I cannot hope to sum up the redress movement here: it took a two day conference with people from places like New York, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, San Jose, Washington D.C. and Los Angeles to do so, sharing their work around redress beginning in the 70’s.  What I would like to share are the lessons that NCRR learned and is still learning.

The winning of redress took a movement of people on all levels doing a variety of activities.  It took pilgrimages to Manzanar and Tule Lake.  It took people testifying before the Commission and telling their stories.  It took legislators like Mike Lowry and Mervyn Dymally to initiate legislation.  It took our Nikkei congressmen to carry the bill through the House and Senate.  It took lobbying in Washington.  It took letters, phone calls and telegrams from the community to our representatives.  It took churches, the Congressional Black caucus and other non-Japanese organizations endorsing the campaign to get the bill passed, and it took more letters, more phone calls and more telegrams to get President Reagan to sign the bill.  It took researchers and writers like Michi Weglyn who exposed the truth about the government’s involvement.  Most of all, it took individuals like yourselves who were willing to talk to a friend or schools, educate your churches and keep the movement going until the Civil Liberties Act was signed in 1988.  In other words it took a grassroots campaign to win redress.

It took the Issei, Nisei and Sansei working together.  As Sansei, we brought our experiences to the struggle for redress.  Many of us had participated in the fight for Asian American Studies in college and had been inspired by the Civil Rights Movement.  We saw similarities with other minorities in our experiences with racism and the camps.  We believed that it was important to support others who were facing discrimination, especially because Japanese Americans knew what it was like when people did not speak up for them in 1942.  So we raised money and sent food to the Native Americans at Big Mountain, joined in the anti-apartheid movement and spoke out against the anti-Arab hysteria during the Gulf War.  Soon people came to us and we responded.  We supported the need for more housing such as the San Pedro Firm Building, and other tenant issues in Little Tokyo.  We support workers of different nationalities who want better working conditions and to be treated with respect at the New Otani or the Rafu Shimpo.  The winning of redress also inspired other groups to seek redress.  We were invited to speak to Koreans in Japan and asked to support the comfort women and Chinese who are seeking redress from the Japanese government and corporations such as Kajima who used them as slave labor at Hanaoka.

Over the past 18 years, we kept learning more about the Iseei and Nisei experiences during the evacuation.  We realized the value of videotaping the Commission hearing and, with Visual Communications, have preserved them.  It is a record of the three days of testimony in Los Angeles from people speaking about their experiences for the first time.  During the campaign we lobbied with MIS, 442nd and 100th Battalion veterans, put on press conferences and programs like the one on the liberation of Dachau with the 522nd Field Artillery veterans.  We met draft resisters who also supported redress and who helped to lobby for the bill.  Through the campaign we learned that there were many different experiences and reactions to the injustice of the camps and evacuation.  And we respect all the decisions that people made.  We believe that it is important to understand and learn from these decisions while we have the chance.  And we have helped to organize educationals with both veterans and draft resisters and those who answered no-no.

The winning of redress in 1988 provided an opportunity for people to examine how their rights and freedoms had been violated by the government.  People who had been denied redress talked about their experiences, and it was clear that they needed to be included.  During the 1990’s children of voluntary evacuees came forward to fight for redress.  And minor children who were forced to go to Japan with their families on the Gripsolm spoke up about the injustices they suffered.  We are also learning about the railroad and mine workers who lost their jobs and homes and the Japanese Latin Americans who were kidnapped by the USA and interned at Crystal City.  As the ORA prepares to close its doors in August 1998, the fight for redress continues with greater intensity for these remaining groups who are still fighting for redress.

Just as the camps are a part of Japanese American history, so is the fight and winning of redress.  It is a legacy of suffering and standing up as a community.  And it means that Japanese Americans understand more clearly the need to speak up and to prevent other injustices.  Within NCRR there is a committee made up of Yonsei who believe that it is important to share the history of Little Tokyo through tours and who have taken positions on affirmative action.  They and the next generations will build off of this legacy and bring to it their own perspectives and issues.