Narrator On December 7 1941, the nation of Japan attacks Pearl Harbor.

The United States enters World War II.

Fueled by unfounded suspicions of disloyalty and wartime hysteria, over 2,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry from Hawaiʻi are incarcerated in camps in both Hawaiʻi and the U.S. mainland.

At the same time, another egregious crime was committed by the U.S. government.

About 1,500 Japanese Americans in Hawaiʻi were forcibly removed from their homes and businesses.

A gunpoint, military officials stormed into their homes and ordered their removal.

These Japanese Americans were not incarcerated, but many lost their homes and never returned to their neighborhoods after the war ended.

For over 50 years, these 1,500 Americans of Japanese ancestry in Hawaiʻi kept silent about the violation of their civil rights.

This is their story and the story of their fight for justice.

Narrator In 1868, the first Japanese arrived in Hawaiʻi to work the sugar plantations.

They were called the gannenmono.

When their labor contracts expired four years later, over 100 of the gannenmono chose to stay in Hawaiʻi.

They adopted the island lifestyle and became integrated into the community.

Seventeen years later, in 1885, the first major wave of Japanese immigrants came to Hawaiʻi also to work the sugar plantations.

These Japanese immigrants or issei were laborers who sought a better life in Hawaiʻi.

Many laid down roots and eventually started businesses and families.

The Iwahara family opened a hardware store called Iwahara Shōten, on the outskirts of Downtown Honolulu.

Kazue Uyeda My father was Taketo Iwahara.

Them were the days yeah, maybe a few items came from Japan, but most of all from from U.S. Narrator Down the road from Iwahara Shōten was the Uyeda Shoe Store.

Beverly Hashimoto The shoe store was near this area, it was, it was on North King Street.

Narrator A matchmaker arranged for dates between Kazue Iwahara and Yoichiro Uyeda, the eldest son of the Uyeda Shoe Store family.

Beverly Hashimoto Oh I guess my father's mother was so excited, because during those days, they, I guess, the Iwahara Shōten, I guess they were a well-known big business there.

And so my grandmother thought, Oh, mom would be such a good catch for for my dad.

I guess the first date was a movie.

Claire Takashima at a Waikīkī Theater.

Beverly Hashimoto  And so dad and mom went to a movie and I guess they hit it off.

Narrator Across the island in Wahiawā, Central Oʻahu lived the Tanaka family, a nisei or second generation Japanese American family.

They operated a bar just outside Schofield Army Barracks and Wheeler Army Airfield.

Jane Endo My father's name was John.

My motherʻs name was Hanayo, Japanese name, but they both were born here.

And don't ask me how they met, I forgot.

My dad was a bartender.

So you know he spoke quite a bit of English.

Because you know when you working in a Schofield bar, I mean they had all these GI's, right?

So they spoke more English than Japanese, yeah.

Narrator Charles Nishioka was also a nisei.

In 1938, He moved his young family and his immigrant parents to start a farm in Puʻuloa, Oʻahu.

Saxon Nishioka This is just on the edge of the entrance to Pearl Harbor.

One side of the fence was cattle.

I don't know whose cattle those were.

And then the other side of the fence was just plain old kiawe bushes.

And I think when we first moved in, one of the first things that happened is my dad had to knock down a bunch of those kiawe trees to make an area to farm.

Narrator They raised chickens and farmed vegetables.

Charles Nishioka also built the family house by hand.

By 1940, persons of Japanese ancestry including the American-born nisei composed 37 percent of Hawaiʻi's population.

For many, the promise of a better life was coming true.

Narrator But everything changed in 1941 as the dark clouds of war loomed over the Pacific.

Jane Endo Before the war broke out, that is kind of scary because we were just outside of Schofield and my brother, climbed up the roof.

Because the war, because the plane flew right over us.

Because you can tell that, you know, the hinotama on the plane.

And so he went up on the roof, and the pilot waved at him.

And boom, and they bombing Wheeler Field.

We'd gotten into the car and my dad just just drove me to the pineapple field.

Yeah, I mean, pineapple field was close by.

So we drove by the pineapple field, and we literally saw all the bombing.

Saxon Nishioka I recall that we were out in Honouliuli, filling up the gasoline on our cars and taking some tanks of gas home for the machines on the farm.

And then these planes were flying over.

And I heard the adults discussing, he says ohhh they having exercises really realistic looking yeah.

Look, even a marking on the plane of Japanese marking.

