TESTIMONY PRESENTED BY MINORU YASUI
TO
COMMISSION ON WARTIME RELOCATION AND INTERNMENT OF CIVILIANS

Minoru Yasui, Esq.,
_________
Denver, Colorado 80210.

for

NATIONAL COMMITTEE FOR REDRESS,
JAPANESE AMERICAN CITIZENS LEAGUE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. JAPANESE AMERICAN CITIZENS LEAGUE - Page: 1

II. PERSONAL BACKGROUND OF MINORU YASUI - Page 4

III. EVACUATION EXPERIENCES OF MINORU YASUI - Page 8

IV. POSITION OF THE JACL ON REDRESS - Page 28

V. WHAT JACL EXPECTS OF THE COMMISSION - Page 36

VI: REMEDIES AND RECOMMENDATIONS - Page 44

VII: CONCLUSION - Page 47

APPENDIX I - Page 49

July 16, 1981,
Washington, D.C.

TESTIMONY PRESENTED BY MINORU YASUI
TO
COMMISSION ON WARTIME RELOCATION AND INTERNMENT OF CIVILIANS

Minoru Yasui, Esq.,
_________
Denver, Colorado 80210.

for

NATIONAL COMMITTEE FOR REDRESS,
JAPANESE AMERICAN CITIZENS LEAGUE

I am Minoru Yasui of Denver, Colorado. My appearance here today, before this Commission, is as Chairman of the National Committee for Redress of the Japanese American Citizens League, to present testimony orally and in writing, on behalf of the national Japanese American Citizens League.

I. JAPANESE AMERICAN CITIZENS LEAGUE (JACL)

The Japanese American Citizens League, hereinafter referred to as JACL, is a national membership organization, composed of citizens of the United States of America, who are concerned with issues involving the welfare, interests, responsibilities and civil rights of all Japanese Americans.

All members of the JACL are U.S. citizens. Although most members are of Japanese ancestry, membership is not restricted to only persons of Japanese ancestry. There are a number of active non-Japanese individuals on our membership rolls, and there are a few non-Japanese presidents of our chapters, as well as other JACL officials who are non-Japanese, but who subscribe and support the basic American principles to which this organization is dedicated.

As of present, JACL has some 110 chapters, with more than 30,000 members in 39 states of the United States. Geographically, JACL chapters are spread from California to New York, from coast-to-coast, and from Minnesota to Texas. Newly-chartered chapters are being organized in Hawaii, as well as in Tokyo, Japan. It is re-emphasized that members of the JACL must be, and are, U.S. citizens.

JACL headquarters are located in San Francisco, California. The major concentrations of JACL members are in northern and southern California. Other JACL districts include Central California, with 8 chapters; the Pacific Northwest, with chapters in Oregon and Washington; the Inter-Mountain district with chapters in Idaho and Utah; the Mountain-Plains region, with chapters and members in Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, New Mexico and Texas; the Midwest area, with 9 chapters in 6 states; and the Eastern district with four chapters in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, and the District of Columbia.

Historically, JACL was first organized in 1929. Local beginnings were probably the American Loyalty League, during the early 1920's, in Fresno, California. Originated as a patriotic organization to promote Americanism, the movement spread northward to San Francisco, and further to Seattle and to Portland, as well southward into the Los Angeles area.

From those modest beginnings, during the past 52 years, the National JACL has developed as a vigorous, viable national organization of Japanese Americans in the United States, on a nationwide basis.

JACL was intimately involved in the initial stages of the evacuation process. Immediately after the bombing of Pearl Harbor by enemy Japanese forces on December 7, 1941, most of the older, recognized leaders of Japanese American communities on the West Coast were arrested and taken into custody by the FBI. There was confusion, fear and uncertainty, in all communities on the West Coast.

As a patriotic American organization, JACL was called upon by governmental authorities, as well as by various communities, to fill the vacuum of leadership, and to provide channels of communication and information for everyone concerned. JACL fulfilled that role.

Paradoxically too, because of the close proximity of JACL headquarters to the Presidio of San Francisco from whence the Commanding General issued his military orders to clear the West Coast of all persons of Japanese ancestry in 1942, and because the Wartime Civilian Control Administration (WCCA) and other governmental officials were headquartered at the Whitcomb Hotel in San Francisco, JACL officials and community leaders were readily summoned to meet and to confer with appropriate authorities in San Francisco, during that uncertain period.

JACL, as an organization, and through its local and national leadership, did fully cooperate in the wartime relocation and detention of Japanese Americans on the West Coast in 1942, in many instances, alleviating harsh and unnecessary requirements. There is no question, looking back now at those agonizing days, that such cooperation and orderly conduct was in the best interests of the people and of our nation, albeit under tremendous implied and expressed pressures and coercions by the authorities on the West Coast at that time.

Unquestionably, such cooperation saved our country a great deal in manpower and resources, for had there been massive resistance, there would have been extensive disorders, and undoubtedly blood would have run in the streets, to no avail, for the might of the military power of our government could not have been denied.

Thus it is, our country and our people owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to the then young, and untested leadership of JACL of 1942. Called upon to respond to an impossible crisis, the JACL organization came through nobly, with honor intact, and in the best interests of the people and our country.

II. PERSONAL BACKGROUND OF MINORU YASUI

I, Minoru Yasui, was born in 1916, in the lush, fruit-growing valley of Hood River, nestled in the Cascade Mountains, abutting the Columbia River gorge on the north and at the foot of Mt. Hood to the south, in the State of Oregon. I am the 3rd of six sons and three daughters of Masuo and Shidzuyo Yasui. My father had come to the United States during about 1903, and my mother landed in Tacoma, Washington in 1912. My grandfather, Shinataro Yasui, had earlier come to this country from the rice paddies of Okayama, Japan, during the late 1890's.

My grandfather, all of my uncles, and my father had worked on railroad gangs in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana. By 1906, my father and his older brother had settled in Hood River valley, where they developed a mercantile business, which they supported by working as janitors at night, sweeping out the old Butler Bank and doing odd jobs to acquire capital to operate their business. They branched out into the fruit-growing and farming business, by grub-staking Japanese tenant farmers, helping them to acquire acreages of logged-over stump land, which they laboriously cleared by hand, with teams of horses and blowing stumps with dynamite. As small plots were cleared, they were planted to orchards of apples, pears and cherries; in the intervening years, until the trees grew to fruit-bearing size, strawberries were planted between the rows of young orchards. By 1940, there were probably about 75-100 families of Japanese ancestry in Hood River valley -- and they had sunk their roots deep, with most of them owning their land and intending to make this their home.

I grew up in Oregon, attended schools there, and believed myself an American equal to all other Americans. I loved the green hills of home, and believed that this magnificent land was my land and my country. I studied the history of our United States, her institutions, and our Constitution and our laws. I was brought up to be an American.

I am an attorney-at-law, licensed to practice in the State of Oregon (1939) and in the State of Colorado (1946). I did actively engage in the practice of law for 25 years, both in Oregon and in Colorado.

At present, I am the executive director of the Commission on Community Relations for the City and County of Denver, Colorado. I serve in such capacity by appointment by the Mayor of Denver. I have held this present position since 1967.

After graduating from the University of Oregon Law School in 1939, I passed the bar examinations in Oregon that same year. Although I worked very briefly in Portland, Oregon for some six months, I accepted employment with the Consul General of Japan, in Chicago, Illinois, in March, 1940, as a political analyst. I was so employed at the outbreak of war on December 7, 1941.

During the period of my employment with the Consulate General of Japan, in Chicago, Illinois, I registered with the U.S. State Department, as required of all United States citizens, as a civilian agent of a foreign government, in compliance with then existing laws.

With the outbreak of war with Japan, I fortwith resigned my position on December 8, 1941. Moreover, inasmuch as I held a reserve commission as a 2nd Lieutenant, Infantry, in the U.S. Army Reserve Officers Corps, I was ordered to report for active duty in the United States Army, at Camp Vancouver, Washington, on January 19, 1942. I did so report in person.

However, the commanding general at Camp Vancouver, Washington, did not accept my services, and I was not inducted into the active service of the United States military forces, at the time or at any subsequent and separate occasions. I did spend the duration of World War II as a civilian, despite my reserve officer commission in the U.S. Army.

I had re-opened a law office in Portland, Oregon, during January, 1942. Because many of the Japanese Issei leaders in Portland, Oregon, and in Hood River, Oregon, had been taken into custody by the FBI immediately upon the outbreak of war, and because the wives and families of such men were frantic with worry concerning the well-being and health of their husbands and fathers, I agreed to attend the enemy alien hearings in Missoula, Montana, during the first part of February, 1942. My own father, Masuo Yasui, was among those interned at Ft. Missoula, Montana.

As an attorney-at-law, I did request leave to attend hearings of the Issei from Hood River and Portland, Oregon, at Ft. Missoula, Montana. However, except for the perfunctory hearing accorded to my father, Masuo Yasui, I was not permitted to attend nor to participate in any other hearings. However, I did obtain permission to visit a dozen or so old family friends to convey and receive messages from and for their families.

It struck me then, and it continues to bother me now, that although there was a war going on, and these individuals were technically "enemy aliens", it was my impression, constitutionally and legally, that any person accused should have the right to be represented by counsel, and certainly to be confronted by witnesses against him.

