon returning to their homes, the internees often found they had lost land and jobs in their absence, and faced large hostility from their neighbors. Although the internees continued on with their lives, many hold scars from their experiences.
The aim of the Japanese Redress and Reparations groups, is to get the government to address the wrongs done to the Japanese through internment. In 1981 the Commision on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians held a public hearing in Washington to address this issue, and one of speakers at the committee was Bill Kochiyama, Yuri Kochiyama's husband. Over 750 interned Japanese related their experiences during the war at the committee. There is a clip from an interview with him on the committee below.
Congress eventually passed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which granted $20,000 to any still living internees, as well as a note of apology signed by the president of the United States. The bill did not address the incarceration of Japanese-Latin Americans.
Yuri said in regards to this success, "I hope because the Japanese ...were able to win redress that other people who feel that they have been wronged in anyway that they will also initiate a redress movement, and the blacks have. ... [but] it's going to have to be all people supporting them, it can 't just be in the black community." (from Yuri Kochiyama: A Passion For Justice)
Several informative sites on Japanese Internment and Effects (Also in Resources):
“Children of the Camps” has a great deal of information on the history of the internment and later attempts at redress, including a timeline and copies of Executive Order 9066, the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, and the signed apology from Bill Clinton.
“Japanese Internment Camps and Their Effects” is a student built website sent in as a competition for thinkquest.org. The website describes the life of the internee before, during, and after their incarceration.
Video - from Yuri Kochiyama: A Passion For Justice
Bill Kochiyama talks about his fighting for Japanese American Internment Redress:
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