We didn't realize it at the time that the attack has just started, you know, they were flying overhead.

We could hear the machine guns going.

We had a water tank on the farm.

And I guess it's part of the strafing operations, they strafed the water tank and the water tank was leaking water.

I guess the MPs were ready to haul my grandfather away.

He was the first first generation living with us.

And they were gonna haul him off because heʻs Japanese right.

But we just came on time.

I don't know what my dad did to stop them.

But they stopped from taking him away.

And I think the warning to him at that time was, "Hey you better not try anything funny."

Narrator While, the Nishioka family was spared from arrest and incarceration, the Uyeda family in Honolulu was not as fortunate.

Kazue Uyeda We heard voices from downstairs, they said.

Mr. Iwahara, Mr. Iwahara, you know, so I took a look from upstairs.

I said, Ohta-san, you know, they calling for you know, I went down and asked them what they wanted with my father.

They said oh, you know, they need to have some questions to ask him.

So, can you bring his coat and jacket and off they went.

Two men took my father away.

I didn't know what to do.

Yeah.

Narrator Immediately following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, squads of FBI, police and military arrested over 400 persons of Japanese ancestry across the Territory of Hawaiʻi.

For several years, the government was compiling a custodial detention list of Japanese to be arrested in the event of war with Japan.

The list included Buddhist and Shinto priests, Japanese language teachers, Japanese language newspaper editors and publishers, business and community leaders and those with ties to Japan.

None of those arrested or incarcerated were ever found guilty of espionage or sabotage.

Martial law was soon declared as the military took control of the islands and the Constitution was suspended.

Narrator While Japanese Americans in Hawaiʻi were being rounded up and incarcerated during the early days of the war, another group also faced a grave injustice.

About 1500 Japanese Americans across 23 areas of Hawaiʻi were removed by force from their homes and businesses by the U.S. government.

Mary Beth Wong A very common experience was that the claimants were told that they had to leave that day before sundown.

So the military soldiers came to their homes, told them they had to get out immediately.

They had bayonets and weapons pointed at them.

Claire Takashima The guard came and he said you have 24 hours, you have to vacate this property, you have 24 hours, you're you're gone.

No one can be here.

So they panicked, right?

Because they have to be out.

I mean, can you imagine moving your whole house in 24 hours, Narrator These 1500 Japanese Americans were not incarcerated.

But many lost their homes and had their civil rights violated.

The government singled out entire communities of Japanese Americans by race, and forced them out if they lived near a military   installation or infrastructure.

These actions were based purely on suspicion.

Jane Endo But you know, because being Japanese, I guess we were asked to move out.

We just had to leave your, just leave there.

So we ended up going to my relatives, right.

We just, with the clothes on our backs and we had to leave.

Mary Beth Wong There were stories about people not having any place to go to.

So some of them went up into the hills and slept overnight in the hills because they didn't have any place to go to.

Narrator Nishioka’s family was forced off their farm following the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Saxon Nishioka The Kuronakas had a gas station in Honouliuli where we used to go fill up gas with my dad spoke with them and said we don't have a place to live now.

Oh you can use our under house, then like a basement or underneath the two stories.

We stayed there for quite a number of months.

I think we're allowed to go back into the farm during daylight hours to tend to the livestock and to do farming and that kind of stuff.

And then as soon as the sun started going down, we had to leave and leave the farm.

Mary Beth Wong So eventually, when they were allowed to return during the day to work the farms, there's reports on them being constantly watched by soldiers.

And, you know, for the girls and the women being watched when they took a bath.

And, you know, some of the claimants talked about the soldiers having smirks on their face watching the women bathe.

Harry Yee In a lot of other families, right?

It was personal.

I saw my home shot up as target practice.

I had to live in a chicken coop for the entire duration of the war and see my house being used by prostitutes for the military personnel on base.

Saxon Nishioka But I recall one incident where some GIs from the unit they were camped in the kiawe bush and they came over.

We had dug up what we call a bomb shelter, you know, like a little wide trench with a covering on it.

And he was kicking dirt into the thing and he said, "I don't know why you guys have this because as soon as the fighting starts, I'm going to come over here and kill you guys."

So dad went back into the house came up with his .22, he had .22 bolt action.

He said you try it, I will shoot you.

You know, then having said that, a short time later, I guess federal agents came over and said, "You have a gun?

That's a yes.

He said let us see it.

He went in the house to get it out.

