Personal Justice Denied: Report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians

Prologue

Prologue We often take our civil rights and civil liberties for granted. When we vote, we go to a polling place and privately vote our conscience, casting our ballot for a candidate or issue ofchoice. We are free to express our opinions on any controversial issue among friends, family, or others. We also can go to an after-hours grocery store to pick up something for a late-night snack. Moving about freely and expressing our opinions are not only socially acceptable, they are guaranteed under the Constitution and Bill ofRights. But how would you respond if your civil liberties were taken away? How would you feel ifthe police arrested you because you were wearing a certain color shirt that was coincidentally the color worn by a local street gang? What if the minister at your neighborhood church were suddenly taken away for questioning because he was a respected leader in your community? What if vandals broke into your home, sprayed graffiti, and ransacked your property simply because of your race, gender, or religious affiliation? You would be angry and stunned! Yet these were exactly the outrages directed against an innocent group of American citizens and legal residents during a period of wartime hysteria. They happened during World War II, and could happen again, not just to citizens and permanent resident aliens of Japanese ancestry but to any other group, for an arbitrary reason, if we fail to learn the lessons of history. ix x PERSONAL JUSTICE DENIED That is why Personal Justice Denied is an important document for all Americans. We need to understand that our civil and constitutional rights, however precious and important they may be to us, are vulnerable to arbitrary intrusion from our own government, especially during times ofcrisis. In many ways this publication was an extension ofthe Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, which helped raise the nation's consciousness about the negative effects ofracial prejudice and discrimination. In the sixties, nearly all segments of the country were struggling to understand the seeds of prejudice and hatred. For the Japanese American community, this period was also an opportunity to raise issues regarding its identity, culture, and experience in America. Through its own initiative and leadership, the community struggled to learn more about the wartime experience of Japanese Americans forced to leave their homes and businesses. Americans ofJapanese ancestry struggled to understand issues of forced detention without due process, the rationale of military necessity and racial discrimination, and the emotional pain and suffering of those detained while their sons were serving in the military, defending the very rights their families were being denied. The learning process was both enlightening and empowering. The lessons from this experience were important not just for one community but for the general population. In bringing this issue to the forefront of national attention, the Japanese American community sought to educate the American public about the violation of constitutional rights and the potential for abuse ofpower by the government and the military. They also appealed for redress for those directly affected. In response to the advocacy for redress by a broad spectrum ofthe Japanese American community, Congress created the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC) to review and analyze the official government contention, historically accepted, that the exclusion, forced removal, and detention ofAmericans ofJapanese ancestry were justified by military necessity. The Commission was charged with issuing a report to Congress and with making appropriate recommendations based on its findings. One of the Commission's recommendations was to establish a program to educate the American public on the issues involved. Based on CWRIC recommendations, the Congress adopted, and the President signed into law, Public Law 100-383 (The Civil Liberties Act of1988), which created The Civil Liberties Public Education Fund (CLPEF). Specifically, the legislation mandates the CLPEF: PROLOGUE xi to sponsor research and public educational activities, and to publish and distribute the hearings, findings, and recommendations of the Commission, so that the events surrounding the evacuation, relocation, and internment of United States citizens and permanent resident aliens ofJapanese ancestry will be remembered, and so that the causes and circumstances ofthis and similar events may be illuminated and understood. Our collaboration with the University of Washington Press to publish the second edition of PersonalJustice Denied partially fulfills the Congressional mandate. However, the CLPEF's interests were not limited to compliance with the mandate. We collaborated on republishing this book...