It is true that these "enemy alien" proceedings were not "criminal prosecution", in the sense of the 6th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, but certainly in view of the enforced detention, in some cases for 4 1/2 years, they were in the nature of criminal proceedings. Martial law had not been declared, and the civil courts of the United States were open and operating. It was and it is my impression that the 6th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution applied to all persons, and was not limited to citizens of the United States.

More important, as to documentation against my father, Masuo Yasui, it was indicated that he was an important community leader, that he had prospered and had substantial influence, that he had received a medal from the Emperor of

Japan in 1936 or 1937 for promoting good relations between Japan the United States, that he know Japanese foreign service officials on a personal basis, and such similar allegations as would indicate that Masuo Yasui was a rather influential individual among Japanese American circles.

Most damaging "evidence" were childish maps of the Panama Canal, with detailed diagrams of how canal locks work. These drawings had been seized in the home of my father at 704 - 12th Street, Hood River, Oregon, subsequent to December 7, 1941. The authorities indicated suspicions that these maps and drawings indicated a nefarious plot in which my father was implicated by possession of such documents, directed against the Panama Canal. Despite explanations that these maps and diagrams were schoolwork drawings of his children, the officials kept insisting that these documents indicated intention of sabotage against the Panama Canal. When my father steadfastly denied such intentions, the officer demanded: "Prove that you didn't intend to blow up the Panama Canal!"

Such were the kinds of evidence utilized to intern enemy aliens of Japanese ancestry in the United States, because they "might" be dangerous to the security of the United States. One needed only to have been born in Japan, of Japanese parentage, and to have been prominent and active in civic affairs to be interned for the duration, during those years. My father's bones and my mother's bones are buried in the soil of the United States, to which they contributed much in their lifetimes.

(However, this Commission is not concerned with internment of "enemy aliens" of Japanese ancestry, so this matter will not be pursued.)

III. EVACUATION EXPERIENCES OF MINORU YASUI:

Returning disheartened from Missoula, Montana, in February, 1942, I found that in Portland, Oregon, wild rumors and inflammatory scare stories were rampant. Possibilities of invasion, signaling out to sea, potential fifth column activities, and similar fears were widely and wildly circulated. Hatred and vicious vindictiveness were expressed not only against the Japanese enemy, but against all persons of Japanese ancestry who were immediately at hand and against whom hostilities could be vented.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order No. 9066 on February 19, 1942. As an attorney, and certainly as a patriotic, loyal American, it seemed to me, on its face, a perfectly proper order to delegate power to appropriate subordinates to designate military areas, and to prescribe rules and regulates as to ingress, egress, remain in or conduct within such areas.

The subsequent enactment, on March 21, 1942, by the Congress of the United States of Public Law 77-503, which made it a criminal offense knowingly to violate any lawful order of the military or of the executive branch of government did not seem to me then, nor now, to be an unwarranted or unreasonable governmental act.

These logical steps by the executive and legislative branches of the government in fighting a war seemed then and now to be wholly appropriate. The un-expressed intent of how those powers would be exercised is another matter, but were scarcely actionable. Certainly, the power to wage war carries with it the concomitant power to wage war successfully. Anything necessary to be done, should be done. The question of what is "necessary", following by further questions as who decided what is necessary, and whether such decisions are subject to judicial or other review as to whether they were indeed necessary or reasonably related to the necessities of the military situation, are subsequent matters subject to determination.

Under authority of Executive Order 9066, Gen. John L. DeWitt, as Commanding General of the Western Defense Command, issued Public Proclamation #1, on March 2, 1942, defining certain military zones in the western portions of Washington, Oregon and California, and in the southern third of Arizona. Public Proclamation #2, issued on March 14, 1942, further defined additional military areas.

However, Public Proclamation #3, issued on March 24, 1942, required "all Japanese, German and Italian aliens, and all persons of Japanese ancestry" (underlining mine) to remain within their place of residence between the hours of 8:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m., and to be permitted to be only "at their place of residence or employment" at all other times, and to travel not more than 5 miles "from their place of residence" struck me as being a gross violation of the concept of equality of rights of citizens.

The restrictions upon freedom of movement is of small moment; we were at war, and all of us were restricted in many ways.

However, to make it a crime for me to do exactly the same thing as any non-Japanese persons could do, harmlessly, for example as being 5.1 mile away from one's residence -- and to make that act a crime for me and not for a non-Japanese person, solely on the basis of ancestry, was, in my opinion, an absolutely abominable concept and wholly unacceptable.

It seemed to me, since the latter part of February, 1942, and during the early days of March, 1942, that the military was utilizing the classification of "persons of Japanese ancestry" in a wholly unlawful manner to distinguish between citizens. It seemed to me that permitting the military so to do would undermine the very fundamental bases on which our country was established. Our law and our basic concept of justice had always been founded upon the fundamental principle that no person should be punished but for that individual's act, and not because of one's ancestry.

Completely apart from the fact that the military order affected me personally and directly, as "a person of Japanese ancestry", it seemed to me then, as it does to me now, that to allow our government to act on the basis of one's ancestry to go unchallenged was to betray all that America and the United States had stood for and proclaimed to all the world, in 1776 and today, that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." I could not permit myself to stand idly by and allow this to be amended by adding "except in time of war, and if you are of Japanese ancestry".

As a matter of hindsight, paraphrasing Justice Owen Roberts of the U.S. Supreme court, I was "born of parents as to whom I had no choice, and of an ancestry from which I cannot resign." To impose penalties on such a basis does not only shock the conscience and outrages my sense of justice, but deeply undermines the very foundation of our American democracy.

It seemed to me then, as it seems to me now, that it is my responsibility to try to set my country right, if I believe her wrong -- it is not somebody else's responsibility. We cannot expect others to fight our battles for us, unless we ourselves are willing to walk that lonesome road, alone in the conviction of the righteousness of our stand.

The arbitrary, racist and wholly unwarranted designation utilized by the military, later euphemistically changed to include "all Japanese aliens and non-aliens (citizens), could become crystallized as a part of our U.S. law, setting us back to before the days of the Magna Carta of King John's time, when whole families could be executed for the wrongs committed by one's father. We, as a nation, we as citizens, cannot permit such an insidious erosion of the fundamental rights of all Americans. We pray that this Commission will delve deep and hard into this underlying question to assure that it shall never happen again.

Being, in March, 1942, a young and headstrong up-start of 26 years of age, and believing unshakably to be an American equal to all other Americans, and most importantly of all, somehow believing that I was acting to protect that rights of all Americans then living and yet to be born, I consulted with a number of eminent constitutional authorities in the City of Portland, Oregon, in regard to this issue. Most agreed with me. I did retain Earl F. Bernard, Esq., as my attorney for a test of the military proclamation, keeping in mind the ruling of the United States Supreme Court in the Ex Parte Milligan case, 4 Wall. 2 (1866) wherein the Court stated that "wars are fought to preserve and protect the rights and liberties of individuals".

On March 28, 1942, after 8:00 p.m., I deliberately violated Public Proclamation #3 of Gen. John L. DeWitt, by walking the streets of Portland, Oregon, until 11:00 p.m. that night. I had had my secretary call the FBI to inform them that a "Jap" was walking on 3rd Avenue in violation of curfew, and to request that such individual be arrested for such violation. It was my willful intention to initiate a test case to protect the constitutional rights of all United States citizens against arbitrary and capricious whims and prejudices of military officers of the United States. When a police officer declined to arrest me on the street, telling me to "run along home, sonny boy, or you'll get in trouble", I went to the 2nd Avenue police station and insisted on being arrested and booked for violation of military curfew. The police sergeant on duty obliged me, and I stayed over the weekend in jail. On March 30, 1942, I was released from jail on bail.

I thereafter continued my practice of law in Portland, Oregon, dealing with the myriads of legal problems relating to the upcoming evacuation of all persons of Japanese ancestry from Military Zone #1 on the West Coast. I have some extensive personal knowledge of the tremendous economic losses incurred by persons of Japanese ancestry because of the immediate pendency of the evacuation orders by the military in the spring of 1942.

Commencing about May 2, 1942, Multnomah County in Oregon was cleared of all persons of Japanese ancestry and confined in the horse and cattle stalls at the North Portland Livestock Pavilion, then designated as the North Portland WCCA Assembly Center. Knowing that impending orders were forthcoming, I had returned to the place of my birth in Hood River, Oregon, also in violation of military orders -- which I regarded as non-binding upon me, as a U.S. citizen -- a week or 10 days prior to May 2nd.

During the first week in May, 1942, the U.S. Army dispatched a detachment of M.P.'s led by a lieutenant, who came to my home in Hood River, Oregon, and ordered me at gun-point to return to Portland, Oregon, to be locked up at the North Portland Assembly Center. Not wishing to be shot then and there, I agreed to drive my private automobile, accompanied by Mollie Kageyama, who had obtained written permission to proceed to North Portland Assembly Center to join her fiance, Milton Maeda, to be married to him there. A jeep with armed M.P.'s led the way down the Columbia Gorge highway, with me and Mollie Kageyama in my Chevrolet, followed by a U.S. Army sedan, occupied by a driver, a lieutenant of the U.S. Army, and an M.P. armed with what appeared to be a Thompson sub-machine gun. I thus entered the North Portland WCCA center during the early weeks of May, 1942.

