Private Laws

Restoring American Citizenship

Angela Davis

One little known type of legislation in the U.S. Congress is a “Private Bill.” These are created for very specific purposes, usually to aid one individual, family, or even a corporation. While they are uncommon today, back in the 1950s over 4,000 of them were passed.[1] The most common uses for them are: citizenship, taxes, benefits claims, and military decorations.[2] In 1959, Asae Nishimoto of Pocatello, ID was the beneficiary of a private bill in the 85^th U.S. Congress.

Nishimoto was born in Pocatello in 1920. Around the time of her 8^th birthday, her family returned to Japan where she attended high school, got married, and had three children. She also voted in four Japanese elections. In the 1950s, she wanted to return to Idaho to live near her brother, Novo Kato. The problem Nishimoto encountered was that because of the Nationality Act of 1940 and her voting record in Japan, she had lost her U.S. citizenship.

In 1959, Idaho’s Senator Frank Church introduced a private bill on behalf of Asae Nishimoto. The bill would allow Nishimoto to regain her U.S. citizenship by swearing her allegiance to the United States just like new citizens do at the end of the naturalization process.[3] Nishimoto did not realize that voting in Japan would nullify her U.S. citizenship. The reason that she voted in Japan was to help elect Japanese officials who were pro-American, to encourage democracy in the world, and because she was told she would lose food rations if she did not vote.

Nishimoto received support for her re-naturalization from Japanese American Citizen League (JACL) of Pocatello. Her brother, Novo Kato, at the time was President of the JACL chapter in Pocatello and had been an officer for the intermountain region of the JACL. He is described in a letter from the Pocatello JACL to Senator Church as “one of our leading Japanese American citizens in Idaho.”[4] In addition to contacting Senator Church about Nishimoto, the Pocatello JACL also provided documents and expertise about U.S. citizenship legislation. Without the JACL and its knowledge of U.S. laws, it is less likely that Nishimoto would have been able to regain her citizenship via a private bill. The organization was instrumental in helping people with citizenship and civil rights issues in the decades following WWII.

The State Department also provided information on Nishimoto to the Senate Judiciary Committee.[5] It included information on Nishimoto’s oldest son, Torso, who was 19 and living in California with an aunt at the time. It also went in depth on Novo Kato’s business assets in Pocatello, probably for the purpose of proving that he could support her once she moved to Pocatello. In a report by the U.S. Passport Office, it states that Nishimoto voted in Japanese elections because U.S. General Douglas MacArthur had requested it.[6] This helped to prove that Nishimoto had retained her allegiance to the United States while living in Japan.

Public legislation had been passed in 1954 to help expedite the re-naturalization of American born citizens who voted in Japan after it surrendered in 1945. Nishimoto fit that description and her Private Bill was passed on July 13^th 1959.[7] She became a U.S. citizen again and was able to return to Pocatello, the city of her birth.

Angela Davis is a History and Government teacher in Southeastern Idaho. She received a Master's degree in History from Idaho State University in May 2020.