Historical background
A note on terminology for this source set: the curriculum uses "Japanese Latin American internment" to remain consistent with the legislative and federal efforts for redress. Senator Daniel K. Inouye's extensive advocacy for awareness and reparations for Japanese Latin Americans forcibly deported and detained in the U.S. relies on the use of "internment." Still, the current terminology of "internment" is highly contested as it is implies the legally permissible process of confinement for enemy aliens. This becomes complicated when applied to the case of Japanese Latin Americans who were not U.S. citizens and classified as "enemy aliens," but does not justify the illegal deportation and detainment executed on non-citizens. As such, this primary source set strives to align with the descriptions in the archives and legislative bills while reckoning with the apt description of incarceration over internment.
What Happened in World War II to Japanese Americans
During World War II, the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 became a catalyst for the U.S.’s growing anti-Japanese racism and wartime xenophobia. Citing military necessity, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s signed Executive Order 9066 in February 19, 1942. This order created the War Relocation Authority that forcibly relocated 120,000 Japanese Americans and incarcerated them in ten prison camps, euphemistically called “Relocation Centers.” Imprisoned without trial, Japanese Americans, two-thirds of whom were American citizens, remained incarcerated for the duration of the war. Along with Japanese Americans, another 2,264 Japanese Latin Americans, which included people of Japanese ancestry who were both citizens and permanent residents, were forcibly deported and relocated from 13 countries and detained in the U.S. throughout the war. The denial of civil liberties for both Japanese Americans and for Japanese Latin Americans continues to resonate today.
Japanese Latin Americans Removed from Latin America and Detained in the U.S.
Citing “hemispheric security” the U.S. government implemented a deportation-internment program by the Department of Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) for Japanese, Germans, and Italians from Latin America. “Hemispheric security,” as a way to purportedly safeguard American’s southern border from Japanese infiltration or attack, justified the forced removal of Japanese Latin Americans from 13 countries. An estimated 1,800 Japanese from Peru, 250 from Panama, and significant numbers from Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Venezuela were deported and detained in the U.S. According to the findings from Personal Justice Denied, documentation from INS, the State Department, the War Department, and the Emergency Advisory Committee for Political Defense, the U.S. government implied the rationale for the extraction and incarceration of Japanese Latin Americans was to potentially use them with Japan to trade for American citizens after the war in addition to purportedly securing hemispheric interests.
In April 1942, Peruvian and U.S. authorities began to deport and incarcerate 1,800 Japanese Peruvians to the United States. The first ship sailed out of Callao on April 5, 1942. For the next two years, the U.S. operated four ships to forcibly deport Japanese Peruvians and other Latin Americans of Japanese descent. Similar to the U.S.’s incarceration of Japanese Americans, few, if any, Japanese Latin Americans received any legal hearing during deportation. As a result, Japanese Latin Americans were being held indefinitely without charge in a foreign country.
The INS organized separate camps from the WRA prison camps that held Japanese Americans. These camps were in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Kennedy, Seagoville, and Crystal City, Texas. At the end of the incarceration program in 1944, 900 Japanese Latin Americans were exchanged for American civilians held in Japan; 1,000 were deported to Japan; and around 365 petitioned to stay in the U.S. The majority of Latin American countries refused to let deported Japanese return to their homes. Several hundred detainees remained in the United States as undocumented "immigrants."
The Civil Liberties Act of 1988
Hawaiʻi Senator Daniel K. Inouye spearheaded the formation of the 1980 Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, which presented substantial findings for the eventual Civil Liberties Act of 1988. This commission was aided by the combined efforts of legislators like fellow Hawaiʻi representative Spark Matsunaga, the JACL (Japanese American Citizens League), and the monumental Coram Nobis cases: Korematsu (1983), Hirabayashi (1986), and Yasui (1985). These pivotal cases overturned the Supreme Court decisions in the 1940s that had previously upheld the legality and justification of Japanese incarceration. The Commission’s findings in 1983, entitled Personal Justice Denied, included a section on the 2,300 Latin American Japanese, primarily from Peru, but also from 12 other countries who were forcibly removed from their countries and placed in U.S. internment camps. Designated as “illegal aliens,” Japanese Latin Americans were denied restitution and apology for the U.S.’s incarceration program.
