A mere two months after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into effect Executive Order 9066, which authorized the relocating of all individuals of Japanese ancestry living in the western states to hastily constructed “civilian assembly centers” and “war relocation centers,” all for the sake of “national security.” Of the 120,000 ethnic Japanese who were interned in the horse-stalls and military-style barracks, 2/3 of them were Nisei and Sansei Japanese Americans.

Shortly after the end of WWII and the closing of the camps, efforts to redress injustices committed against the Japanese Americans (JA) by the federal government began to materialize. Known, as the redress movement, JA activists and leaders, with the support of community members, began lobbying for an official apology and reparations from the government.

Popular discourses surrounding the movement generally focus on the efforts of prominent individuals and legislative milestones achieved by the JA community as a whole, but too often neglect the impacts the movement had on the development of ethnic, racial, and self-identity amongst the members of the community.

In particular, Nisei and Sansei JA’s, the former suppressing their ethnic identity to repress memories associated with internment and the latter finding little basis to establish their ethnic identities in an assimilated American lifestyle, experienced an increased sense of what it meant to be a JA in America as the movement developed. The 1960s and 70s, the decades when the movement began to gain momentum, were rich in anti-discrimination activism, and this, matched with their improvement in economic status, the growing international status of Japan, and American cosmopolitanism gave JA’s the confidence needed to fight for their rights. This pride brought forth the resurgence of Japanese ethnic identity.

Additionally, the movement contributed to the emergence of a collective pan-Asian identity. Japanese Americans began to identify with other Asian ethnic groups in America who shared similar experiences, that of discrimination, and with the prevalence of values such as ethnic solidarity and group consciousness that were reflective of the ongoing Civil Rights Movement, effectively found their efforts to be part of a greater “Asian American movement” that protested racist hiring practices, ethnocentric school curricula that were biased against minorities, demeaning popular stereotypes, and gentrification of historically Asian American neighborhoods.

Finally, their participation in the movement also pressed the Americanization of Japanese Americans that lead to them reaffirming their consciousness as Americans. Fully aware of their unalienable rights as American citizens, the Nisei and Sansei JA’s utilized every constitutional means necessary to mobilize individuals and gather support. The fight to redress was not only a JA issue, but rather an issue for all Americans – Caucasian Americans, African Americans, Latino Americans, etc – who stood on the basic moral principles of freedom and justice.

August 10, 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act, authorizing $1.25 billion in reparation payments to an estimated 70,000 survivors of the concentration camps. Each internee was to receive $20,000 and a formal letter of apology from the president of the United States; the redress movement prevailed.

As professor David S. Meyer writes in his article, “How Social Movements Matter,” “social movements change the people who participate in them, educating as well as mobilizing activists, and thereby promoting ongoing awareness and action that extends beyond the boundaries of one movement or campaign.” Indeed, Dr. Meyer, indeed.

 by Kenji Tran

References:

Le, C.N. 2011. “Assimilation & Ethnic Identity” Asian-Nation: The Landscape of Asian America. <http://www.asian-nation.org/assimilation.shtml&gt; (November 22, 2011).

Meyer, David S. 2003. How social movements matter. Contexts. 2(4): 30-35.

Takezawa, Yasuko I. 1995. Breaking the Silence: Redress and Japanese American Ethnicity. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.