Senate OK on Bill Delights Japanese-American League

Senate approval last week of reparations for Japanese-Americans who were interned during World War II was a long-awaited triumph for a national group that has worked for the bill’s passage, the Japanese-American Citizens League.

“It’s marvelous, splendid; I am simply delighted that the Senate passed the bill,” said Hitoshi Kajihara, president of the San Francisco-based league.

In 1980, the league formed a legislative education committee, primarily to lobby for passage of a law to compensate interned Japanese-Americans.

Kajihara, who spent nearly four years in a Tule Lake, Calif., detention center, said he was not worried about possible repercussions of the bill.

“When an issue crops up, we have to address it,” he said. “If there is dormant racism, we have to face that situation. Back then (during World War II) there’s no question that the racism was overt. The law has been a long time coming, but now all we need is for President Reagan to sign it. I am very hopeful.”

The congressional vote, he added, “proves that when our government commits an injustice, the legislature can step in and correct that.”

Ron Wakabayashi, national director of the league, said in a statement after the bill’s passage, “The healing process can start, and we can move on.”

The Japanese-American Citizens League, an educational and civil rights organization founded in 1929, “is the largest and oldest Japanese-American organization in the United States,” said Grayce Oyihara, legislative director of the league’s legislative education committee.