And they grabbed the gun tagged it and gave him a receipt for the gun and took off and thatʻs the last we saw of the gun until after the war.

They maybe they did hold him off for a little while.

Oh, I was gonna say I'm surprised they didn't just totally lock him up, you know, Mary Beth Wong The government needed the produce, so they needed people to work the farms.

So that was the reason why they were there.

They were there basically as laborers during the day.

Claire Takashima They lived above the shoe store so they were allowed to run the business during the day but not live there.

They were allowed to go and conduct business there but because the business was right next to Oʻahu Railway, where you know everything was transported from Pearl Harbor, they were requested to move immediately.

Narrator After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox made unfounded accusations of sabotage and espionage towards Japanese Americans.

Tom Coffman He wanted a mass evacuation of Japanese from Hawaiʻi.

And he repeatedly he pressed that on Roosevelt immediately and immediately when he announced to the press that the bombing reflected a fifth column, fifth column meaning sabotage, the enemy within.

Narrator Knox continued to repeat these fifth column statements, even after the FBI and Army Intelligence agreed there was no sabotage during or after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which called for the mass relocation and incarceration of all Japanese on the U.S. West Coast.

This sent over 110,000 persons of Japanese ancestry to the euphemistically named, "internment camps" for the duration of the war.

Many of the sites were located in desolate areas like deserts or swamp lands, and surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers.

Unlike the U.S. mainland, Hawaiʻi was spared from mass incarceration for several complex reasons.

The martial law government stated that mass incarceration of the Japanese in Hawaiʻi would be impractical and would hurt the economy and the war efforts.

Behind the scenes, a young Japanese American nisei named Shigeo Yoshida and a Chinese American named Hung-Wai Ching, influenced the martial law government in this decision.

Tom Coffman Together they formed a council for interracial unity prior to the war, and worked with the U.S. intelligence agencies to basically convince them of the loyalty of the nisei.

Narrator However, over 2000 men, women and children were still selectively incarcerated in camps such as Honouliuli, Oʻahu and on the US mainland, Taketo Iwahara, the father of Kazue, was imprisoned on December 7, 1941.

He was sent to various incarceration facilities, including the Sand Island detention facility, Angel Island in California.

Camp McCoy in Wisconsin, Camp Forest in Tennessee, Camp Livingston in Louisiana, and finally, Fort Missoula in Montana.

Kazue and Yoichiro Uyeda got married in 1943.

But it was a bittersweet occasion as Kazue's father was still imprisoned on the U.S. mainland, and the Uyeda family had been forced out of their home in Iwilei.

Beverly Hashimoto He was at the internment camp when mom got married.

On the day of her marriage, he passed out oranges to his friends, you know where he was staying at.

Or you know, he was happy but only he could, he could only celebrate or offer was, I guess he had some oranges, so he gave people the oranges.

Whoa, whenever I hear that I get so emotional.

Narrator In September 1943, Taketo Iwahara, was returned to Japan on a prisoner of war exchange ship.

Kazue would not see her father for another 11 years.

On August 14, 1945, Japan surrendered and World War II ended.

Japanese Americans who were imprisoned behind barbed wire were released and able to return home.

However, many who were forcibly removed from their homes in Hawaiʻi never could return to their original communities.

Both groups of Japanese Americans put the war behind them and forged on.

The Uyeda the family moved the shoe store to Mōʻiliʻili in the 1950s.

It's still in operation today and run by the third and fourth generation of Uyedas.

The Tanaka family also moved on with their lives.

Jane eventually returned to Wahiawā where she became a hairdresser and started a family.

Charles Nishioka went on to run a successful service station in ʻEwa, Oʻahu.

Later he was awarded the Small Business Administration's Small Businessman of the Year and helped to charter the West Pearl Harbor Rotary Club.

His son Saxon took over the business.

Narrator In the 1970s, groups of Japanese Americans lobbied the U.S. government to address the wrongs of the World War II incarceration.

One of the lead groups was the JACL, the Japanese American Citizens League, Carole Hayashino I was hired as redress coordinator.

For me, I was young, I was in my mid 20s.

It was intimidating.

And I remember going into the JACL and having to call congressional offices to ask for their support or to talk to them, a staff member about the Japanese American incarceration and this commission bill that was pending before Congress, and they misunderstood the incarceration.

So they thought we were Japanese POWs, they thought we were, they would refer us to international affairs.