I can testify from personal experience and observation that the North Portland WCCA assembly center was a livestock exposition hall, surrounded by manproof fences, topped with concertinas of barbed wire, and with guard towers equipped with searchlights at strategic intervals. Within the vast rambling building, where animals had been stabled, the walls were calsomined. Inasmuch as the quarters were intended to be only temporary, some managers were still in place -- and many a baby of Japanese ancestry -- deemed by the Commanding General to pose a potential threat to the security of the United States -- slept in such mangers at the North Portland

Livestock pavilion, which reminds of another babe who similarly slept in a manger some 2,000 years ago, only to grow up to be crucified. Certainly, substantial numbers of the evacuee population were devout Christians, and this humbling parallel was not lost upon them.

Although it is true that full disclosures of the unspeakable activities being carried on in the Nazi concentration camps in Europe were not fully known, as of 1942, nevertheless enough was known of large contingents of Jews who were being shipped to various destinations in the Greater Reich like cattle -- and speculation was rife. Unthinkable atrocities were suspected, and the consequences of the Nazi policies were blood-chilling. Surely those kinds of things could not happen in America! But, in the North Portland live stock barn, in 1942, where some 4,000 human beings were confined like cattle, there were scary rumors, apprehensions and fears in regard to frightening similarities, especially as large headlines in local newspapers clamored: "MAKE THE JAPS SUFFER!" "LET THEM HURT AND BE MISERABLE!" "CASTRATE 'EM, STERILIZE 'EM", "SHIP THEM OUT!" "GET RIDE OF THEM!"

The uncertainty, the not knowing what was going to happen, not knowing where we would be shipped or what would be there when we got there, not knowing when mass movements would take place, not knowing for how long we would be confined, or indeed not knowing whether any of us would get out alive -- all of these unknowns posed tremendous anxieties on individuals, and especially on those with families.

We were confined in the North Portland livestock barn for four, hot and stifling months, from May through June, July and August, 1942. In the crowded and congested confines of that livestock barn, life somehow went on; we were not permitted outdoors, except those who were ill of infectious disease, and as to those an infirmary was constructed at the rear of the main building. We survived; somehow the days and nights went by in dull, monotonous procession. The food was terrible, but nutritious and served in huge quantities; people got stomach upsets from the strong soup residue left on cooking utensils and on plates, cups and dishes. The

living quarters were primitive, and the continuous noise of people talking, or coughing or sneezing, or someone having a bad dream at night, was nervewracking. During the day, there were interminable card games, and for young folks, nursery schools, crafts, dancing and other social activities which the evacuees operated and conducted. But, time in confinement dragged through that hot, hot summer.

During the mid-part of September, 1942, orders were issued and contingents of evacuees were moved from the North Portland Assembly Center by what seemed to be World War I troop trains. We were advised that our destination was "Minidoka, Idaho". None of us knew where that was. It was a most disagreeable and miserable trip, leaving the greenness of the coastal mountain ranges for the sere desert lands in the interior of Idaho, somewhere, with all train window blinds drawn -- presumably to prevent us from know where we were going. The M.P.'s guarding us, and the colored stewards on the train, commiserated with us, en route -- getting us cold beer and iced drinks at station stops, which seemed extraordinarily numerous since we were sidetracked for other priority trains, for those of us who had money.

After an all-day trip, the train was shunted off to a siding. We disembarked in the middle of the desert, and many an evacuee sat on their belongings dumped along the side of the railroad tracks and wept. It was a desolate feeling, no trees or greenness about -- only sage brush, rocks, and shimmering heat of the desert. We were transported by Army trucks to yet uncompleted barracks, over raw dirt roads, choking in the dust kicked up by trucks in front of us. And dust permeated everything; it got into our nostrils, our eyes, our clothes, our bedding, our foods, our shoes -- and as we perspired, we became mud dolls, with rivulets of sweat streaking our faces, arms and bodies. And, this was our contribution to the war effort? This was a consequence of our ancestry? Nothing made much sense.

As I recall, on that doleful and woeful afternoon in September, 1942, there were already some 7,000 residents from the Puyallup WCCA center who had preceded us to the Minidoka WRA camp. The so-called Seattle group were settled into

barracks closest to the administration cluster and nearest to the front gate. The Portland contingent was dumped off further up the hill -- and the barracks assigned to us were yet incomplete with no partitions, and no inner siding. Plumbing had not been completed, and outdoor privies were provided, usually of the four-holer variety, as I remember. Showers and wash rooms were available, but it is my recollection that water heaters had not yet been installed. Mess halls were erected and equipped, and food supplies were adequate. This was to be home for the duration -- but none of us knew how long "duration" would be.

As a young bachelor, I could survive. The Shiozaki brothers allowed me into their family unit, and bachelors all, we had a ball from a social standpoint. However, the plight of families was depressing, especially those families whose father and husband had been interned elsewhere. Somehow, the wives and mothers, with their children, were making do, and my thoughts turned to my own mother, Shidzuyo Yasui, with a 17 year old son and a 15 year old daughter, somewhere in the Pinedale WCCA camp in the hot and humid San Joaquin valley, near Fresno, California, or perhaps at the Tule Lake WRA camp in the tule swamp area just south of the Oregon border, near Klamath Falls, Oregon. My older brother, Ray T. Yasui, and his wife, Mikie, had their first born at the Tule Lake WRA camp on July 29, 1942. Meanwhile, we had heard that our father, Masuo Yasui, had been moved out of Ft. Missoula, Montana, and had been shipped off to Ft. Sill, Oklahoma or to Camp Livingston in Louisiana, or someplace. Communications between members of separated family groups were uncertain at best.

I was confined at the Minidoka WRA camp from mid-September, 1942 until 18 November 1942, at which time a United States marshall escorted me to Portland, Oregon, in a private car, and in handcuffs for me, in order to appear before the U.S. District Court for Oregon in connection with my test case. We made an overnight stop in Bend, Oregon, and there I was fed jail food and confined overnight in the lock-up. At that time, I had not yet been convicted of any crime, and the pre-

sumption in law was that I was innocent -- and yet I was treated no better than a common, convicted criminal, despite bail having been posted for my release in March 30, 1942.

On November 19, 1942, the Honorable James Alger Fee, U.S. District Judge for Oregon, ruled that the military curfew orders as imposed against United States citizens of Japanese ancestry, on the basis of their ancestry along, was unconstitutional, illegal, and unenforceable. However, in my specific case, by some weird distortion of facts and twisted interpretations of law, the judge ruled that I was not a citizen of the United States because my conduct showed that I had elected to be a Japanese national, and that therefore the military order of curfew could be enforced against me, as an enemy alien of Japanese ancestry. He imposed a fine of $5,000.00 and sentenced to one year imprisonment.

Although application was made for any release on bond during the pendency of appeal, the judge denied such petition. The jailers at the Multnomah County Jail threw me into solitary confinement, and there I languished from November 19, 1942 until August 17, 1943, for a period of nine months.

Meanwhile, the case of United States vs. Gordon Hirabayashi had been initiated during about May, 1942, in Seattle, Washington, when Gordon Hirabayashi had refused to report to a Civilian Control station as a preliminary step to being sent to a WCCA assembly center. Coincidentally, he had also been charged with violating the military curfew orders. During about August, 1942, U.S. District Judge William Black for the Western District of Washington, in Seattle, Washington, had found that the military orders of the Western Defense Command to be lawful, constitutional and enforceable exercise of war power, as imposed against at United States citizen of Japanese ancestry, and had found Gordon Hirabayashi guilty on both counts, imposing concurrent sentences of three months in jail for each offense. Gordon Hirabayashi appealed.

Evidently, our two cases were joined at the U.S. Court of Appeals level in San Francisco, California, although it is difficult to understand why the Hirabayashi case should have been held up for three months, awaiting decision in my case in Portland, Oregon. At any rate, because of the importance of the constitutional issue and the urgency of the matter, there was no review or decision at the Circuit Court level, but both cases were sent up to the United States Supreme Court on certiorari.

As is now history, the U.S. Supreme Court found in the Hirabayashi case that the military could lawfully make distinctions between citizens because of ancestry and military security. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to examine or question the bona fides of that military decision. The overwhelming tragedy for the United States and all our people is that the highest court of our country failed to require actual relationship between wildest rumors based on outright racial prejudices and individual guilt or responsibility. Gen. John L. DeWitt's indictment of the loyalty of a group of people, in this particular case, all persons of Japanese ancestry, was in the nature of a bill of attainder which is completely repugnant to our basic concepts of Anglo-American law.

Since the imposition of curfew was regarded as a rather minor inconvenience, the United States Supreme Court held that such a minor infringement of the constitutional right of freedom of movement would yield to the weightier considerations of winning the war. Such reasoning, it seems to me, is akin saying that a woman is "a little bit pregnant". But, the horrendous implications of that U.S. Supreme Court decision is that governmental actions may be taken against an individual because of the ancestry of that individual, without any relationship to the loyalty or disloyalty of that person. This concept is now embodied in our constitutional law, and must be overturned for the sake of all Americans of whatever ancestry, lest they be punished some day in the future for their ancestry.

