In 1980, the Unites States Congress established the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians to assess the wartime uprooting and incarceration of Japanese Americans during the Second World War. Testimonies were heard across the country from many Japanese Americans. Gordon Hirabayashi was one of several young Japanese Americans who were imprisoned for breaking curfew and defying the orders imposed on Japanese Americans. In February 1983 the Commission’s report, Personal Justice Denied, recommended a public apology and a compensation of $20,000 for each uprooted Japanese American. This sparked media interest in redress for Japanese Canadians.
Manzanar War Relocation Center, situated in California near the eastern Sierras, grew into a barbed wire city of over 10,000 Japanese Americans. (photo: Ansel Adams)
Under looming guard towers,a group of evacuees enter the Tule Lake, detention centre. Ten such camps scattered in seven Western states confined 120,000 Japanese Americans and aliens. (photo: private collection)
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