So, it was quite an educational process.

Narrator In 1980, Congress established the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, marking the first step in this process.

CWRIC Speaker And next we have Hawaiʻi State Representative Barbara Marumoto, to give testimony.

Barbara Marumoto I am testifying today as an individual who was interned.

My grandparents, my father and mother, my brother, who was only five weeks old at the time, and myself, were interned at Tanforan racetrack, which was a temporary assembly center.

Our family was placed in a horse stall.

And I think I remember it, because the smell of horses lingered in that stall.

Carole Hayashino The hearings of the Commission on Wartime Relocation Internment of Civilians, was a watershed moment for the Japanese American community and for the redress movement.

Years and decades of this pain and the humiliation were being expressed and shared with the public.

These were stories that Issei and Nisei didn't even talk about with their own children.

CWRIC Testifier Because all of the camps were surrounded by barbed wires.

There were watch towers, there were military police, roving the camp, day and night with machine guns, jeeps, shot guns, rifles, and if anybody tried to get out of there without permission, they were ordered shot on site.

Narrator The commission found that the decision to incarcerate was based on racial prejudice, wartime hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.

William Kaneko, who had relocated to Los Angeles in 1983, became involved with the Japanese American Citizens League.

His passion for redress and social justice stemmed from a class he took at the University of Hawaiʻi, taught by ethnic studies professor Franklin Odo.

Bill Kaneko At that time, the redress bill was in full force.

In terms of lobbying, I remember going to various conventions throughout the country and getting updates from folks like then Congressman Norman Mineta of San Jose, and then Congressman Robert Matsui of Sacramento, Spark Matsunaga and, of course, Senator Danny Inouye.

And they were the four major proponents of pushing the Redress Bill in Congress.

And so as a young adult had a front row seat and inspired by the work that not only the Hawaiʻi delegation did, but young Japanese American congressman.

President Ronald Reagan Blood that is soaked into the sands of a beach is all of one color.

America stands unique in the world, the only country not founded on race, but on a way on an ideal.

Thank you and God bless you.

And now let me sign HR 442.

So fittingly, named in honor of the 442nd.

Narrator After enduring the U.S. government's grave injustice for nearly 40 years, Congress finally passed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 to provide $20,000 of redress and a letter of apology from the President to each Japanese American incarcerated during World War II.

Carole Hayashino The day he signed that bill was a day of vindication.

It was the day that the Issei and Nisei and Sansei who were incarcerated, were finally acknowledged that what happened to them was wrong.

Narrator The Department of Justice was the agency in charge of overseeing redress, and the young executive officer named Robert Bratt became the ORA or Office of Redress Administration's first administrator.

Bob Bratt It was a unique piece of legislation, first of all.

It was it was righting a wrong.

Most important thing was to then how do you identify haven't do you locate?

How then do you verify, and then ultimately pay individuals.In the beginning and the foundational stuff was to get out and do workshops, work with community leaders to understand folks to make sure you had the right person.

Bill Kaneko What he did, was started traveling all over the country, engaging with Japanese American community leaders, AJA organizations.

And the JACL was a very natural for him to contact Carole Hayashino Bob Bratt was the right administrator at the right time.

He was an administrator with a heart, very proactive and reaching out to community organizations, individuals in the community across the nation, not only in San Francisco, Los Angeles, but across the nation, including Hawaiʻi.

Bill Kaneko I was 30 when I became the chapter president, here in Honolulu.

The role of the JACL particularly in Honolulu was to be the liaison between the Japanese American community and the Office of Redress Administration.

So, we would sponsor and work with the Department of Justice in community workshops.

Joanne Chiedi We wanted to get it right.

We did not want our verification process to have any holes where we got it wrong.

It was projected that 60,000 individuals would be found eligible at the end of the program was over 82,000.

And it really was a race in time, because we had so many individuals who were over 90 years old.

Bill Kaneko So the first check presentation for residents of Hawaiʻi was held at the Hawaiʻi State Capitol.

You know, we had the oldest living survivors on the floor.

And Robert Bratt and Jim Turner presented checks, on behalf the United States government issued and apologized for the wartime acts.

Narrator But when the Civil Liberties Act passed, it did not apply to the groups from Hawaiʻi who were removed by force as their story remained lost and untold.

Bill Kaneko So in 1991, I was, you know, sitting in my office and I got a call from Dr. Donald Kanemaru.

And he had described really what happened to him and his family during the war.