Since the conviction of Gordon Hirabayashi could be sustained on the grounds of his having violated a "lawful" curfew order of the military, as decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, the question of whether the military could forcibly remove an individual on the basis of ancestry from a military area was left undecided in the June, 1943, decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. That latter matter, most regrettably, was also answered in the affirmative, in the following year, in the Korematsu case.

My case, unfortunately for me, was considered but a minor adjunct to the Hirabayashi case, and was not carefully reviewed and decided. I would have most strongly desired to have had the tightly reasoned decision of U.S. District Judge James Alger Fee thoroughly considered and reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court -- but such did not happen. Hopefully, some day, the principles and decision enunciated by Judge Fee can be the basis for overturning the Hirabayashi and Korematsu cases.

Inasmuch as the government attorneys did not anywise contend that I had lost my United States citizenship, the U.S. Supreme Court remanded my case back to the U.S. District Court for Oregon for modification of judgment and for re-sentencing in accordance with the decision in the Hirabayashi case. My release came through on August 17, 1943, because although I had been sentenced to serve one year in jail, having been confined for nine months, with one-third off of good behavior (and it is difficult to conceive of how one could conduct oneself otherwise in solitary confinement), it was considered that I had served my full time in jail. The $5,000.00 fine was suspended. Thus freed, I was returned to the Minidoka WRA center under escort by a U.S. marshall from Portland, Oregon, to Idaho. On my return trip to the relative freedom of the Minidoka WRA camp, I was not handcuffed this time. I savored of being able to walk in the open air and to see the blue sky above. After having been confined to a six-by-eight foot cell for a long, long time, one is humbly grateful for small things.

Returning to the Minidoka WRA camp in Idaho, I found that my erstwhile roommates, Ronald I. Shiozaki and his brothers, had departed for Chicago, Illinois, as had many of my old friends from Portland, Oregon. I found that many families had been transferred from the Tule Lake WRA camp, in order to make room for those considered "disloyal" to the United States and were being transferred to Tule Lake camp, as a newly designated "segregation center". Among the families moved to Minidoka were my uncle and aunt, Renichi and Matsuyo Fujimoto, and I was able to move into their barracks "apartment", upon my return to the Minidoka WRA camp in August, 1943.

I found however, that during the spring of 1943, the WRA had wrong-headedly administered the so-called "loyalty questionnaire" as part of its Leave Clearance procedures. All residents of the camps, male and female, citizens and non-citizens, the aged and senile, healthy individuals and sick people, the hale and hearty as well as the lame and crippled, anyone over the age of 17 years old, were required to answer:

"27. Are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat duty, wherever ordered?

28. Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of America ... and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor ...?"

Under Ques. #27, Japanese American females were being asked to serve "on combat duty" in the armed forces of the United States -- far more than was asked of any other female in the United States. For those over the age of 45, and therefore exempt from Selective Service, nevertheless individuals in the camps regardless of their advanced age were being asked if they would be willing serve "on combat duty", even if they were 90 years old and sick abed in a hospital ward. That had to be the height of absurdity, and yet that questionnaire was solemnly administered by WRA officials in all the camps, which still had barbed wire fences around them, guarded by armed M.P.s of the United States Army.

Ques. #28 posed an impossible dilemma: for those of us who were United States, the first part of the question was easy; of course, we would swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of America. However, it was impossible to "forswear" allegiance to the United States of America. However, it was impossible to "forswear" allegiance to an entity or foreign power to which we never had allegiance. A "yes" answer would imply that we acknowledged having had such allegiance, and a "no" answer denied allegiance to the United States. Answers were not allowed to be qualified or explained in full; an unqualified "yes" or "no" answer was required.

For the Issei, the problem was even more excruciating because they were denied by U.S. law from becoming citizens of the United States. Yet, this question demanded "unqualified allegiance" to the United States of America; moreover, in forswearing allegiance to the Emperor of Japan would leave them stateless. It was an impossible situation for the Issei.

It was into that kind of a simmering situation to which I returned during mid-August, 1943, at the Minidoka WRA camp. Things were relatively quiet at Minidoka, because most of the "no-no" families had been removed and sent to Tule Lake. Nonetheless, I was regarded by WRA authorities at Minidoka with some uneasiness, as a possible "suspect person" whose loyalties were undetermined and who had been jailed for defying a military order. I was never asked or required to complete a "loyalty questionnaire"; I probably would have amended the questions or explained at length my answers.

After my release from Multnomah County Jail in Portland, Oregon, I did spend almost two months in Minidoka, regaining my health, strength and sense of well-being, because I had come out of jail pasty-white, puffed up and bloated from a daily potato and bread diet, with no muscle tone, and with a bothersome feeling of claustrophobia.

My steadfast position in camp, even as it is today, is that the United States is still the best country in the world, despite all of its defects, injustices, warts and blemishes. It is incumbent upon us, as responsible members of our country, to point out those things that are wrong and to work assiduously to correct such wrongs. No one is magnanimously going to correct the wrongs for us, but rather it is for us to devote our energies and efforts to correcting such wrongs. Because of such position, and admittedly I was vociferous in pointing out things that were wrong, I was designated as spokesperson for the Portland group at the Minidoka WRA camp, and spoke out strongly against the petty restrictions, the poor facilities, the bad food, and general grievances about the camp.

I must have been a thorn in the side of the Project Director, because when I applied for a leave to visit my mother who was then living in Denver, Colorado, cooking and keeping house for two sons and two daughters, such temporary leave was granted to me with alacrity. During the month of October, 1943, I did take temporary, 30-day leave from the Minidoka WRA camp in order to go to Denver, Colorado.

In Denver, Colorado, I met Joe Grant Masaoka, who was then regional representative of the Japanese American Citizens League in Denver. About that time, because of re-instatement of the Selective Service for Japanese Americans, a number of Nisei were being arrested and were being detained in federal institutions for refusing to respond to the draft. Because it was my position that we as citizens must fulfill our responsibilities to our country as well as demand our rights, I joined Joe Grant Masaoka in extensive field trips to Cheyenne, Wyoming, to the federal correctional institution at 9595 W. Quincy Avenue in what is now Lakewood, Colorado, and the Amache WRA camp at Granada, Colorado, to talk to such Japanese Americans who were incarcerated in an effort to have them reconsider their decisions and actions. Many of these young boys, and some were barely 18 years of age, would point out that their families were still locked up in the WRA

camps, and they, themselves, had been treated as though they were prisoners of war. One young man I still vividly remember, gripping the bars in front of him so tightly with gut-wrenching emotion that his knuckles turned white, and with tears in his eyes, saying bitterly: "The FBI grabbed my father and put him away in an internment camp someplace; my mother is alone, taking care of my younger sister in the Granada WRA camp -- who will take care of my mother and baby sister if I go off to war? And, besides, when the government does right by us, then I will gladly volunteer to fight for America."

We tried to persuade this young man that one does not bargain with one's own country, but that by fulfilling our responsibilities, we are in a far better position to demand our rights. Because we believed in America, and I still believe in America, Joe Grant Masaoka and I went to extraordinary efforts during that month of October, 1943, to have the Nikkei demonstrate their loyalty to the United States -- despite what they had done to us...

Because of substantial unrest in various WRA camps, Joe Grant Masaoka and I undertook a strenuous bus trip from Denver to the Gila River WRA camp and the Poston WRA camps in Arizona to try to persuade our fellow Japanese Americans not to lose faith in America, despite the shabby treatment accorded to us and our families. Most of the way, Joe Grant Masaoka and I stood in crowded buses, traveling at night on the long road to Arizona, and thence up to Salt Lake City, Utah, where the JACL headquarters had been relocate during the war years. Our message was then, and continues to be that we should cheerfully and fully fulfill our obligations as U.S. citizens, and in so doing, be in a far stronger position to demand that which is rightfully ours. Our faith in this Commission, and ultimately in the Congress of the United States, is evidence of our steadfastness in this view.

As we travelled across the bleak deserts in Arizona, we knew the risks we took in certain areas of some of the camps. As a matter of fact, in certain

camps, our reception was not exactly cordial, and on occasion it was necessary to have the military police provide us with protection; we were never physically actually assaulted, but threatened and roundly condemned by certain elements in some of the camps.

I returned to the Minidoka WRA camp during November, 1943. There I utilized my legal training to assist the wives and families of interned Issei to the best of my abilities, without charge or fees, trying to win releases for such interned men, or to arrange transfers to the family camp at Crystal City, Texas. I did not accept the $19.00 monthly salary offered to evacuee lawyers, although I did remain at the Minidoka WRA camp for the next ensuing 7 months. During that period, in addition to assisting the "internee wives", as spokesman for Portland residents, I probably made a nuisance of myself so far as the camp administration is concerned. I recall complaining eloquently, on behalf of the residents, to Dillon S. Myer on one of his visits to the Minidoka WRA camp, about the spoiled smelt that was delivered to the mess halls at one time.

The camp administrator urged me to leave, and finally, during about June, 1944, I did accept $25.00 and a railroad ticket to go to Chicago, Illinois, and departed from the Minidoka WRA camp on permanent leave. Not having a position in Chicago, I went to work in an ice plant on the northside as a common, day laborer at 60 cents per hour. I found that I could not budge 300 lb. cakes of ice, because they would freeze to the floor and I was physically too small and insufficiently strong to lift such masses of ice with ice tongs given to us. Consequently, the management put me on the ice cube machine, sacking 5#, 10# and 25# bags of ice for the retail trade. After a summer of this, I had enough money to get back to Denver, Colorado, and during about August, 1944, I did return to Denver, Colorado where I have resided ever since.

