JAPANESE LATIN AMERICANS STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE: CAMPAIGN FOR JUSTICE

During World War II, the U.S. govemment orchestrated the abduction of 2,264 Japanese Latin Americans (JLAs) from their homes and communities in Peru and 12 other countries and incarcerated them in the Crystal City internment camp in Texas. The objective of this mass kidnapping was to obtain persons to trade for Americans caught in Japanese occupied territory. Many JLAs were used in the exchange. Not allowed to stay in the U.S. and not wanted by their former Latin American countries, most of the remaining JLAs were forced to go to Japan after the war. Some were able to remain in the U.S. as critical-need workers at the Seabrook Farms in New Jersey.

The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 excluded JLAs because it was stipulated that redress recipients had to have been citizens or legal permanent resident aliens during the War. According to the U.S. govemment, JLAs had "illegally" entered the U.S.; therefore, they were denied redress.

JLAs and Japanese American redress activists, outraged by this technicality, formed the Campaign for Justice (CFJ), which filed a lawsuit on behalf of all Japanese Latins who were denied redress. In 1998, the lawsuit culminated in a bittersweet settlement to redress JLAs with an apology and $5,000 in monetary compensation. Unsatisfied with this settlement, CFJ continues to fight for redress in the same amount given to Japanese Americans ($20,000) and for the government to acknowledge the fundamental injustices suffered by Japanese Latin Americans during WW II. CFJ is working with Congressmam Xavier Becerra (D-LA) to achieve not only-redress equity for JLAs but redress for Japanese Americans who had also been denied payments due to other technicalities.