They were living near the Lualualei Naval Ammunition Depot, and armed guards came in and basically kicked them out of their homes with nowhere to go.

And so his question to me was, am I eligible for redress?

And the initial answer was," I don't really know."

This was really the first time I had heard about this that the JACL heard about this very, very unique case.

Immediately after that I called Clayton Ikei.

In his opinion, persons who were evacuated from their homes, but not interned, forcibly, without due process was a deprivation of the civil rights.

He believed that the Lualualei farmers would be eligible and that's when all these unique cases began.

Narrator Kaneko instructed Dr. Kanemaru to gather former residents of Lualualei who were previously removed by force.

Bill Kaneko But what was most interesting to me was it wasn't really the farmers who showed up, it was their kids.

JACL became the liaison with the Lualualei Farmers.

And we reported back to Bob Bratt and told him about our meeting, you know, he was pretty much caught off guard as well.

Bob Bratt I mean, the first one of the first things that we did was to come back out here to sit down with folks and all.

And, you know, we then would listen to the stories and gather up all the information and go back and work with our attorneys.

There was a little bit of a conundrum because we were out in the workshops, and we're hearing all these stories, and the research was starting to come in.

And then we're back with the lawyers at the department.

And what we're hearing is no, no, we're not even why are we why are you bringing these in?

Why are you even discussing this issue?

Bill Kaneko The the typical case for like 98 percent of the redress recipients was those who were interned.

And you could go down a camp roster, whether or not you're in Sand Island, or Honouliuli or Manzanar, or Rohwer, Arkansas and go down the camp roster.

When you're displaced from your home, kicked out and nowhere to go.

There was no camp roster, there was no listing of individuals.

You know, the armed guards came in and displaced whole geographic areas.

Narrator While the ORA and JACL were looking over the legal significance of the forced mass removals in Hawaii, a young graduate student named Pam Funai would play a critical role in these unique cases.

Pam Funai I was in grad school and American Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and I was working on a research project on documenting Sand Island and Honouliuli internment camps.

Bill Kaneko called me and said... Bill Kaneko What about looking for wartime documents related to the forced removal of Japanese Americans?

Pam Funai And I said, "Sure."

I think I was working on it for about another month or so came across a box of copies of records from the National Archives.

So opened up the folder and there was the the order to remove families from a specific area because of military necessity and only people of Japanese ancestry.

Bill Kaneko I remember her calling me from a payphone in the basement of Hamilton Library and she just screamed out... Pam Funai Score I think this is it!

And and of course the people in library were like, what the heck is going on and librarian kind of shot me a stink eye and I said, oh, sorry.

Bill Kaneko We called it the smoking gun.

Pam Funai I think it documented very clearly that the government was excluding or restricting or otherwise prohibiting people because of their race, and really no other reason.

And that is a civil rights violation, obviously.

Joanne Chiedi It was pretty incredible when you you know the proverbial needle in a haystack.

And that's what Pam found.

And it really set the course for us in looking at these individuals, because initially, we found them ineligible.

Narrator  A major effort in unraveling the details of the forced mass removal began.

The Honolulu JACL organized a series of news conferences to share Funai’s discoveries.

As a result, they uncovered an untold story that had been hidden for almost half a century.

Bill Kaneko And there are literally like 50 or 60 voicemail messages on my machine after we broke the news on Lualualei.

Folks calling you know asking you know I live in Waiau, am I eligible?

You know, I you know reside in Maui and I was kicked out of my home, you know, can I file a claim for redress?

Allicyn Tasaka From Lualualei to Pauoa Valley to Iwilei, Kahuku I mean throughout the state, Puʻunēnē and Haʻikū.

It just grew.

Bill Kaneko And that was very startling to begin to learn that this is more than just one unique case of Lualualei.

And in total, there were 23 geographic areas throughout the State of Hawaiʻi, where Japanese Americans were unlawfully and forcibly removed from their homes because they were living near a militarily sensitive area and kicked out because of their Japanese ancestry.

Turned out to be quite a big consortium of unique cases.

Pam Funai If the Kanemarus had never come forward and said something I don't know that people would have ever known about this story much outside of their own families.

Narrator Bratt made an announcement on January 10, 1992, stating that Lualualei farmers were eligible for compensation as they fell under the deprivation of liberty clause in the Civil Liberties Act.

A few weeks later, a group evicted from Pauoa Valley would also be eligible for redress.

