Densho Digital Archive - Sue Kunitomi Embrey Interview (denshovh-esue-02-0018)

<Begin Segment 18>

JA: Tell me briefly about the movement to achieve some redress for the camp issue.

SE: Well, we were involved in the pilgrimages for a good ten years before some people decided that they needed to at least seek redress from the government. Early in 1975, some people from our chapter of JACL in San Fernando Valley approached me, asked me to be on this committee to try to get the JACL to take a position for redress, which they were not doing. So we talked to churches and got resolutions from them, labor unions to pass resolutions supporting redress, and eventually the JACL took a position in 1976. And then in 1978, a group of people formed the National Coalition for Redress and Reparation, and they formed a nationwide network, and they did grassroots campaigning. And then another fellow in Chicago, who was disillusioned with the JACL position, formed his own group called the National Committee for Japanese American Redress, and he went through the court system. And he got as far as the U.S. Supreme Court -- the U.S. Supreme Court sent it back to the Appeals Court for some technical reason, but recommended that Congress do something about redress rather than have the courts decide. And so it was a kind of -- and JACL decided they wanted a commission to look into the reasons for the removal and have the commission report to Congress. So it was kind of a three-prong battle, one on the grassroots, one through the courts, and one through Congress.

JA: Did courts ever find this situation to be unconstitutional?

SE: Not, not, not really. They had three court cases in '45, but one of the judges said it was on the brink of constitutionality, and the majority ruled that it was within the rights of the government to do it. So those cases were not set aside until I think 1978, when a group of lawyers decided to test the cases on a very rare technical point of what they call coram nobis. That the government was given false information which they presented to the Supreme Court, and that the cases should be thrown out based on that. What happened was the 9th District, I think it was the 9th District Court on the West Coast declared that all cases had to be set aside.

JA: What difference did it make to you when there was a check for redress and apology from the President?

SE: Well, I think it told me that our government was strong enough to tell the world that they had made a mistake and they were willing to amend it. I don't think the money meant that much to many people as much as the apology. It sort of lifted a burden from them and that many more people could talk about what had happened to them.

JA: Try to recap for me and for our audience what you think are the main constitutional issues raised by this experience.

SE: Well, I think the whole procedure ignored the constitutional rights of individuals. We were denied personal freedom, we were denied the right to a trial, right to legal counsel, we were deprived of our property and our personal effects. And it raises a whole question of the whole ten Bill of Rights being ignored by our government and used against its own citizens. And I think that we need to be vigilant about that because even today, we have violations by the government against its own citizens. It may not be an ethnic group but it could be against anybody else.

JA: How does your experience affect your feelings about this country?

SE: Well, at first I was kind of disillusioned about what the government had done, but in the process of working to preserve Manzanar and having testified before Congress and made contact with many legislators, I feel that our government is a very strong government and that all of us need to be a participant and really take part to make it even stronger and even a better country. And I think I probably appreciate it more than I had before. I know that ever since September 11th, whenever I see the flag waving, it really makes me feel very good.