Japanese-American Claims Act

Last updated

The Japanese-American Claims Act is a law passed by the United States Congress and signed by President Harry S. Truman on July 2, 1948. The law authorized the settlement of property loss claims by people of Japanese descent who were removed from the Pacific Coast area during World War II. According to a Senate report on the Act, there were concerns about whether the United States government had the right to evacuate and place all people of Japanese ancestry in internment camps. As result of being placed in the Japanese internment camps there was great loss of property, belongings, business, "and the principles of justice and responsible government require that there should be compensation for such losses. "Congress over time appropriated $38 million to settle 23,000 claims for damages totaling $131 million. The final claim was adjudicated in 1965." [1]

Contents

History

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise air strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy on the neutral United States in Oahu, Hawaii—with the focus being directed against the naval base at Pearl Harbor—on the morning of December 7, 1941. The attack sank four U.S. battleships, destroyed 188 U.S. aircraft, and killed nearly 2,500 people, leading to the United States joining World War II the next day. Once the United States entered the war and anti-Japanese sentiment began to circulate, Americans increasingly reacted with racism and hostility, viewing people of Japanese descent as enemies regardless of U.S. citizenship. The U.S. government expressed concerns about the loyalty of the Japanese people living in America and about Japanese spies sending information to Japan. As a result, the Treasury Department froze the assets of all citizens and resident aliens who were born in Japan, and the Department of Justice arrested some 1,500 religious and community leaders as potentially dangerous enemy aliens. The chief concern among military and political leaders was due to the fact many of the largest populations of Japanese Americans were in close proximity to vital war assets along the Pacific Coast.

In response to the public fears, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942. [2] The order "granted the secretary of war and his commanders the power "to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commander may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded." While no specific group or location was mentioned in the order, it was quickly applied to virtually the entire Japanese American population on the West Coast." [2]

Once Executive Order 9066 was issued all people of Japanese descent in the Western Defense Command were evacuated from their homes, forcibly relocated, and confined to relocation and then internment camps. They were only allowed to take what they could carry with them and were not told where they were going or how long they would be gone. By June, more than 110,000 Japanese Americans were relocated to remote internment camps built by the U.S. military in scattered locations around the country. For the next two and a half years, many of these Japanese Americans endured extremely difficult living conditions and poor treatment by their military guards. [3]

During World War II, U.S. Major General Henry C. Pratt issues Public Proclamation No. 21, declaring that, effective January 2, 1945, Japanese American "evacuees" from the West Coast could return to their homes. [4] In December 1944, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Ex parte Mitsuye Endo that it was beyond the power of the War Relocation Authority "to detain citizens against whom no charges of disloyalty or subversiveness have been made for a period longer than that necessary to separate the loyal from the disloyal."

In 1948, President Harry S. Truman signed the Evacuation Claims Act, which gave internees the opportunity to submit claims for property lost as a result of relocation. [2]

Claims Act of 1948

Following is the text of the Claims Act of 1948: "That no amount received as an award under the Act entitled "An Act to authorize the Attorney General to adjudicate certain claims resulting from evacuation of certain persons of Japanese ancestry under military orders", approved July 2, 1948. As amended by Public Law 116 Eighty-second Congress, and Public Law 673, Eighty-fourth Congress (50U.S.6.App. sees.1981-1987), shall be included in gross income for purposes of chapter the Internal Revenue Code of 1939 or chapter 1 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954." [5]

"SEC.2. The first section of this Act shall apply with respect to taxable year sending after July 2, 1948. If refund or credit of any over payment of Federal income tax resulting from the application of the first section of this Act (Including interest, additions to the tax, additional amounts, and penalties) is prevented on the date of the enactment of this Act, or within one year from such date, by the operation of any law or rule of law, the refund or credit of such over payment may nevertheless be made or allowed if claim there for is filed within one year after the date of the enactment of this Act. In the case of a claim to which the preceding sentence applies the amount to be refunded or credited as an overpayment shall not be diminished by any creditor set-off based upon any item other than the amount of the award referred to in the first section of this Act. No interest shall be allowed or paid on any overpayment resulting from the application of this Act." [5]

Amendments

The Claims Act of 1948 was amended on June 5, 1956. "The purpose of the amendments is to establish $100,000 as the maximum award which the Attorney General may make in the compromise and settlement of a claim under the Japanese-American Evacuation Claims Act of 1948 without submission of a claim of the Court of Claims." [6]

Claims

Many former Japanese American internees had lost their property and their homes during internment; they had no place to go home to and had only a handful of belongings. The Claims Act was set up to help these people after release from the camps but it had its flaws. The processing of the claims took time and many of these people had nothing and were in urgent need of money for shelter and food after the camps closed. "JAPANESE-AMERICAN EVACUATION CLAIMS ACT OF 1948 the proposed legislation would confer jurisdiction upon the Court of Claims to determine any claim timely filed under the act. A petition to the court for such determination could be filed at any time except that it could not be filed more than 90 days after the date of a notice by the Attorney General served on the claimant by registered mail that no further consideration would be given to the compromise of the claim." [6] An example of such involves a claim filed by Toshi Shimomaye, who was forced to sell several possessions to the highest bidder that resulted in a net loss of several hundred dollars.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Executive Order 9066</span> 1942 U.S. presidential order for the internment of Japanese-Americans