Pam Funai It's just really heartwarming.

You know, these are people like my own family.

And it just felt like I was helping people that you know, belong to me, I guess.

Bill Kaneko You know, it was a game changer.

But as time would tell, not all these cases were clear cut.

Narrator While the Lualualei and Pauoa cases were victories for the claimants, the work of the Honolulu JACL would get more difficult for the remaining 21 groups who were removed by force.

Bill Kaneko But when we had the evacuee cases, opening up, and literally hundreds of AJAs coming out of the woodwork, we needed legal assistance.

Owen Matsunaga You know when things come up that are manifestly unjust, unfair, I mean, it's important that you speak up, especially if it's not for you.

And you know, be the voice for those that don't have that.

Mary Beth Wong And if you can help somebody else, step up to the plate.

Bill Kaneko Lot of the lawyers myself, Allicyn, all the players were we were just young, relatively inexperienced, but, you know, came together because we were so dedicated and devoted and wanted to help.

Allicyn Tasaka Youth makes you very fierce and courageous and you just go forward.

Owen Matsunaga Initially, we met with three large groups, Puʻuloa, Waiau and Iwilei.

Narrator Community leaders from the various groups were key in collecting information for the cases.

Every group had a community leader.

Allicyn Tasaka Helene, Helen Uruu, and Charlie Nishioka, were the leaders of their respective communities.

And they immensely helped with not being shy about telling their story, and also helping JACL find other families, so that they can also be helped.

Carole Hayashino The redress movement did give birth to a new generation of activists.

They found their voice, and they were passionate.

They were committed.

They knew what had happened to them was wrong.

And they wanted the government to make it right.

Narrator Now, a successful business owner, Charlie Nishioka, became a key organizer for the Puʻuloa Group.

Saxon Nishioka Well, he was always kind of like a leader kind of guy.

So he would go and round up all of the Puʻuloa gang and talk with them and say we got to do this, you know, got to do that.

But I know that he was right in the middle of it and trying to pull these guys together to be like a cohesive force to go and seek redress, you know.

But I remember that I participated in interviewing some of the evacuees and documented it all for the JACL.

Narrator While Puʻuloa and Waiau, were granted redress in early 1994.

The Iwilei claims were denied a second time.

Mary Beth Wong To me it was astounding that officer redress denied Iwilei a second time around.

Bill Kaneko The claimants where devastated.

Owen Matsunaga I thought all three would be treated the same because of everything that we had uncovered and given to them.

Mary Beth Wong It was almost as if the U.S. government was recommitting the horrible things that they had done initially.

Bill Kaneko And they denied their claims, because in the Iwilei area, all persons in addition to Japanese Americans were displaced.

Obviously, if everyone is displaced and there was no discrimination, Mary Beth Wong Other people evacuated also, but it was months later.

It wasn't under bayonet.

It wasn't, it was planned.

They had advance notice, they were given other places to move to.

So very different circumstances.

Narrator The legal team regrouped and flew to Washington, D.C. for a hearing with the Department of Justice Appellate Division.

Bill Kaneko The Iwilei cases went all the way to the top of the food chain.

These are some of the top appellate lawyers in the country.

Allicyn Tasaka It was a formal proceeding.

And so it was pretty intimidating.

Bill Kaneko Our team were very young, transactional business lawyers, Owen Matsunaga But the people there realized that really quickly recognize that and told both Mary and I, how, yeah, they knew we weren't litigators.

Allicyn Tasaka From the federal side, they were very kind and understanding.

Mary Beth Wong And at that point, you know, they were actually at some points guiding us through making the arguments that we had to make so that they could give us the redress.

Narrator The Iwilei claims were finally granted redress by the ORA in May 1995.

Owen Matsunaga It wasn't so much money, I think it was really just a sense of vindication that there was recognition that something had been done to them that was wrong and to their families, to their parents, especially.

Lorrin Hirano And I think out of a sense of either obligation or shame, the parents didn't speak of their of their loss, during, you know, this World War II time period.

Beverly Hashimoto My dad and my mom would, you know, discuss it, but I sensed that they really wanted to keep it under the radar.

They didn't really want us to know what I felt that so they would be talking in Japanese, when they're talking about things about redress the money and things like that.

Lorrin Hirano The claimants would, were there really to vindicate their parents.

And they were very grateful, but also very touched, that they were able to after several decades, be able to tell their parents I think some of them actually went to the parents gravesite.

