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S12222 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE September 29, 1989 questions came "Why don't you go back to Japan? You bombed Pearl Harbor." This was the essence of the questions. As I heard these questions I had to come to terms with that What is going on here? Obviously, the people who made the telephone calls did not want to hear the bad news, did not want to hear that this had ever happened in American history, did not want to hear about mistakes that we might have made in oUr past. Mr. President, I would like to believe the best of the Senate. I believe in its patriotism. But patriotism has also given rise to mistakes. And I believe that when we have made mistakes, that patriotism is in particular admitting those mistakes, and especially those that infringe upon individual liberty. If we do stand for anything in this country, we ought to stand for that. •:.---" Mr. President, this provision in question is a small attempt to tell 80,000 people of the 120,000 who were interned that we know it was a mistake and that we do not want to do the normal political thing—to make a big speech and then do nothing—but that we want to back up our statements with a little bit, to compensate for the pain, suffering, indignity, and infringement on individual liberty that they enduredr So, Mr. President I would hope we would waive the Budget Act, get on with business, and move this entitlement. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Reid). The Senator from niinais— J£^_SIMON^Mr. President, I rise in strong support of the motion by the senior Senator from Hawaii. There is an old saying that we all accept, justice delayed is justice denied. We ah know the truth of that and for a great many of these people that is literally* true. Many of them are in their eighties. At least one person I know is in his nineties. We have to move on this thing. We did the right thing when we passed the legislation. Now let us fund it. And let me just add, I speak from a little bit of personal history in this. I grew up in the State of Oregon, something I do not stress in the State of Illinois. While I grew up in the State of Oregon, my parents were active in what we then called race relations. I was 13 years old when I remember my father made a—my father was a Lutheran minister—make a talk on a local radio station, KORE, in which he said what is happening to Japanese- Americans is wrong. I remember the phone calls we got and I remember my friends shunning me. I would love to tell this body that I stood up for my father. He had explained to my brother and me why we had done it. I regret to say I was embarrassed; I wished my father had not done it. But now when I look back it is one of the things I am proudest of my father for. The ACLU did not stand up and defend the right of Japanese-Americans, I regret to say, at that point. I do not recall—of course, in fairness, I was only 13—but I do not recall very many voices at all standing up for justice. And so we impose this massive injustice on people. For the same reason I think it is important to remember the Hollocaust, to know what humanity can do, I think it is important that we do the right thing here; not just for Japanese-Americans, but to signal the future generations that this can never happen again. I hope we support resoundingly the motion of the senior Senator from Hawaii. Mr. ADAMS. Mr.- President, I also rtSe in strong support of the underlying proposition of an entitlement for eligible individuals of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. Like my good friend from Illinois, I was on the west coast in 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943, and 1944, attending my high school in Seattle, WA. When I was a sophomore, one third of the students were moved out of that high school in one day because they were of Japanese-American descent. The names still ring in my memory, Mr. President—Shig Murao and Johnny Okamoto, men that I spent a lot of time with. We lost our entire basketball team, we lost half our football team, we lost nearly half of bur top scholars. These were students that had been with us for many years, that we had grown up with on the playgrounds of Seattle and in ele mentary school and high school. This country promoted a great wrong by establishing Executive Order 9066. It is a wrong that cannot be fully measured in terms of absolute dollars' that were lost There is a matter of emotionally injuring the pride and conviction of very loyal Americans. There is a matter of stigmatizing a people for years to come. It is therefore important Mr. President, that we mend these wounds. By passing this entitlement we say: ~" We care for you, you are part of us. You are not only part of us, but you proudly represent a great diverse group of citizens living in America." I have always said that if what we did In 1942 was not correctly rectified by this country, it could be another group that will be in trouble in the future. We need to remove what happened officially and clearly. We need to be certain that this stain on our honor is cleansed. This entitlement language does that. I cannot tell you how many of my classmates did not come back, Mr. President. Many were killed in Italy fighting for the United States. This is a sacrifice we cannot ignore. My good friends, I hope that on this day we will stand for what is good in this country, a pluralistic society encompassing many different races, creeds, ethnic backgrounds. This is the great experiment and the great historical hope of the 20th and the 2ist century. We should today reaffirm it So I hope that we listen to what my good friend, the Senator from Hawaii is saying. I am very much in support of assured reparations