All told, I spent almost 5 months in the North Portland WCCA assembly center, under what I would consider most primitive, temporary conditions; in the

aggregate, I was in the Minidoka WRA camp in Idaho for a total of 12 months, broken up by an interval of 9 months in solitary confinement in the Multnomah County Jail, in Portland, Oregon, from Nov. 1942 until Aug. 1943. I lived in the Minidoka WRA camp, from September, 1942, before the barracks and ancillary buildings were fully finished; Gen. John L. DeWitt's "Final Report" notes, in regard to the Minidoka WRA camp, as of Nov. 26, 1942 (3 months after evacuees had been moved in en masse)

(Minidoka WRA Camp, Nov. 26, 1942:

"(5) Laundry equipment not delivered nor installed;

(6) Sewage disposal plant not completed; (we used out-houses!)

(8) Thirty-seven evacuee barracks have no wall board lining;

(At hospital:

a. All construction completed except sewage disposal and hospital laundry;

b. Following equipment has not yet been provided or installed;

(6 items of equipment in hospital listed)

c. Following essential items of equipment have not yet been received (See Exhibit C)

d. Sanitary facilities: Ample facilities have been provided which will be adequate as soon as sewage disposal plant is completed. At present time, pit latrines are being used in camp area which are inadequate for population. Hospital and administration area are using flush toilets emptying raw sewage onto the desert.

(Underlining mine)

The above are excerpts from inspection reports by the U.S. Army, and other reports indicted similar or worse conditions in all other WRA camps.

* * * * *

After more than 2 years, imprisoned by my own government, essentially because of my ancestry, I undertook to study for the Colorado bar examination because I had not the requisite 5 years of active practice of law to be admitted under reciprocity. I enrolled at the University of Denver Law School, during Sept. 1944, and also audited law classes at Northwestern School of Law, in Denver, Colorado. After having reviewed various phases of the law, and having learned Colorado statu-

tory and case law, I took the Colorado bar examination in June, 1945. I was advised subsequently by George Trout, secretary for the Board of Bar Examiners, that although I had passed the Colorado bar examination with the highest score of all applicants then taking the examinations, nevertheless the Bar Examiners had recommended that I not be admitted to the active practice of law in Colorado because of my "bad moral character", evidenced by my conviction of a federal crime in 1942 -- for having violated a military curfew order as a civilian and having served time in jail for such offense. The judgment of the examiners was that I had exhibited a deliberate and willful disregard to the law and was therefore unfit to practice law. (In June, 1945, we were still at war with Japan.) I had thought, and I had intended, that my actions in 1942 were eloquent evidence of my even higher commitment to the ideals embodied in the U.S. Constitution and to the concepts of law and justice.

With the assistance of Samuel I. Menin, Esq., an ACLU lawyer, this matter was appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court. Fortunately, the Court ruled in my favor, and on January 19, 1946, I was admitted a private law office in Denver, Colorado, almost four years after having closed a similar private law office in Portland, Oregon, in April 1942 in anticipation of military exclusion orders.

Many things had transpired in the interim. The arbitrary and racist military orders of Gen. John L. DeWitt, Commander of the Western Defense Command, commencing in 1942, had cost me literally marking time for almost four years; two of these years were spent in confinement in various places, including a most uncomfortable stint for nine months in solitary when time stood still for me, and which cost me an actual expenditure of more than $5,000.00 in 1942 dollars, plus an additional $10,000 from family and from supporters in taking that case to the United States Supreme Court.

From a family standpoint, aside from the physical losses in property and farm interests, involving some 1,000 acres of orchards and farm lands, for which my father claims some $350,000 in actual damages and losses, and recovered about $52,000 under the evacuation claims act of 1948 -- there were enormous added costs of education for the Yasui children, which would have been provided by the State of Oregon at nominal costs for our family as long time residents and tax-payers.

Because of evacuation, my younger sister was compelled to complete her senior year at the University of Denver; two younger brothers also completed one and three years at the University of Denver, plus an additional year at the University of Wisconsin, and both brothers completed medical training at Temple Medical and Hahneman Medical schools, both in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at higher tuition rates than would have applied at the University of Oregon Medical School in Portland, Oregon.

The added costs of maintaining a home away from Oregon devolved upon my mother, despite the fact that we owned a 10 room home in Hood River, Oregon, the added expenses of extensive travel by family members, the enforced separation of family members from properties in Oregon -- all of these matters cry out for adequate redress and reparations. The inchoate issues of loss of freedom, the tremendous anxieties and sufferings imposed, the imputation of guilt without cause -- without even knowing or being able to ascertain what we supposed to be guilty of -- all of these matters need to be delved into, and some resolution reached.

Completely aside from monetary damages and property losses, as for myself personally, it seems to me that there are two fundamental questions which the Commission must address, viz:

(1) deprivation of the rights of individuals and communities of Japanese Americans on the West Coast in 1942, and

(2) damage to the fundamental principles of liberty and justice in the United States.

There is no amount of money that could ever adequately compensate me for the experiences which I underwent during the period of from Feb. 1942 until Jan. 1946, and which were direct and proximate results of the military orders issued by the Western Defense Command. I am not personally seeking any compensation for myself. But, I do fervently request and urge that this Commission delve deeply into the facts, documents and circumstances surrounding and resulting from this whole sorry mess, so that a record will be established and so that in the future such a massive deprivation of human rights of people shall not occur again in these United States.

IV. POSITION OF THE JACL RE REDRESS:

The Japanese American Citizens League has been involved directly in regard to the evacuation, relocation and incarceration of Japanese Americans in 1942, at seq., since December 8, 1941, not always by choice but frequently because of the necessities of circumstances.

JACL was directly involved and was consulted during the early stages of the evacuation process in the spring of 1942. Anyone who seriously believes that the JACL, or any group of Japanese Americans in 1942, could have stopped the process of evacuation is simply not facing fact or realities of the situation as it existed at that time.

During the war years, 1942 until 1946, the JACL continued to be consulted, and JACL did take actions for and on behalf of Japanese Americans. JACL leaders were beaten in the camps and were threatened with death in some instances, but over all, the record of the JACL during the evacuation process and during the war years is unimpeachable. What had to be done, for and on behalf of Japanese Americans during those trying times, was done in good conscience and with honor.

In 1946, the first post-war national convention of JACL was convened in Denver, Colorado, to review the shattering experiences of the war years, and to lay plans for actions in the future. Coming out of that 1946 convention, were three basic objectives:

(1) Repeal of the 1924 Oriental Exclusion Act, by special legislations to stay deportation of Japanese nationals caught in the United States during the war, and to allow immigration privileges as permanent residence for soldier brides from Asia; (Such privileges was granted to soldier wives from Europe, as being "eligible for citizenship")

(2) Enactment of legislation to extend naturalization privileges to all persons of the world who were otherwise qualified to become citizens of the United States of America;

(3) Passage of legislation to compensate evacuees for losses and damages incurred because of evacuation in 1942.

The privilege of becoming a naturalized citizen of the United States had been denied to our parents. As a consequence, with the outbreak of war with Japan, our parent generation became immediately "enemy aliens", not because of something that they had done or failed to do -- but because of events beyond their control. The consequences of being an "enemy alien" in time of war were traumatic and horrendous, for a substantial number of persons of Japanese ancestry who were in the United States in 1942.

There is no question in my mind that had the Japanese been permitted to become naturalized citizens of the United States, the vast majority of our parent generation would have been U.S. citizens by 1940. Many of them had lived 40 and 50 years in the United States; most had U.S. born children who were as American as apple pie and the 4th of July. Persuasive evidence that most Issei would have become naturalized privileges were extended for the first time to Japanese. The Issei flocked to citizenship and English classes in large numbers, and most became U.S. citizens despite the harrowing ordeals that they had suffered, 1942-1946.

But, because our Issei parents were not permitted to become citizens in 1942, most Japanese American communities lost the ablest, most articulate and most influential leaders immediately following Pearl Harbor. These "enemy aliens" were apprehended almost overnight, whisked away to unknown destination, and most were interned for the duration of the war -- not because of anything that they had done, but because they were citizens of a nation with which the United States was at war. If our fathers had been permitted to become citizens prior to December 7, 1941, during the evacuation process there would have been strong leadership by those with years of experience, instead of the then untried Nisei leadership.

On a longer considered basis, because of the bar against citizenship, it probably follows that many of our parent generation never learned English -- for

the single reason that probably most Issei kept alive a wistful dream that they would eventually go back to their home land to retire -- and English would not be necessary or even desirable. But, more basically, because our Issei parents were denied the privilege of naturalization, many laws prohibited our parents from acquiring certain types of properties or engaging in certain professions, because they were "ineligible to citizenship", as defined by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Wong Kim Ark case (160 U.S. 649) 1898, and in Japanese naturalization landmark case of Ozawa vs. U.S. (260 U.S. 178) 1922.

Because so much legal discrimination was based upon the ineligibility of our parents to become citizens of the United States, this objective became a matter of first priority.