Allicyn Tasaka So Alice Hokama from Waiau is someone that I knew from another organization.

When when her family received the redress check, and the letter of apology, she, she went to her family grave.

Allicyn Tasaka So she went to her parents, to her cemetery to the grave to show them the letter and the check, and she was in tears.

She, like, you know, hugged me and just told me that, that that was home.

That was the best, she you know that she wanted to make sure that her parents knew that parents would see it, and that that gave her that gave her peace.

Narrator But there were still more forced removal cases.

So a new group of pro bono attorneys were recruited.

Bill Kaneko We really needed another set of lawyers that would continue the good work.

So we reached out to the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, NAPAPA.

And they handled pretty much the latter part of the evacuation cases in Haʻikū , Puʻunēnē and, you know, other areas.

Roy Catalani And soon thereafter, we met our first client group, former residents of the Marconi community.

Narrator The Marconi families resided near the Kahuku Army Airfield on Oʻahu.

Narrator In 1942, all families of Japanese ancestry who were living on Marconi farmland were evicted.

Roy Catalani They deconstructed their farm houses, they loaded railway cars with their building materials and everything they owned, they basically had to reconstruct what they could in a new plot of land, they had to do that, you know, all on their own, was their own resourcefulness, their own physical strength.

And and they did it.

Susan Kitsu Well, in talking to some of them, of course, it was a very, very difficult time for them, and what a hurt a lot of anger as an American citizen, being treated this way by your country.

And those feelings stayed with them.

Karl Sakamoto I kind of remember, wasn't there a family that didn't want to join us?

Because after all those years, those decades, they're frustrated, you know, and they understood that the cases went nowhere, right?

You know, we've never gotten justice, Harry Yee Or people have told us, you know, our friends, from here, our friends from the minute I've told this is only for people who went to the camps.

This is not for, you know, people that suffered.

Not just the indignities, but the inhumanity that happened to the folks here.

Joanne Chiedi It's it's not so simple.

There were all these unique cases, and much to Bob's credit, that's how we created the special verification unit.

Because it required that concentration and diligence.

Emi Kuboyama We really were looking for, oftentimes a needle in a haystack.

The JACL Honolulu attorneys would go out and would go on site and would try to figure out based on various testimony, and they tracked down people who were not of Japanese ancestry to say hey, did you experience this and how might what you experiences have been different from what some of the Japanese American claimants had experienced.

Narrator The Marconi cases were successful due to the sworn statements of native Hawaiian families.

These families confirmed that they were able to continue living there, while the Japanese American families were forced to leave.

Susan Kitsu I felt this love and Aloha from the non-Japanese witnesses, the Filipino witnesses, Korean witnesses, the Hawaiian witnesses, and that they really rallied, and they felt pain and they felt hurt.

And they really rallied around their neighbors and their friends, who they grew up with.

And I really feel that can only happen in Hawaiʻi.

Narrator in March 1997, approximately 75 former Marconi residents were granted redress, totaling around $1.5 million.

Then the NAPABA lawyers helped a group of 45 former residents from Camp six in Puʻunēnē, Maui obtain redress.

The last cases that needed to be resolved were in the small town of Haʻikū, Maui.

During the military's occupation of their home, one family was displaced and lived in a chicken coop.

Bill Kaneko Again, you know how demeaning is that.

Karl Sakamoto We remember that home was used for the military's prostitutes to come over and stay.

And that's how that case was concluded successfully.

Narrator Within two months of submitting these facts to the ORA, the Haʻikū claimants receive their redress checks and letter of apology.

On August 19, 1998, the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 expired leading to the permanent closure of the ORA.

The Honolulu JACL's young volunteers provided assistance to 1500 Japanese Americans who were forcibly removed from their homes in Hawaiʻi.

These reparations amounted to $30 million.

This was in addition to about 2000 Hawaiʻi based incarcerees, who were imprisoned in U.S. concentration camps in Hawaiʻi and the U.S. mainland.

A total of 82,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry received $1.8 billion in compensation from the U.S. government, which issued an unprecedented apology to its citizens.

Harry Yee It was never about the compensation.

It was the most important thing for all of those people was that letter that came through from the President of the United States that said, We're sorry this happened.

Susan Kitsu That's exactly why I went to law school, to learn about the Constitution, how it failed the Japanese Americans during World War II, and be able to get that letter of apology, Owen Matsunaga It was a wonderful thing to, to see that individuals really do have a voice.

