THE AMERICAN CIVI LIBERTIES UNION (ACLU)

In the midst of wartime hysteria, anti-Japanese sentiment and the chaos of evacuation and internment, two young lawyers with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in Southern California filed a lawsuit on behalf of two Japanese Arnericans to challenge the constitutionality of the internment. This marked the beginning of a life-long relationship that attorneys Fred Okrand and A.L. Wirin had with the Japanese American community. Unfortunately, due to pressures from within the community, the lawsuit was dropped by the plaintiffs. For their principled position, Okrand and Wirin were victims of sneers and insults and were called anti-American and unpatriotic.

After the war, Okrand and Wirin successfully represented Japanese Americans who sought to regain their citizenship after renouncing it because of the oppressive conditions at Tule Lake. In the 1950's Okrand represented Japanese Americans who lost property during the war which led to the case of Oyama v. California and the end of the Alien Land Laws. Okrand called the internment, "an atrocity. . .the single greatest violation of civil rights in our history. . . ."

Though retired as Legal Director of the ACLU in1996, Okrand joined the pro-bono legal team of the Campaign for Justice which sought reparations for Japanese Latin Americans who had been kidnapped and incarcerated by the U.S. government. Through the settlement of Mochizuki v. United States, 645 of these former internees received a presidential apology and $5000 in reparations. .

A. L. Wirin represented Min Yasui's challenge of the constitutionality of the curfew against Japanese Americans, defended Nisei draft resisters, Issei seeking United States citizenship, and several Tule Lake renunciants. In June 1943, Wirin testified at the Dies subcommittee public hearings, stating, "This evacuation was not based upon military strategy but was brought about by pressure groups of those racially prejudiced." He called for Japanese Americans to be returned to the West Coast and for an "investigation of groups that have inflamed racial prejudice." When a congressman referred to the camps as relocation centers Wirin countered, "If they are not to be released then they are not relocation centers but concentration camps."

According to Nisei author and activist, Michi Weglyn, Attorney Wayne Collins, "did more to correct a Democracy's mistake than any other one person." During the 1940's, Collins represented Fred Korematsu in his landmark Supreme Court case that tested the constitutionality of the internment. He represented thousands of renunciants from Tule Lake and fought for the rights of 4,948 Nisei to have their citizenship restored, which was finally won after more than 14 years.