By Aston Newell

We heard from Mr. Gerald Yamada of the Japanese American Veterans Association (JAVA) about some of the history of Japanese Americans and the military regiment that was composed of Japanese Americans, named the 442^nd Regimental Combat Team.

Mr. Yamada started off by informing us about how Japanese American civilians were treated before World War II. Then after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the USA started to discriminate against the Japanese Americans more through racism and creating the assembly centers and incarceration camps, which were remote barracks meant to keep a hold of a mass amount of Japanese American supervised and isolated from the rest of the USA. When he finished informing us on the treatment the Japanese Americans had faced after Pearl Harbor, Mr. Yamada then told us about the 442^nd, which is a highly decorated Japanese American military regiment that gave Japanese Americans a chance to prove their loyalty to the USA and played a crucial part in defeating Germany in April of 1945.

After all of that, Mr. Yamada told us that the US Government finally let the Japanese Americans leave the incarceration camps, but gave them only $25 and a bus ticket home. Eventually in 1988, after various debates and disagreements on whether Japanese Americans should receive reparations, President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act that offered $20,000 and an official apology to all of the living survivors of the World War II camps.

Note: The above engraved words are found at the National Japanese American Memorial which we visited as part of Japan in DC.