payments beginning in 1991, and I am hopeful that we wiU move promptly on it. I compliment the committee for having arrived at a fair solution to a difficult problem. I yield the floor. Mr. CRANSTON. Mr. President, I want to express my support for the provision in the committee-reported bill which would establish a mechanism by which the redress payments that Congress approved in enacting the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 would actually be made to the intended beneficiaries. Mr. President, it would be a cruel irony for the United States, having finally taken action to redress one of our Nation's greatest acts of injustice, to fail to carry out the commitment it made to provide partial compensation for their pain and loss of liberty. Mr.. President, each day we delay means that fewer and fewer internees are alive to accept what we all recognize is merely a symbolic gesture at best Japanese-Americans and Aleutian islanders should not have to agonize at the end of each fiscal year as to whether the American Government will fulfill its commitment These citizens need to know that we will meet our commitment year after year, until the obligation has been satisfied. The committee provisions are designed to ensure that we do meet that commitment - •••■•':' :-~- '•'-' ■■'■■ '■'.- This episode in American history7 should never have happened: It is our responsibility to set the record straight and the way to do that is by supporting the committee's efforts. The tarnish on our Constitution can- never be completely removed but our actions today can go a long way' toward showing that our words are consistent with our deeds. ^MC^MATSUNAGA, Mr. President, I rise in support of the committee amendment relating to Americans of Japanese ancestry who were interned by the United States Government during World War II, and the motion to waive provisions of the Budget Act. I was the principal sponsor of the authorizing legislation, S. 1009, which passed the Senate in April 1988 by a vote of 69 to 27. That bill, which was cosponsored by 74 other Senators, was intended to repair one of the most notorious violations of civil liberties in our Nation's history—the incarceration for periods of up to 4 years, without trial or hearing, of some 120,000 native-born American citizens and permanent alien residents of Japanese ancestry. Summarily removed from their homes on the west coast in 1942, they lost everything—their livelihoods, real and personal property.
Object Description
Title | September 29, 1989 |
Creator | Unknown |
Date Created | 1989-09-29 |
Description | A collection of government documents is presented. In more specific, Congressional records from September 29, 1989. |
Subjects | Redress and reparations |
Type | image |
Genre | Government record |
Language | eng |
Collection | Hirasuna Family Papers |
Collection Description | 9 items |
Project Name | California State University Japanese American Digitization Project |
Rights | Rights not yet transferred |
Description
Local ID | csufr_hfp_0882 |
Project ID | csufr_hfp_0882 |
Title | Page 6 |
Creator | Unknown |
Date Created | 1989-09-29 |
Subjects | Redress and reparations |
Type | image |
Genre | Government record |
Language | eng |
Collection | Hirasuna Family Papers |
Collection Description | 8.47 x 10.85in |
Rights | Rights not yet transferred |
Transcript | S12222 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE September 29, 1989 questions came "Why don't you go back to Japan? You bombed Pearl Harbor." This was the essence of the questions. As I heard these questions I had to come to terms with that What is going on here? Obviously, the people who made the telephone calls did not want to hear the bad news, did not want to hear that this had ever happened in American history, did not want to hear about mistakes that we might have made in oUr past. Mr. President, I would like to believe the best of the Senate. I believe in its patriotism. But patriotism has also given rise to mistakes. And I believe that when we have made mistakes, that patriotism is in particular admitting those mistakes, and especially those that infringe upon individual liberty. If we do stand for anything in this country, we ought to stand for that. •:.---" Mr. President, this provision in question is a small attempt to tell 80,000 people of the 120,000 who were interned that we know it was a mistake and that we do not want to do the normal political thing—to make a big speech and then do nothing—but that we want to back up our statements with a little bit, to compensate for the pain, suffering, indignity, and infringement on individual liberty that they enduredr So, Mr. President I would hope we would waive the Budget Act, get on with business, and move this entitlement. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Reid). The Senator from niinais— J£^_SIMON^Mr. President, I rise in strong support of the motion by the senior Senator from Hawaii. There is an old saying that we all accept, justice delayed is justice denied. We ah know the truth of that and for a great many of these people that is literally* true. Many of them are in their eighties. At least one person I know is in his nineties. We have to move on this thing. We did the right thing when we passed the legislation. Now let us fund it. And let me just add, I speak from a little bit of personal history in this. I grew up in the State of Oregon, something I do not stress in the State of Illinois. While I grew up in the State of Oregon, my parents were active in what we then called race relations. I was 13 years old when I remember my father made a—my father was a Lutheran minister—make a talk on a local radio station, KORE, in which he said what is happening to Japanese- Americans is wrong. I remember the