rimprisonment, but 10,000 Italians and Germans were arrested, placed through hearings,and about 6,000 were immediately released. The government, indeed, played the severerole of a hypocrite, and has admitted to such today. After the situation had long been past, in 1982, the U.S Commission on WartimeRelocation and Internment of Civilians was produced. It addresses a movement whicharose in the 1970’s to “provide redress for victims of the internment.” Apparently, thegovernment did realize that their actions in 1942 were morally wrong and detrimental tothe Japanese involved. This committee, the U.S.C.W.R.I.C. for short, interviewedhundreds of internees, and published the report, Personal Justice Denied. “The reportconcludes in no uncertain terms that the Nikkei internment was a grave injustice.” TheCongress was suggested to issue a formal apology and to authorize a $20,000 payment toall surviving internees. These suggestions were, indeed, enacted by the Civil LibertiesAct of 1988, and the payments began in 1990.Personal Justice Denied referred to the internment as a “policy [that] inevitablyfailed,” and noted the fact that the “camps” were “surrounded by barbed wire andmilitary police.” This was something that, in 1942, the government would not admit tothe rest of the country. It was portrayed as a rather decent establishment, with quiet safetyand nurture. Now the government authorities were admitting otherwise. This documenteven discusses the mistakes of “exclusion...continued without regard for theirdemonstrated loyalty to the United States.” One line, out of the entire documentation, summarizes the situations flaws atonce: “All this was done despite the fact that not a single documented act of espionage,sabotage, or fifth column activity was committed by an American citizen of Japaneseancestry or by a resident Japanese alien on the West Co...
