The unanimousSupreme Court decisionEx parte Endo in December 1944 ruled that the U.S. government could not continue to detain a citizen who was "concededly loyal" to the United States. Word of the upcoming ruling led to the rescinding of the exclusion orders and allowed Japanese Americans to return to the American West Coast starting in January 1945.[3] Many Japanese Americans suffered harsh treatment after leaving the internment camps. Examples include exclusion from being hired by jobs in the LA county, and being shut out by the produce industry, which was the lifeblood of many Japanese Americans prior to WWII.[4]
In 1948, PresidentHarry S. Truman signed theJapanese-American Claims Act.[5] This act was a way to compensate Japanese Americans for their economic losses due to their forced evacuation.[6] Although some $38 million was paid out through provisions of the act, it would be largely ineffective even on the limited scope in which it operated.[7]
When the war ended, the American opinion of Japanese was altered. Japan was in the process of rebuilding with the help of the U.S. military. Japanese became known for their intelligence, amiable relations, and hardworking ethic. The new perspective of this country changed American minds about Japanese. In 1952, this new opinion of the Japanese resulted in first-generation Japanese Americans receiving the right to become naturalized U.S. citizens with theMcCarran-Walter Act.[8]
TheCommission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC) was appointed by theU.S. Congress in 1980 to conduct an official governmental study into the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. It concluded that the incarceration of Japanese Americans had not been justified by military necessity.[10]
TheCivil Liberties Act of 1988 was an official apology made to Japanese Americans in 1988 by Congress. The act granted about US$20,000 to former internees who were still alive when the act was passed.[11]
In 2018,Chief Justice Roberts, in writing the majority opinion of theSupreme Court inTrump v. Hawaii, stated inobiter dictum that the 1944 decisionKorematsu v. United States that upheld the constitutionality ofExecutive Order 9066 (authorizing the Japanese American Internment) was wrong, effectively disavowing the decision and indicating that a majority of the court no longer findsKorematsu persuasive.[12]: 38 Roberts also added: "The forcible relocation of U.S. citizens to concentration camps, solely and explicitly on the basis of race, is objectively unlawful and outside the scope of Presidential authority."[12]: 38 [13][14]
1962:Minoru Yamasaki is awarded the contract to design theWorld Trade Center, becoming the first Japanese American architect to design a supertall skyscraper in the United States.
1963: Daniel K. Inouye becomes the first Japanese American in the United States Senate.
1965:Patsy T. Mink becomes the first woman of color in Congress.
1974:George R. Ariyoshi becomes the first elected Japanese American governor of the State of Hawaiʻi.
1976:S. I. Hayakawa of California andSpark Matsunaga of Hawaiʻi become the second and third U.S. Senators of Japanese descent.
1976:Michi Weglyn publishes the bookYears of Infamy: The Untold Story of America’s Concentration Camps, whose meticulous investigation of government documents and correspondence helped fuel the redress movement .
1977:Michiko (Miki) Gorman wins both the Boston and New York City marathons in the same year. It's her second victory in each race.
1983: The Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians reports that Japanese-American internment was not justified by military necessity and that internment was based on "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership." The Commission recommends an official Government apology; redress payments of $20,000 to each of the survivors; and a public education fund to help ensure that this would not happen again.
1987:Charles J. Pedersen wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his methods of synthesizing crown ethers
1988: PresidentRonald Reagan signs theCivil Liberties Act of 1988, apologizing for Japanese-American internment and providing reparations of $20,000 to each former internee who was still alive when the act was passed.
2011: TheNisei Soldiers of World War II Congressional Gold Medal was awarded in recognition of the World War II service of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the 100th Infantry Battalion, and Nisei serving in the Military Intelligence Service on November 2, 2011.[17]
2014:Shuji Nakamura wins the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes.
2021:Syukuro Manabe wins the 2021Nobel Prize in Physics for contributions to the physical modeling of earth's climate, quantifying its variability, and predictions of climate change.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in thepublic domain.