Executive Order 9066 was a United States presidential executive order signed and issued during World War II by United States president Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942. "This order authorized the forced removal of all persons deemed a threat to national security from the West Coast to "relocation centers" further inland—resulting in the incarceration of Japanese Americans." Two-thirds of them were U.S. citizens, born and raised in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internment of Japanese Americans</span> World War II mass incarceration in the United States

During World War II, the United States, by order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, forcibly relocated and incarcerated at least 125,284 people of Japanese descent in 75 identified incarceration sites. Most lived on the Pacific Coast, in concentration camps in the western interior of the country. Approximately two-thirds of the inmates were United States citizens. These actions were initiated by Executive Order 9066 following Imperial Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. Like many Americans at the time, the architects of the removal policy failed to distinguish between Japanese immigrants and Japanese Americans. Of the 127,000 Japanese Americans who were living in the continental United States at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, 112,000 resided on the West Coast. About 80,000 were Nisei and Sansei. The rest were Issei immigrants born in Japan who were ineligible for U.S. citizenship under U.S. law.

Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944), was a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that upheld the internment of Japanese Americans from the West Coast Military Area during World War II. The decision has been widely criticized, with some scholars describing it as "an odious and discredited artifact of popular bigotry", and as "a stain on American jurisprudence". The case is often cited as one of the worst Supreme Court decisions of all time. Chief Justice John Roberts repudiated the Korematsu decision in his majority opinion in the 2018 case of Trump v. Hawaii.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Civil Liberties Act of 1988</span> Law granting reparations to interned Japanese Americans

The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 is a United States federal law that granted reparations to Japanese Americans who had been wrongly interned by the United States government during World War II and to "discourage the occurrence of similar injustices and violations of civil liberties in the future". The act was sponsored by California Democratic congressman and former internee Norman Mineta in the House and Hawaii Democrat Senator Spark Matsunaga in the Senate. The bill was supported by the majority of Democrats in Congress, while the majority of Republicans voted against it. The act was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gila River War Relocation Center</span> Internment camp for Japanese-Americans during World War II

The Gila River War Relocation Center was an American concentration camp in Arizona, one of several built by the War Relocation Authority (WRA) during the Second World War for the incarceration of Japanese Americans from the West Coast. It was located within the Gila River Indian Reservation near the town of Sacaton, about 30 mi (48.3 km) southeast of Phoenix. With a peak population of 13,348, it became the fourth-largest city in the state, operating from May 1942 to November 16, 1945.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Minidoka National Historic Site</span> Historic site in Idaho, USA

Minidoka National Historic Site is a National Historic Site in the western United States. It commemorates the more than 13,000 Japanese Americans who were imprisoned at the Minidoka War Relocation Center during the Second World War. Among the inmates, the notation 峰土香 or 峯土香 was sometimes applied.

Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U.S. 81 (1943), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court held that the application of curfews against members of a minority group were constitutional when the nation was at war with the country from which that group's ancestors originated. The case arose out of the issuance of Executive Order 9066 following the attack on Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entry into World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had authorized military commanders to secure areas from which "any or all persons may be excluded", and Japanese Americans living in the West Coast were subject to a curfew and other restrictions before being removed to internment camps. The plaintiff, Gordon Hirabayashi, was convicted of violating the curfew and had appealed to the Supreme Court. Yasui v. United States was a companion case decided the same day. Both convictions were overturned in coram nobis proceedings in the 1980s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Topaz War Relocation Center</span> United States historic place

The Topaz War Relocation Center, also known as the Central Utah Relocation Center (Topaz) and briefly as the Abraham Relocation Center, was an American concentration camp in which Americans of Japanese descent and immigrants who had come to the United States from Japan, called Nikkei were incarcerated. President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 in February 1942, ordering people of Japanese ancestry to be incarcerated in what were euphemistically called "relocation centers" like Topaz during World War II. Most of the people incarcerated at Topaz came from the Tanforan Assembly Center and previously lived in the San Francisco Bay Area. The camp was opened in September 1942 and closed in October 1945.

The Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC) was a group of nine people appointed by the U.S. Congress in 1980 to conduct an official governmental study into the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

Executive Order 9102 is a United States presidential executive order creating the War Relocation Authority (WRA), the US civilian agency responsible for the forced relocation and internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. The executive order was signed by President Franklin Roosevelt on March 18, 1942, and it officially expired on June 30, 1946. The Director reported directly to the president of the United States. Revealingly, like his Executive Order 9066, Roosevelt did not specifically mention or specify Japanese Americans in the entire text describing them with the euphemism "persons whose removal is necessary." By contrast, the numerous exclusion orders signed by General John L. DeWitt avoided any euphemisms and made clear that those to be removed were "persons of Japanese ancestry."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stanley Internment Camp</span> Civilian internment camp in Hong Kong

Stanley Internment Camp was a civilian internment camp in Hong Kong during the Second World War. Located in Stanley, on the southern end of Hong Kong Island, it was used by the Japanese imperial forces to hold non-Chinese enemy nationals after their victory in the Battle of Hong Kong in December 1941. About 2,800 men, women, and children were held at the non-segregated camp for 44 months from early January 1942 to August 1945 when Japanese forces surrendered. The camp area consisted of St Stephen's College and the grounds of Stanley Prison, excluding the prison itself.

