Thursday, May 12, 2011

Reparations for Japanese Internment

The following documents are designed to aid in your discussions on When the Emperor was Divine by Julie Otsuka.

The Redress of the US Government.

In 1980, Congress established the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC) to study the matter. On February 24, 1983, the commission issued a report entitled Personal Justice Denied, condemning the internment as "unjust and motivated by racism rather than real military necessity". The Commission recommended that $20,000 in reparations be paid to those Japanese Americans who had been victims of internment.

In 1988, U.S. President (and former California governor) Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which had been sponsored by Representative Norman Mineta and Senator Alan K. Simpson — the two had met while Mineta was interned at a camp in Wyoming — which provided redress of $20,000 for each surviving detainee, totaling $1.2 billion dollars. The question of to whom reparations should be given, how much, and even whether monetary reparations were appropriate were subjects of sometimes contentious debate.

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Unfortunately, I am unable to post the document itself, but here is a link to Bill Clinton's apology letter released October 1, 1993:

http://www.imdiversity.com/villages/asian/images/apology-gr2.jpg

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