However, concomitantly with efforts to win naturalization privileges for our parent generation, the national JACL looked at the problems of economic hardships imposed upon evacuees, who were then beginning to trickle back to their former homes on the West Coast. We knew that the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco had estimated the property losses of evacuees in 1942 had exceeded $400 million. We knew that returnees to the West Coast were having a difficult time because most had exhausted their savings during the four years of banishment.

Consideration was given strongly to making claims for lost wages, for anticipated profits, for pain and suffering, for loss of freedom, and all of the intangible losses incurred by the evacuees. However, such was the mood of Congress that although we struggled for two years to have a generous claims bill passed, we did compromise for an Evacuation Claims Act which would at least provide compensation for actual physical losses. In the actual administration of the Act, through the U.S. Department� of Justice, in dealing with government attorneys who rightfully required documentary evidence or other strong proofs, we found that much of the losses and damages could not be satisfactorily proved. As a consequence, although some

26,000 individuals filed claims for property losses, only about $38 million was recovered, making it about 8 1/2 cents on the dollar.

We know that the inchoate losses and damages will be even more difficult for document and prove. We do know that during the early Vietnam war protests, that when hundreds of protestors were arrested and confined in the Washington stadium for 72 hours, the courts sustained damages of $15,000 per individual so incarcerated. One wonders what would be an appropriate measure of financial compensation for 4 or 4 1/2 years of confinement in a WRA relocation center?

There are many other aspects to consider, such as the social and sociological and mental damages incurred, the community losses and the destruction of social structures, relationships and institutions within the Japanese American communities, the impact upon the physical health and well-being of individuals who were confined, and other extremely complicated factors.

There is no question that the national Japanese American Citizens League does call upon this nation to provide for monetary compensation for the great wrong that was committed in 1942-1946. Moreover, the national JACL will insist that individual payments be made to evacuees who personally suffered in this process. Specific amounts as to the aggregate total or as to individual payments cannot be computed at the present time, but it is hoped that the Commission will be able to devise appropriate formulas for making such computations and will recommend to the Congress of the United States, and to the President, that a very substantial amount of money be appropriated as redress.

Specific mechanics of how such funds shall be disbursed are not clearly agreed upon by the national JACL. There has been some discussion that any sum appropriated by Congress should be paid over to and vested in a national founda-

tion, which would disburse funds in accordance with rules and regulations yet to be promulgated. This approach might well be similar to that of the Japan American Friendship Foundation, or indeed perhaps like the federally chartered American Red Cross or the Boy Scouts of America.

Admittedly, not all Nikkei are interested in nor will all Nikkei make any claims for money damages. It is believed that there would be a very substantial amount of money remaining, even after individual payments have been made to former evacuees. The residue of such funds could be utilized, under appropriate rules and regulations, to promote those kinds of programs, activities and projects as would aid and assist various communities of Japanese Americans.

But, more importantly, for those of us who believe that our country actually suffered most in the transgression of the rights of its citizens, we believe that such a fund could be utilized to preserve and to protect the basic human rights of all persons in these United States in the name and memory of those who underwent this evacuation experience, and in the name and memory of the Japanese American GI's who came out of the evacuation centers, from the fields and farms, and the small shops and businesses from all across this country to create the most magnificent record of valor and loyalty to our country. We believe that the use of such funds would be a most fitting memorial to such people as my mother and father, and their soldier sons who contributed so valiantly to the United States of America.

How these details would be worked out should certainly be a task for the Commission and its staff. The National JACL stands ready to assist, counsel, advise, and to criticize constructively where we do not agree, in achieving the kinds of goals above stated.

Very specifically, the national JACL in conventions assembled ever since 1970 have been making demands for monetary reparations from the United States. At the 1978 national convention in Salt Lake City, Utah, the delegates agreed to set

a figure of $25,000 per evacuee as a reasonable goal. However, subsequent study of the problems and trauma endured by the evacuees would indicate that such a um would be wholly inadequate. Consequently, the 1980 national convention held in Millbrae, California, evolved a broader statement of goals and enunciated flexible guidelines as objectives to be obtained.

The National Committee for Redress of the JACL has refined some of the specific language, and as February 6, 1981, has issued the basic statement on behalf of the Japanese American Citizens League.

The statement of Guidelines for Redress of the JACL is attached and made a part of this testimony.

REDRESS GUILDELINES

February 6, 1981

I. PURPOSE: (a) To achieve redress for all persons who suffered injustices by official actions of the United States government during World War II, as a result of the issuance of Presidential Executive Order Number 9066 and other associated official actions of the United States government.

(b) To deter the recurrence of such future arbitrary action by the government which is contrary to the principles upon which this nation was founded.

II. BASIS FOR CLAIM:

Individual and community injustices and losses suffered arising out of the issuance of Presidential Executive Order Number 9066 and other associated official actions of the United States government.

III. ELIGIBILITY:

Beneficiaries of any remedies enacted by Congress, in connection with the exclusion and subsequent internment of civilians during World War II, shall include those who were forcibly expelled by the military and detained, or who were forcibly expelled by the military orders in force or pending, and all those who were affected by Executive Order 9066 and other associated actions of the United States government.

IV. REDRESS: (a) The United States Congress shall be called upon to appropriate a total monetary sum based upon:

1) Property damages incurred by those affected by the forced expulsion and incarceration, determined by agencies of the United States government. This amount shall be appropriately adjusted for the intervening years since 1941.

2) Personal losses and injuries suffered as a consequence of the actions of the government.

Payment and receipt of any monies appropriated by Congress shall be free from any federal, state or local taxes, and shall not escheat to any state of municipality, and shall not affect eligibility to receive any benefits.

(b) In addition, the United States government shall be called upon to appropriate or otherwise make available funds or resources in special programs for the benefit of those classes and groups excluded and/or interned under Executive Order Number 9066 and associated official actions of the United States government.

V. DISBURSEMENT OF FUNDS:

Congress shall establish perpetual, non-profit foundations to administer such funds appropriated by Congress. Disbursements from such funds shall be in accordance with such rules and regulations to be established by said foundations, it being explicitly understood that individual payments shall be made from such funds, as well as other disbursements, such as social, civil rights and educational programs in redress of those communities which were physically and sociologically disrupted as a direct result of the issuance of Executive Order Number 9066.

Certified as correct and accurate:

JOHN Y. TATEISHI, Chairman
National Committee for Redress
Japanese American Citizens League
1765 Sutter Street
San Francisco, CA 94115

V. WHAT JACL EXPECTS OF THE COMMISSION:

Some broad discussions have been held within the JACL organization and the redress committee as to what is expected of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, and its staff. Hereinafter, an outline of these concerns are set forth.

We know that Public Law 96-317 was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter on July 31, 1980, creating this Commission. We are aware that with amendments to the original bill, the Commission now has 9 members. We know that the Commission is charged with examining the impact of Executive Order No. 9066, and associated actions of the federal government, especially as such actions relate to the 120,000 civilians detained in camps and the 1,000 Aleuts who were similarly removed from their homes and confined in camps in southeastern Alaska. Most importantly, the Commission is charged with recommending appropriate remedies.

As we understand the language of the statute, the Commission is to complete its work and submit a report to the Congress within one year after the date of its first meeting, which was required within 30 days after appropriations for the Commission were made.

It appears that appropriations of $1.0 million was made by Congress on Dec. 15, 1980, which would have required the Commission to meet on or before Jan. 15, 1981. However, it is our understanding that the members of the Commission to be named by the Speaker of the House were not appointed until Feb. 17, 1981, and that the first meeting of the Commission did not take place until Feb. 19, 1981. In view of the slippage of dates, there may be some questions as to the due date of the final report and recommendation to Congress. We note that the staff is indicating the date of January 15, 1982.

It does seem that the time span remaining for hearings, to complete the

necessary research, to draft and have adopted a final report, is extremely short. We do believe that rather than doing a hurried up, rush job inadequately, it might be better to consider the possibilities of requesting an extension of time, in order to do the job right. Moreover, it is noted that the original law did authorize $1.5 million, but that only $1.0 million was actually appropriated for the Commission. An extension, even for six months, could probably be funded out of the remaining $500,000 authorized, if Congress could be persuaded to provide for an extension and to appropriate such additional funds.

Whether an extension is contemplated or not, and whether such extension is feasible or probable, it is the position of the JACL that the Commission should be looking into the matters listed on the following pages in as exhaustive detail as possible, within the time constraints required.

Date: 7-16-81

WHAT JACL EXPECTS THE COMMISSION TO ACCOMPLISH

1. ANTI-ORIENTALISM:

Trace in broad historical perspective, the rise, extent and virulence of anti-Orientalism on the West Coast, since the time of its inception to the present time, and implications for the future;

There should be special attention and emphasis given to the period of from about the turn of the century until the outbreak of war on Dec. 7, 1941, which might shed considerable lights on the concentrated campaign to "Get Rid of the Japs" during 1942 and subsequent years.

Through the mechanism of hearings, investigations and research, determine and evaluate the current climate of public opinion and perception of racial prejudices towards Asians and the Japanese in particular, and evaluate the commitment of people at the present time to human and civil rights.

Ascertain best strategies and steps necessary to protect and preserve basic human rights for all persons in the United States, and� include as a part of the recommendations to Congress.