And there can be change.

Joanne Chiedi Righting a wrong based on government action, the government that is supposed to protect its citizens was really satisfying.

And I think hopefully sent a good message and I believe the community was, was left satisfied and hopefully started to heal.

And that was really important to us.

Narrator The Honolulu JACL had already extended its civil rights mission beyond Japanese American issues.

Bill Kaneko So for the Japanese American Citizens League post-redress was a huge issue that came up because the organization was pretty much singularly focused for the past decade on gaining redress.

So what does a national organization do as well as chapters throughout the country when that project is done?

And that was a huge question.

Allicyn Tasaka We're not just a Japanese American organization for justice.

We really do want justice for all.

Bill Kaneko The chapter to its credit was very, very successful in taking that talent pool and applying it to other civil rights causes beyond redress and beyond just being Japanese American.

Carole Hayashino They were young leaders committed to justice.

They were very influential with the national JACL agenda.

Narrator In 1993, the Honolulu chapter of the JACL opposed a constitutional amendment and went public with the support of marriage equality for same sex couples.

Bill Kaneko The JACL became one of the first non-LGBTQ organizations in the country before the NAACP before in MALDEF before, a lot of other national civil rights organizations in support of same sex marriage.

Liann Ebesugawa It's about our community, and it's about fairness.

And so, anything that affects the rights, the access, the ability for others to have equity, and participate fully in our communities, I think is an issue of social justice.

Narrator The work laid down in the constitutional amendment fight of the ʻ90s would set the stage for the legalization of same sex marriages in Hawaiʻi in 2013.

Also in the early ʻ90s, the chapter increased it's support for Native Hawaiians and self-determination.

Allicyn Tasaka We are fortunate we had Alan Murkami on, you know who is close with the native Hawaiian community.

Working at the native Hawaiian Legal Corp. We shared how we attained redress and worked with the U.S. government.

Bill Kaneko Native Hawaiians were trying to do the same thing in Congress seeking to get Congress to acknowledge their wrongdoing and providing federal recognition.

Narrator Over time, the Honolulu JACLs.

advocacy efforts expanded to include more social justice issues.

In 1990, the Honolulu JACL backed Bruce Yamashita, in his case against the U.S. Marine Corps over racial prejudice and discrimination.

In 1994, he won his case and was commissioned as a captain and received an apology.

In 2010, the Honolulu JACL shifted their focus towards assisting COFA migrants from Micronesia, as the State of Hawaiʻi reduced to crucial services like medical coverage and dialysis.

The JACL and other groups were troubled by the fact that COFA islanders were dying due to the state's cutbacks.

To the JACL, the situation of the Micronesians was comparable to redress where the U.S. government had to make amends to rectify a wrongdoing.

And in 2017, the Honolulu JACL joined with the Muslim Association of Hawaiʻi and other civil rights organizations to denounce President Trump's Muslim travel ban.

Liann Ebesugawa In times of issues of national security, a lot of rights get trampled on.

There were a number of executive orders which restricted the rights of Muslims to enter the U.S. and then to travel.

And that was another time where we felt it was important for our organization to reach out to the Muslim community and show our support and solidarity and to make it very clear that race should not be the reason why someone is treated unfairly.

Narrator In 2022, a group of key volunteers were recognized for their efforts to help those who were removed by force.

Additionally, former officials from the ORA, Bob Bratt and Joanne Chiedi were also honored at the same event.

Many reflected on that quest for justice.

Bob Bratt What will you've done if there wasn't a JACL?

The JACL and the Honolulu JACL here was reaching out to us from day one and their networking and their deep roots, were just critical to the success of the program.

Carole Hayashino I remember during the redress effort, Senator Inouye said, redress is a matter of continuing education.

We must ensure what happened to Japanese Americans never happened to any other group of people.

And we must be vigilant.

If we see an injustice, if we see something wrong, we have to speak out.

Allicyn Tasaka I strongly believe that our democracy is always at risk.

Bill Kaneko We are here to use our education or skills to be able to advocate for those who can't advocate for themselves.

Liann Ebesugawa We think that social justice or civil rights issues are somebody else's responsibility or that we don't know enough to get involved.

But I think when you read something or you see something on TV or you hear about something and it triggers that feeling of compassion and that something is not right.

That's the most important feeling to follow and that is a movement in the direction of social justice.

So, everybody can participate in moving these issues forward and making it better for everybody.