phone calls we got and I remember my friends shunning me. I would love to tell this body that I stood up for my father. He had explained to my brother and me why we had done it. I regret to say I was embarrassed; I wished my father had not done it. But now when I look back it is one of the things I am proudest of my father for. The ACLU did not stand up and defend the right of Japanese-Americans, I regret to say, at that point. I do not recall—of course, in fairness, I was only 13—but I do not recall very many voices at all standing up for justice. And so we impose this massive injustice on people. For the same reason I think it is important to remember the Hollocaust, to know what humanity can do, I think it is important that we do the right thing here; not just for Japanese-Americans, but to signal the future generations that this can never happen again. I hope we support resoundingly the motion of the senior Senator from Hawaii. Mr. ADAMS. Mr.- President, I also rtSe in strong support of the underlying proposition of an entitlement for eligible individuals of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. Like my good friend from Illinois, I was on the west coast in 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943, and 1944, attending my high school in Seattle, WA. When I was a sophomore, one third of the students were moved out of that high school in one day because they were of Japanese-American descent. The names still ring in my memory, Mr. President—Shig Murao and Johnny Okamoto, men that I spent a lot of time with. We lost our entire basketball team, we lost half our football team, we lost nearly half of bur top scholars. These were students that had been with us for many years, that we had grown up with on the playgrounds of Seattle and in ele mentary school and high school. This country promoted a great wrong by establishing Executive Order 9066. It is a wrong that cannot be fully measured in terms of absolute dollars' that were lost There is a matter of emotionally injuring the pride and conviction of very loyal Americans. There is a matter of stigmatizing a people for years to come. It is therefore important Mr. President, that we mend these wounds. By passing this entitlement we say: ~" We care for you, you are part of us. You are not only part of us, but you proudly represent a great diverse group of citizens living in America." I have always said that if what we did In 1942 was not correctly rectified by this country, it could be another group that will be in trouble in the future. We need to remove what happened officially and clearly. We need to be certain that this stain on our honor is cleansed. This entitlement language does that. I cannot tell you how many of my classmates did not come back, Mr. President. Many were killed in Italy fighting for the United States. This is a sacrifice we cannot ignore. My good friends, I hope that on this day we will stand for what is good in this country, a pluralistic society encompassing many different races, creeds, ethnic backgrounds. This is the great experiment and the great historical hope of the 20th and the 2ist century. We should today reaffirm it So I hope that we listen to what my good friend, the Senator from Hawaii is saying. I am very much in support of assured reparations payments beginning in 1991, and I am hopeful that we wiU move promptly on it. I compliment the committee for having arrived at a fair solution to a difficult problem. I yield the floor. Mr. CRANSTON. Mr. President, I want to express my support for the provision in the committee-reported bill which would establish a mechanism by which the redress payments that Congress approved in enacting the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 would actually be made to the intended beneficiaries. Mr. President, it would be a cruel irony for the United States, having finally taken action to redress one of our Nation's greatest acts of injustice, to fail to carry out the commitment it made to provide partial compensation for their pain and loss of liberty. Mr.. President, each day we delay means that fewer and fewer internees are alive to accept what we all recognize is merely a symbolic gesture at best Japanese-Americans and Aleutian islanders should not have to agonize at the end of each fiscal year as to whether the American Government will fulfill its commitment These citizens need to know that we will meet our commitment year after year, until the obligation has been satisfied. The committee provisions are designed to ensure that we do meet that commitment - •••■•':' :-~- '•'-' ■■'■■ '■'.- This episode in American history7 should never have happened: It is our responsibility to set the record straight and the way to do that is by supporting the committee's efforts. The tarnish on our Constitution can- never be completely removed but our actions today can go a long way' toward showing that our words are consistent with our deeds. ^MC^MATSUNAGA, Mr. President, I rise in support of the committee amendment relating to Americans of Japanese ancestry who were interned by the United States Government during World War II, and the motion to waive provisions of the Budget Act. I was the principal sponsor of the authorizing legislation, S. 1009, which passed the Senate in April 1988 by a vote of 69 to 27. That bill, which was cosponsored by 74 other Senators, was intended to repair one of the most notorious violations of civil liberties in our Nation's history—the incarceration for periods of up to 4 years, without trial or hearing, of some 120,000 native-born American citizens and permanent alien residents of Japanese ancestry. Summarily removed from their homes on the west coast in 1942, they lost everything—their livelihoods, real and personal property. |