2. MILITARY NECESSITY:

Obtain and examine all of the facts and all available documented evidence related to the question of military necessity on the West Coast during the years of 1941-1942, and submit evaluations as to the validity of same as rationale for the evacuation and confinement of all persons of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast in 1942;

Draw inferences from such study and suggest means whereby pleading of "military necessities" or "military security" ipso facto will not justify arbitrary or authoritarian actions by the executive branch of government, including the military.

Obtain evidence of the loyalty or disloyalty of persons of Japanese ancestry and of Aleut background, during the period of from 1941-1946.

JACL EXPECTS OF COMMISSION, cont'd:

3. CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF EVACUATION:

The Commission staff should develop a step-by-step chronological history of the evacuation process, commencing with the bombing of Pearl Harbor, on December 7, 1941, through the closing of the evacuation claims in about 1952. Correlated with events of the evacuation should be another separate column indicating other national or international events having a relationship to the evacuation of Japanese Americans from the West Coast.

Possibly, in addition to the official records of the WCCA and the WRA, The Pacific Citizen, 244 So. San Pedro Street, Los Angeles, California 90012, might be the quickest source of capsulized information.

To the degree possible, too, documentation of such events should be compiled, for easy reference, and preserved as a part of the historical record.

4. ECONOMIC LOSSES OF EVACUEES:

The Commission should cause a comprehensive study to be made of the economic and financial losses suffered by persons of Japanese ancestry because of Executive Order #9066, and associated governmental acts flowing therefrom.

Dr. Sandra C. Taylor of the University of Utah, in Salt Lake City, Utah, has commenced such a study, and has completed a preliminary study in the Sacramento, California area. As we understand, she has received a fairly substantial grant to continue her studies in other areas. Perhaps assistance and cooperation could be extended to her so that a comprehensive study can be completed.

In the meanwhile, an equitable formula should be developed to determine the extent of individual financial and economic losses and damages suffered by persons of Japanese ancestry because of evacuation and confinement in 1942, and subsequent years.

5. LOSS OF FREEDOM:

Explore all aspects of loss of freedom, deprivation of liberty, injustice of removal and confinement without the filing of any charges or conviction of any wrongdoing, unwarranted identification with the enemy, threats of great bodily violence, threats of mayhem, extermination, deportation, extortion, and banishment, imposition of a less than equal citizenship status, humiliations, frustrations, pain, sufferings and agonies, and all other intangible and inchoate losses and damages suffered by persons of Japanese ancestry as a result of Executive Order #9066, and associated U.S. governmental actions flowing therefrom.

5. LOSS OF FREEDOM, cont'd:

Attempt to assess a realistic monetary value for such intangible aspects of losses suffered by individuals affected by said Executive Order #9066, and associated U.S. governmental actions flowing therefrom.

6. PHYSICAL HEALTH:

Collect data concerning the effects of evacuation upon the physical health and morbidity rates of those individuals who underwent the evacuation experience, and determine if there is a correlation between confinement in such WCCA and/or WRA camps and either present state of health or early decease, and make appropriate findings in regard to the same.

There are claims that individuals who underwent the evacuation experience did not live as long as would be expected; there are others who claim that as a result of their evacuation experiences they have suffered poor health. Children born of mothers who were confined in evacuation camps may have had deleterious effects. These aspects may well be studied to determine whether in fact there were impacts on the health of evacuees and their families.

7. MENTAL HEALTH/SOCIAL LOSSES:

Ascertain the scope and degree of mental, spiritual, psychological, social and cultural losses and damages suffered by persons of Japanese ancestry as a consequence of Executive Order #9066, and associated U.S. governmental actions flowing therefrom.

Attempt to assess a realistic figure for such losses suffered by persons of Japanese ancestry as a result of Executive Order #9066, and U.S. governmental actions flowing therefrom.

8. FAMILY STRUCTURES:

Determine the degree and extent of breakdown of family structures of persons of Japanese ancestry, and the long-term effects of such breakdown because of abrupt removal from homes, and the concentration and confinement of such families and individuals in temporary assembly centers and subsequently in relocation centers.

Attempt to assess such long term effects and attempt to determine appropriate methods whereby such efforts can be mitigated or eliminated.

9. COMMUNITY LOSSES:

Explore the extent and degree of disruptions of communities of persons of Japanese ancestry, and the impact of such disruptions, because of the removal of such persons of Japanese ancestry, and further assess the extent and degree of damage done and losses suffered by such persons of Japanese ancestry because of the elimination of such communities in 1942;

A comparative study of pre- and post-war Japanese American communities should be undertaken, to ascertain whether any lasting effects and continuing damage is being done to the person of Japanese ancestry from or in such Japanese American communities. If it is determined that damages did occur, or if damages are continuing, attempt to ascertain what remedies might be appropriate to negate the effects of such disruptions of 1942.

10. COMMUNITY RELATIONSHIPS:

Assess the extent and degree of alienation between persons and communities of Japanese ancestry and the larger communities in which they lived, and the long term impact of such alienation;

It appears that because of the disruptions caused by the evacuation, some pre-war Japanese American communities have completely vanished; in other instances, there appear to be substantial different relationships developed.

Attempt to assess implications of such alienation as it relates to current relationships, and whether any official governmental actions can be taken now at the present time or in the future to alleviate or prevent the continuance of any deleterious effects.

11. LEGAL ASPECTS:

Research all legal and constitutional aspects of the actions and consequences following the implementation of Executive Order #9066, and associated governmental actions flowing therefrom, as to:

a. Ascertain whether any juridical questions yet remain today which can be released at this time, or in the future, for judicial determination;

b. Ascertain whether there are any practical means to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Hirabayashi and Korematsu cases;

c. Ascertain whether legislative actions can be taken by the Congress of the United States to prevent recurrence of such mass evacuation and confinement of civilians, or similar

arbitrary actions by the government, on the basis of ancestry, solely by executive fiat.

12. MILITARY EXPLOITS OF NIKKEI:

Record in dramatic, summary form, the military exploits of Nisei GI's in World War II, not only in the European theatre of operations, but also in the Pacific, especially as the same relate to individuals who came out of the evacuation camps to volunteer or to serve in the armed forces of the United States.

It seems to me that this is most convincing evidence of the loyalty of the Japanese Americans, as a group and as individuals, and gives lie to the statement of the Commanding General of the Western Defense Command that "A Jap's a Jap; and a piece of paper making him a citizen doesn't mean a thing!"

Red-blooded Americans with Japanese faces came out from behind barbed wire fences in the deserts where they had been confined to spill their red blood with other Americans overseas disprove the arrogant nonsense of the Nazi's Aryan 'super-man', the divine Sons of Heaven, and this American general's corrupted moral judgments.

13. PUBLIC HEARINGS:

In addition to the formal public hearings in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, and in Alaska, the Commission should authorize one or more Commissioner and/or members of the staff to conduct field consultations, investigations, studies and interviews in such cities and towns where there are substantial or significant groups or individuals of Japanese ancestry who have certain, specialized knowledge concerning the evacuation experience, such as in San Diego, San Jose, Fresno, Sacramento, Portland, Salt Lake City, Denver, New York, and other places where a full formal hearing may not be necessary.

Substantial information and data can be developed in informal ways, including town meeting formats, discussion groups, and other similar methods. There are unique individuals who will not be able to attend any of the formal hearings of the Commission, and the Commission should seek out these individuals.

Certainly, together with the record of formal hearings, there must be a comprehensive record of all hearings and a summary of all testimony as a permanent history of evacuation, relocation and confinement of civilians during World War II, as a result of Executive Order #9066, and associated U.S. governmental actions flowing therefrom.

14. REMEDIES AND RECOMMENDATIONS:

Finally and ultimately, the Japanese American community in the United States expects the Commission to evolve those remedies as would address the myriad issues and problems hereinabove suggested, and to make such recommendations as would optimize the probabilities of having such remedies effectuated.

At this stage, we do not know specifically what remedies could be most appropriate. We believe that the Commission in making its inquiries and conducting its hearings will be able to gather much information and data as would make possible the designing of a remedy or remedies as would be most appropriate.

We would expect, also, that the Commission would make a strong presentation of remedies, it is hoped that the Commission would circulate draft copies for review and comment by key individuals and organizations, interested and concerned in this matter.

15. PERMANENT RECORD:

It cannot be re-emphasized too strongly nor too often that it is expected that the Commission will develop a final report which will be a permanent record for all time. The documentation and development of that report will be of utmost importance, because this will be the basis on which history will judge our country, in making amends and correcting our "worst wartime mistake" in 1942.

Whether immediate action is taken, by Congress, or by anyone or any body, governmental or otherwise, is not of urgent moment. As long as the work is thoroughly and properly done, the record and Final Report of this Commission will stand forever, as the definitive response to cries for redress by Japanese Americans during these past 10 years.

It is important that remedies be effectuated with some degree of immediacy because our Issei survivors of the evacuation camp experiences are slowly fading away, and even the older Nisei are becoming fewer and fewer -- but, even if our progeny will need to wait many, many years, if the record is clear and the foundation is laid, this will have been a great accomplishment.

