September 11, 1981

The United States Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians
318 6th Avenue South
Seattle, Washington 98104

Honorable Members:

We are members of the generation born at the end of World War II. We were raised in the proud and optimistic spirit of America, at that time. Our fathers and Uncles served in the armed forces and came home to the admiration of their fellow citizens and to start their lives again.

Had we been born Japanese American, our lives would have been terribly different. We might have been born in a concentration camp. We would have been raised in an atmosphere of apprehension and fear. Our fathers and uncles, (even those who served in the armed forces), would have returned to be looked down on by their fellow citizens, would have found their businesses destroyed and their lands gone.

Those Japanese Americans who were placed in camps were every bit as much the innocent victims of war as any civilian injured or rendered homeless in a war zone. Even though we showered money and aid upon the war-torn countries, we have yet to do anything to erase the scars of the Japanese American war victims in our own country.

We believe that Americans are morally bound to make reparations to these war victims. That the camps were wrong is not debated. That they constituted institutionalized racial injustice cannot be denied. Racial injustice is unacceptable. Government inspired and sanctioned racial injustice is unconcionable.

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We urge you to right this wrong with reparations and lay to rest this aberration in our free society's past.

Very truly yours,
PARR, PEEPLES & CARRIER
A Professional Services Corporation

[Signed]

WAYNE L. WILLIAMS
Of Counsel

CASEY CLEGG

[Signed]