John Tateishi, Redress: The Inside Story of the Successful Campaign for Japanese American Reparations, Heyday Berkeley, CA, 2020, released in paperback 2024.
In his book Redress: The Inside Story of the Successful Campaign for Japanese American Reparations, John Tateishi recounts his time as chairman of the National Committee for Redress for the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), directing the JACL’s legislative campaign in the multi-faceted movement to redress the wrongful removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Originally published in hardback in 2020, the newly released paperback’s new preface notes how Japanese American redress has become only more relevant in light of the current movement seeking reparations for the harms suffered, and that continue to be suffered, by the Black community as a result of the institution of slavery.
Tateishi’s book is engaging reading, giving insight into how he and others worked within JACL, in meeting rooms behind the scenes, and in the halls of Washington, DC to gain redress. And, while mentioning other efforts that paralleled JACL’s campaign, the main focus of Tateishi’s book is on only one part, albeit an important part, of the overall redress effort.
Tateishi began working on redress at the JACL chapter level and later helped develop and implement a national strategy to obtain redress from the federal government. That campaign, as Tateishi describes, involved working on many fronts, none easy and all presenting hurdles that seemed impossible to overcome.
He explains that the Japanese American community was deeply divided on whether to seek reparations at all and, even if it sought reparations, divided on what path to take towards them and what would be adequate relief. Further, many community members were reluctant to revisit the incarceration or speak about it to their own children, much less demand redress from a legislative body.
He describes the critical influence of the Nikkei members of Congress as well as the painstaking work of educating other members of Congress one-by-one. He delves into what it took to win passage of the legislation that created the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC), which was charged with investigating the incarceration.
He speaks, in moving words, about the testimony of hundreds of Japanese Americans who had been forced from their homes into desolate camps in the interior of the country. And he shares the tremendous moment that the CWRIC stated its finding that the incarceration was the result of race prejudice and recommended payments of $20,000 to each surviving incarceree.
After laying a foundation in Congress, internal differences within JACL caused Tateishi to transition away from that role before the next legislative push. That next push included the challenging but successful effort to pass legislation actually implementing the CWRIC’s recommendations, including providing funds for the redress payments and the impactful work of the Civil Liberties Trust Fund. For an account of the broader redress story, see Mitchell Maki, et al, Achieving the Impossible Dream: How Japanese Americans Obtained Redress.
Tateishi’s book is just as much a personal memoir as it is a recounting of the first important stage of JACL’s quest for redress. Tateishi shares his own journey into public interest activism and how he threw himself wholeheartedly into a cause he believed in passionately. He talks about being a lightning rod for criticism from others within the Japanese American community and facing the ire of the many who opposed redress. And he shares the difficult personal choices faced when the commitment to public service at times requires sacrificing time with, and duty to, family.
I finished the book grateful for Tateishi’s leadership, including the skill he brought to helping to navigate critical legislation in Congress. At the same time, I was left with some thoughts about both the book and the redress movement.
First, as Tateishi himself cautions, he recounts only his own story. An informed reader should know of the important work of other groups toward redress. I mention just a couple of those other efforts here.
Parallel to and after Tateishi’s work on Capitol Hill, for example, the National Coalition for Redress/Reparations formed a grassroots network to organize in support of redress. It held workshops to educate the Japanese American community about redress and to help people prepare and present testimony. It worked with the CWRIC to ensure that the hearings were accessible in both location and in providing language translations. It sought to bring the different organizations involved in redress together, working closely with local JACL chapters and other groups within the community. It organized an historic lobbying trip in which 140 Japanese Americans went to Capitol Hill to share their stories and seek redress. It was intentional in ensuring that women held leadership positions. For more information, see Nikkei for Civil Rights & Redress, NCRR: The Grassroots Struggle for Japanese American Redress and Reparations.
The coram nobis legal teams, of which I was a part, filed court proceedings to challenge the World War II Korematsu, Yasui, and Hirabayashi cases, in which the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the government orders leading to the incarceration. Based on proof that the government lied to the Supreme Court, Messrs. Korematsu, Yasui, and Hirabayashi’s convictions were vacated. Those rulings, as Tateishi explains, were key to change the minds of legislators who hid behind those Supreme Court rulings in opposing redress. One correction: the Korematsu case was not brought by the Asian Law Caucus, as Tateishi states; instead, it was brought by a team of lawyers from different practices, including the Caucus. For more information, see the entry for Coram Nobis in Densho’s online encyclopedia.