VI: REMEDIES AND RECOMMENDATIONS:

The basic position of the national Japanese American Citizens League is that substantial monetary damages must be awarded for wrongs committed by the U.S. government, during 1942-1946, as a result of Executive Order #9066, and associated actions flowing therefrom. An appropriate measure of damages will be extremely difficult to determine.

However, there is no question but that the Commission must evolve exhaustive studies and tabulations of actual monetary losses suffered by evacuees, including lost wages, diminished earnings, anticipated profits, deferred promotions, and all other measurable monetary considerations. If the unrecovered value of assets of Japanese Americans in 1942 is calculated at $400 million, after deducting the approximately $38 million that was recovered through the Evacuation Claims Act of 1948, there would still be something in excess of $362 million in losses incurred by evacuees. Adjusted for the known inflation factors since 1942 to date of payment, and calculating a normal interest from date of such losses, an enormous amount of money is involved.

In addition to those components of quantifiable losses, the Commission must address the even more difficult problems of assessing appropriate monetary values to intangible losses, such as loss of freedom, deprivation of liberty, pain and suffering, including mental suffering and anguish, psychological and social damages, not only to the individual, but also to the communities of prewar Japanese Americans. The question of exemplary damages will also need to be thoroughly examined and considered.

Certainly, the Commission should make recommendations as to practical and easy-to-administer processes whereby individuals can be compensated, and to assure that payments to individuals shall not be taxable as income, nor be considered a part of income as would disqualify the recipient for any and all other benefits

to which such individual would be otherwise eligible.

A simple method of determining who would be entitled to receive payment as redress must be recommended by the Commission, if the Commission finds that compensation should be paid. The questions of survival of such claims and that of heirship must be researched and studied, so recommendations relating to those aspects can be made.

The mechanisms whereby such payments could be made must be proposed to assure that funds appropriated by Congress, if indeed appropriations are made for redress, will be properly disbursed. The national JACL convention in 1980 suggested the creation of congressionally authorized foundations, or perhaps a public corporation, to receive such funds in order to pay out not only individual payments but to make grants or awards for community, cultural, social, educational, civil rights, or other purposes in accordance with rules and regulations to be promulgated by such foundations.

It was further suggested by the JACL that other possibilities of special programs funded by the federal government be explored for the benefit of those classes or groups of people who were excluded from the West Coast during 1942-1946. This special consideration might take the form of special set-asides, which have been sustained by the U.S. Supreme Court, or perhaps to allow preferences to be given to such classes or groups of people.

* * * *

Completely apart from the monetary aspects of redress, the Commission must give considerable attention to the question of whether the legal precedents established in the Hirabayashi and Korematsu can be overturned.

We know that the "separate but equal" doctrine enunciated by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Plessy vs. Ferguson, (163 U.S. 537 1896) was not overturned until Brown vs. Board of Education, (1954) -- or 60 years later -- in which latter

case, the U.S. Supreme Court held that "separate was inherently unequal". We would hope that the Commission would explore possibilities of how to overturn the Hirabayashi and Korematsu cases without having to wait until the year 2003 A.D., or later. JACL cannot suggest how such legal action can be taken, but we would urgently request that the Commission exhaustively research this matter.

We also know that in the famous Dred Scott case (Scott vs. Sandford, 19 How. 393, 1857), the United States Supreme Court ruled that Negroes were

"altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior that they had no rights a white person was bound to respect."

That blatantly racist decision of the U.S. Supreme Court was nullified only by the ratification of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution of the United States, following the Civil War. Today, the Dred Scott decision is only a historical curiosity.

Perhaps, similarly, the only way that the decisions in the Hirabayashi and Korematsu cases can be negated would be by a constitutional amendment. Such an amendment might read:

"The rights of citizens of the United States shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of ancestry, and ancestry alone, shall never occur again.

VII. CONCLUSION:

The national Japanese American Citizens League expresses its sincere thanks and warm gratitude to the members of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, because JACL knows that the members of the Commission are taking precious time away from their own personal lives and are devoting a great deal of conscientious thought, effort, and dedication to the work of this Commission.

We believe that the work of the Commission could be a vastly important historical achievement, for the results could mean more than simple justice for all persons of Japanese ancestry who underwent such traumatic and devastating experiences because of Executive Order #9066, during World War II, but because the work of this Commission could mean the safeguarding and protection of all Americans now and in the years to come.

We know that the Final Report of this Commission will not have the force or effect of law. But, we do also know that, depending upon the excellence of its work and the high nobility of its pronouncements, the conclusions and recommendations enunciated by this Commission could well be a lasting monument and bulwark to protect the rights of all people in these United States.

In recounting the bleak pages of past history, we have recalled the great tragedy that besmirched the great American principles of justice. Our United States Supreme Court, as the last bastion for the protection of human rights for all of our people, failed to question or to inquire into the bona fides of averments of "military necessity" and the arbitrary imposition of military orders on the basis of ancestry, and ancestry only, against a group of civilians who had done nothing individually or collectively to threaten that military security. The U.S. Supreme Court allowed the military's judgment of what a group of individuals "might" do

to be sustained as a basis for depriving such individuals of their constitutional and human rights. The basic presumption of innocence was allowed to be negated by the military's appraisal of ties of parentage, ancestry and race, despite the blatant bias of such appraisal. All through history, men have sacrificed their lives, endlessly struggling to establish the principle that no one shall be punished for the acts of others.

Hopefully, this Commission will be able to devise those remedies as will make it unlikely that this kind of action will ever again be imposed upon a group of innocent people. Hopefully, too, this Commission will release a preliminary draft of their findings and recommendations sufficiently in advance of the final deadline date for completion, so that the JACL and other interested groups will have an opportunity to review and comment. We would assume, of course, that we shall be granted the opportunity to suggest modifications or corrections, if such are needed, and indeed, if the final report and recommendations do not conform to what the national organization believes to be just and meet, that the JACL will be provided an opportunity to dissent from the findings and recommendations of the Commission.

However, knowing the caliber of the members of this Commission, we believe that our faith in you and in your work will be fully justified, and together we can build a record that we, as a people, did strenuously and nobly try to rectify the wrongs of the past.

Respectfully submitted,

[Signed]

Minoru Yasui, Chairman
National Committee for Redress
Japanese American Citizens League

Memo: 6-30-81

FREEDOM TO LEAVE CAMPS:���

Lillian Baker of Gardena, California, representing "Americans for Historical Accuracy", contends that evacuees were "free to leave WRA centers".

She further implies that there was "no military presence" at the WRA centers, and that there was no force implied or present to confine the evacuees within the boundaries of the WRA centers.

The following is illuminating on these two points:

"HEADQUARTERS WESTERN DEFENSE COMMAND AND FOURTH ARMY"

Presidio of San Francisco, California

Circular No. 19

17 September 1942

POLICIES PERTAINING TO USE OF MILITARY POLICE AT WAR RELOCATION CENTERS

"1. Under the authority granted the Commanding General Western Defense Command pursuant to Executive Order No. 9066, February 19, 1942,* Japanese civilians have been moved from certain military areas in this command as a matter of military necessity.

"3. ... The provisions of Public Proclamation No. 8, this headquarters require that those Japanese persons evacuated to a War Relocation Project Area shall remain in that area, except as movement is authorized by this headquarters, transmitted through the War Relocation Authority...

"7. Each relocation site will be under military police patrol and protection as determined by the War Department. Certain Military Police Escort Guard Companies have been assigned to duty at each of the relocation areas in the Western Defense Command.

"8. The military police on duty at relocation centers and areas shall perform the following functions:

c. They shall maintain periodic motor patrols around the boundaries of the center or area without permission...

d. They shall apprehend and arrest evacuees who do leave the center or area without authority, using such force as is necessary to make the arrest;

"9. ...From sunset to sunrise, the evacuees shall not be allowed beyond the center limits without special permission of the project director. Sentry towers will flood lights may be placed outside the boundaries of the center to assist the military police in maintaining proper control.

By command of Lieutenant General DeWITT"

Comment on: FREEDOM TO LEAVE CAMPS:

I. Lillian Baker's assumption that "evacuees were free to leave WRA centers" scarcely conforms to the facts:

(a) Evacuees had to conform to 'Leave Clearance' policies and requirements, and

(b) Evacuees had to have special permission from the Project Director of the WRA center in order to leave the WRA center.

The power to grant permission carries the concomitant power to deny permission. Evacuees were scarcely 'free' to leave of their own volition.

II. Lillian Baker has implied that there was "no military presence" at the WRA centers, pointing out that the WRA was a civilian agency of the federal government.

It is true that the WRA was a civilian agency.

However, it is also crystal clear that armed military personnel were assigned responsibilities to maintain "periodic motor patrols" to guard against attempts by evacuees to leave the center without permission. (Par. 8, c.)

It is also noted that the military police were empowered to use "such force as is necessary" which includes the power to shoot and kill, if deemed necessary. (Par. 8, d.)

III. Classification of evacuees as "Japanese civilians"

Under Par. 1, the Commanding General refers to the evacuees as *Japanese civilians.

This clearly indicates that, as of Sept. 17, 1942, the military mind regarded all evacuees as "Japanese" -- despite the fact that 2/3rds of them were United States citizens.

The military mind, in Sept. 1942, in effect regarded all Japanese as the "enemy", and official actions of the Western Defense Command was based on that prejudiced mind-set.