On February 19, 1942, shortly after Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 authorizing the forced removal of over 110,000 Japanese Americans from the West Coast and into internment camps for the duration of the war. The personal rights, liberties, and freedoms of Japanese Americans were suspended by the United States government. In the "relocation centers", internees were housed in tar-papered army-style barracks. Some individuals who protested their treatment were sent to a special camp at Tule Lake, California.

The following article focuses on the movement to obtain redress for the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, and significant court cases that have shaped civil and human rights for Japanese Americans and other minorities. These cases have been the cause and/or catalyst to many changes in United States law. But mainly, they have resulted in adjusting the perception of Asian immigrants in the eyes of the American government.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internment of German Americans</span> Detention during both World Wars

Internment of German resident aliens and German-American citizens occurred in the United States during the periods of World War I and World War II. During World War II, the legal basis for this detention was under Presidential Proclamation 2526, made by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt under the authority of the Alien Enemies Act.

<i>American Pastime</i> (film) 2007 American film

American Pastime is a 2007 fictional film set in the Topaz War Relocation Center, a Utah prison camp which held thousands of people during the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Propaganda for Japanese-American internment</span>

Propaganda for Japanese-American internment is a form of propaganda created between 1941 and 1944 within the United States that focused on the relocation of Japanese Americans from the West Coast to internment camps during World War II. Several types of media were used to reach the American people such as motion pictures and newspaper articles. The significance of this propaganda was to project the relocation of Japanese Americans as matter of national security.

William Minoru Hohri was an American political activist and the lead plaintiff in the National Council for Japanese American Redress lawsuit seeking monetary reparations for the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. He was sent to the Manzanar concentration camp with his family after the attack on Pearl Harbor triggered the United States' entry into the war. After leading the NCJAR's class action suit against the federal government, which was dismissed, Hohri's advocacy helped convince Congress to pass legislation that provided compensation to each surviving internee. The legislation, signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1988, included an apology to those sent to the camps.

Mitsuye "Maureen" Endo Tsutsumi was an American woman of Japanese descent who was placed in an internment camp during World War II. Endo filed a writ of habeas corpus that ultimately led to a United States Supreme Court ruling that the U.S. government could not continue to detain a citizen who was "concededly loyal" to the United States.

The Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Study (JERS) was a research project funded by the War Relocation Authority (WRA), an agency responsible for overseeing the relocation of Japanese Americans, The University of California, the Giannini Foundation, the Columbian Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation with the total amount of funding reaching almost 100,000 U.S. dollars. It was conducted by a team of social scientists at the University of California, Berkeley. The team was led by sociologist Dorothy Swaine Thomas, a Lecturer in Sociology for the Giannini Foundation and a professor of rural sociology, and included anthropologists John Collier Jr. and Alexander Leighton, among others. The study combined each of the major social sciences such as sociology, social anthropology, political science, social psychology, and economics to effectively illustrate the effects of internment on Japanese Americans. The terminology of "relocation" can be confusing: The WRA termed the forced removal of Japanese Americans from the West Coast an "evacuation" and called the incarceration of these people in the ten camps as "relocation." Later it also applied the term "relocation" to the program that enabled the evacuees to leave the camps (provided they had been certified as loyal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cherry Kinoshita</span> Japanese American activist

Cherry Kinoshita was a Japanese American activist and leader in the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL). She helped found the Seattle Evacuation Redress Committee and fought for financial compensation for Japanese Americans who had been incarcerated during World War II.

References

  1. ↑ "The War Relocation Authority and the Incarceration of Japanese-Americans During World War II: 1948". Archived from the original on 2015-11-05. Retrieved 2015-12-10.
  2. 1 2 3 "Executive Order 9066." Encyclopædia Britannica. Ed. Of Encyclopædia Britannica. N.p., 3 June 2014. Web.http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/197921/Executive-Order-9066#ref1118060
  3. ↑ History.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web.http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/us-approves-end-to-internment-of-japanese-americans
  4. ↑ "U.S. Approves End to Internment of Japanese Americans." History.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web.http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/us-approves-end-to-internment-of-japanese-americans
  5. 1 2 United States Congress House Committee on Ways and Means (1962). Awards under the Japanese-American Evacuation Claims Act of 1948. OCLC   1053401316.
  6. 1 2 Amending the Japanese-American Evacuation Claims Act of 1948, to expedite final determination of the claims. 1956. OCLC   1053301201.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.