The Seattle Chapter of the JACL was a ground-breaking part of the redress campaign, but national JACL belittled its efforts. Tateishi acknowledges that some of the earliest discussions of redress started in Seattle. As early as 1968, Boeing engineer Henry Miyatake began thinking seriously about redress. Seattle was passionately committed to seeking individual monetary reparations, resulting in Congressperson Mike Lowry introducing his own bill seeking individual payments. Tateishi and the National JACL saw the bill in direct conflict with their approach to first establish a study commission. When National JACL first heard of the Lowry bill, there was talk of sanctioning the Seattle-based chapters and, later, a JACL president said he would “take care” of Seattle for introducing the Lowry bill.
Second, as I read the book, I was struck by the dearth of women in leadership positions in JACL’s redress campaign during the time described in the book. I write this not to demonize Tateishi or to second-guess the choices that he and others within the JACL made. I point this out to dispel any impression that our community did not have highly capable women leaders at the time and to make sure that younger generations, particularly of women, know of women in the movement and other women leaders at the time.
In particular, to just name a few, while Tateishi only briefly mentions Seattle pioneer Cherry Kinoshita and Carole Hayashino, staff to JACL’s National Committee for Redress, they contributed immeasurably to redress. Patsy Mink was a lawyer who served in Congress from 1965-1977 and again from 1990-2002; she became the first sponsor of Title IX, the legislation that mandated equality for women in educational programs. Helen Kawagoe, who served as city clerk of Carson, California, from 1974, is believed to be the first Japanese American elected to local office in the continental US. She later became the second female president of JACL. Yuri Kochiyama was a well-known civil rights activist who advocated for redress, founded New York’s Day of Remembrance, and was an early advocate for Black reparations and against the profiling of Muslims and persons of Middle Eastern descent.
Importantly, Tateishi recognizes and praises the extraordinary work of Grayce Uyehara who took the reins of JACL’s successful legislative campaign to get the CWRIC’s findings and recommendations passed into law, and redress paid, after he stepped away. It’s important, I think, for Japanese Americans to reexamine our history to lift the ways in which women have led.
Finally, throughout the book, I kept returning to ask myself about whether the goals of the redress movement were met. To be sure, the movement was successful in beginning to educate the public about the incarceration; most people, as Tateishi says, knew nothing about it. And it resulted in the government’s official recognition that its wartime actions were wrong, a national apology, and the payment of monetary reparations to those harmed. Gaining those things, against all odds, was breath-taking.
But, as Tateishi discusses, there were other important goals, as well: to heal the community, to affirm the importance of constitutional rights, and to ensure that nothing similar ever happens again. While I know that the redress movement provided Japanese Americans a measure of healing, Tateishi would, I’m sure, agree that no apology or payment can fully heal the physical and psychic toll of being taken from one’s home, being incarcerated, and losing and then trying to rebuild vibrant communities. Nothing could make Japanese Americans whole for the loss of just about everything they had built. Regardless, the country needed to, and had to, reckon with and attempt to redress the egregious wrong that occurred during World War II. In the same way, the country today needs to reckon with and attempt to redress the enduring harms caused by slavery.
I also remain deeply saddened that one of the main goals of Japanese American redress still remains unmet. As Tateishi writes, the reason why many Japanese Americans supported redress was not for any personal benefit, but instead to ensure that nothing similar ever happens to anyone else again. Of course, one has to define what “something similar” looks like. I define it as the targeting individuals based on stereotypes, most often stereotypes rooted in irrational fear that they belong to a group, be it racial, religious, or other, that poses a threat.
We continue to see groups targeted in this way again and again. Tateishi writes about how, as executive director of JACL, he mobilized the organization to respond to the profiling of Muslims and persons of Middle Eastern descent after 9/11. And we’ve seen too many instances of anti-Asian hate, most recently blaming Asian Americans for the coronavirus. We see Mexicans cast as an invading horde, like Chinese were in the late 1880s. And we see young Blacks profiled as dangerous and subject to suspicion and violence simply because of how they look. It’s essential to view the wartime Japanese American incarceration, not as a singular event, but as an example of a history of treating minorities as foreign and not belonging. Japanese Americans have a particular ability to speak up when there are threats against others based on their race, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or other group identity.
The most important lesson from the story of Japanese American redress, which Tateishi relates so well, is the importance of education about the times this country has failed in its promise of equality. We now see attacks on teaching the histories of immigrant communities and communities of color, as well as on efforts to advance diversity and ensure inclusion, all of which will only solidify the kind of ignorance and fear that gave rise to the wartime incarceration. The only way that events like the wartime incarceration won’t happen again is to ensure a public educated about the country’s shameful history with people perceived to be different and about the need for constant vigilance to avoid repeating it.
Lorraine K. Bannai is professor emeritus and director emeritus of the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality at Seattle University School of Law. She gratefully acknowledges Leigh-Ann Miyasato for her contributions to this review.