After the findings of Personal Justice Denied were published, Senator Inouye along with enthusiastic and tireless support from his fellow Japanese American members of congress Spark Matsunaga (HI), Norman Mineta (CA), and Robert Matsui (CA) championed the necessity of federal apology and monetary restitution for the unlawful incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II in congress. As a result of their extensive advocacy, The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 was introduced in the house as H.R. 442 on January 6, 1987 by Thomas Foley (WA) and Spark Matsunaga (HI) simultaneously introduced the companion bill, S. 1009 in the Senate on April 10, 1987. The monumental Civil Liberties Act of 1988 was passed because of the relentless pursuit of federal restitution by especially Inouye and Matsunaga. The act formally recognized the “grave injustices” to Japanese Americans and resident aliens interned without justifiable reasons and were entitled to reparations of $20,000 each; however, this did not include any provisions for Japanese Latin Americans who were deported from their home countries and detained in the U.S..
Ongoing Movement for Japanese Latin American Redress
In 1996, former internees and their families formed a group called the "Campaign for Justice" to promote their cause. Between 1996 and 1999, five lawsuits were filed on behalf of the Japanese Latin Americans. The class action lawsuit, Mochizuki, et al. v. USA resulted in a settlement whereby the U.S. government agreed to issue an individual letters of apology and to pay each internee $5,000. On June 23, 2000, U.S. Representatives Xavier Becerra (D-CA) introduced the first legislation in the House, H.R. 4735 the Wartime Parity and Justice Act. Becerra again introduced the Wartime Parity and Justice Act on February 14, 2001 while Senator Inouye introduced the companion bill in the Senate, S. 1237 on July 25, 2001. These bills in their various iterations intended to secure formal apology from the federal government and to provide restitution akin to the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. However, these bills did not pass even as they were reintroduced in 2003 and 2005. Inouye and Becerra then strategically devised a new approach that also followed the pattern of success with the Civil Liberties Act by proposing the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Latin Americans of Japanese Descent Act in 2006 through H.R. 4901 in the House and S. 2296 in the Senate. The Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Latin Americans of Japanese Descent Act would establish a Commission to extend the work of the 1980 Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians to exclusively focus on the deportation and detainment of Latin Americans of Japanese descent in World War II. These bills did not pass and were reintroduced in 2007, 2009, and most recently in 2011.
Key Vocabulary
Deportation: The formal and legal removal of a foreign national from another country that usually happens as a result of a violation of immigration law through visa violations or unlawful entry into the country. Deportation also implies the forced expulsion of an individual under federal immigration law.
Incarceration: The state of being imprisoned or confined. Asian American scholars have argued how this is a more accurate term instead of internment to describe Japanese confinement during World War II. This applies to both Japanese Americans and Latin American Japanese.
Internment: Imprisoning and detaining someone for political reasons or during war; used to refer specifically to the 120,000 Japanese detained during World War II. Internment is used here because of the federal legislation proposed to address the injustices of the forced deportation and detainment of Latin American Japanese.
Reparations: Broadly defined as a system of redress for injustices that acknowledge a legal obligation of a nation, state, or group to repair or atone for the consequences of abuses or injuries. Reparations involves both formal acknowledgement for injustices committed and typically financial payments to address the abuses.
Repatriation: The process of returning someone or something to the country of origin or citizenship.
Restitution: Refers to the legal process of a providing compensation for loss or injury done. This can mean a monetary payment that is imposed as a penalty to restore a loss.
Rightlessness: Naomi Paik defines “rightlessness” as those who are outside the notion of the subject who is deserving of rights and therefore are beyond the concept of personhood. Rightlessness is not a legal or political identity, but a condition that is structured around protecting the rights of those deemed viable where rightless subjects are depicted as incomprehensible and unbelievable. This concept especially applies to Latin American Japanese who were forcibly deported and then incarcerated in the United States without legal counsel.
Xenophobia: The fear, hatred, and distrust of strangers or anything foreign. This is often categorized through an uncritical and often ignorant response to people who are culturally different. The rise of xenophobia typically occurs with immigration and globalization.