home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- } NATION, Page 35American NotesREPARATIONSA National Apology
-
-
-
- Stooping before nine elderly Japanese-Americans, several of
- them more than 100 years old and in wheelchairs, Attorney
- General Dick Thornburgh last week presented each one a formal
- Presidential apology, and a reparation check, for an episode
- that still stands out as one of the nation's worst violations
- of individual rights. During World War II, supposedly in order
- to forestall possible attacks by Japanese agents against
- strategic installations in the U.S., the federal government
- summarily ordered the "relocation" of 120,000 ordinary citizens
- and immigrants of Japanese descent to 10 internment camps.
-
- Culminating decades of lobbying by Japanese-Americans to
- redress the pain and blot caused by the unjustified
- imprisonments, the bittersweet event commenced a race against
- time to reimburse, over the next three years, the 65,000
- victims who remain alive. The $1.25 billion Civil Liberties Act
- of 1988, funded by Congress only this year, authorizes a
- $20,000 payment to every man, woman and child who suffered as
- a result of the internment policy and was still alive at the
- time the law was passed.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-