Japanese-Americans: A Wrong Isn’t Righted If the Promise Is Broken

Last year, Congress sought to redress one of the most egregious wrongs in our nation’s history. This year, it seems, the market for such noble aspirations has fallen.

The Civil Liberties Act of 1988, signed into law by President Reagan one year ago this week, acknowledged that the World War II incarceration of loyal Americans of Japanese ancestry was motivated by “racial prejudice, wartime hysteria and a failure of political leadership.” The legislation recognized the “fundamental injustice of the evacuation, relocation and internment,” apologized “on behalf of the people of the United States,” and authorized restitution. Of the 120,000 Japanese Americans who were shipped off to desert barracks solely because of their race, about half had died when the bill was signed. Only those internees alive as of the date of enactment are eligible to receive the $20,000 compensation provided in the law.

One year after the law’s passage, not a dollar of reparations has been paid. Congress did not fund redress payments for 1989. No funds have been appropriated yet for 1990. The figure that one House committee recently recommended is so trivial as to recall the internment decision itself: a betrayal of the government’s promise, and again, a failure of political leadership.

As deplorable as the relocation of Japanese Americans was, one can argue that the hysteria of war and pressure from organized racists distorted the judgment of our democratic institutions. There are no excuses for today’s pathetic situation. Congress is authorized to appropriate $500 million in redress for 1990. To compensate just those survivors over the age of 70--a target Congress set in this year’s budget--would take $350 million. The House Appropriations Committee has recommended $50 million. That is one-half of what President Bush just promised to private businesses in Poland. Compared to the stealth bomber and the savings-and-loan bailout, of course, it is pocket change.

The Civil Liberties Act is a strong and sweeping declaration of America’s commitment to justice. Its passage was remarkable because the 60,000 surviving internees are not a powerful special interest. Lawyers and lobbyists did not win redress. The long, grass-roots efforts of the Japanese-American community to confront its 40 years of sorrow and anger, and to persuade Congress to redress this historical outrage, yielded an extraordinary, if long-delayed, victory of constitutional healing. The remedial effects benefit more than the concentration camp survivors. The law recognizes that individual freedoms restrict government action even during war. Among the legislation’s purposes are to discourage similar injustices in the future and “make more credible” U.S. statements of concern over other nations’ human-rights violations.

Today, as countries around the world struggle with their pasts in order to bring change, America’s commitment to remedy this sorry chapter can increase credibility that has been in short supply. The question now is whether this commitment will be fulfilled.

Since the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 was passed, more than 2,000 Japanese American concentration camp survivors have died. Some were veterans who, on returning from battle on behalf of the United States, had to visit their families behind barbed wire. Some were mothers who had lost sons in the war. All had lost their property, their freedom and their dignity. Without full funding of redress payments, many more will be denied their government’s recognition of the injustice inflicted upon them.

Our commitment to justice--and to these survivors--must not rise in an election year and fall when the debt comes due. If the grudging funding levels now being proposed are adopted, Congress and the Administration will have failed to heed the Civil Liberties Act’s purposes and broken its promise.