Aging Japanese from South America sue for war reparations

September 11, 1996
Web posted at: 9:10 p.m. EDT

LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- Thousands of Latin Americans of Japanese descent are suing the U.S. government, claiming that it was illegal for the United States to round them up in South America to lock them up in U.S. internment camps during World War II.

Cyrus Nishimoto and his wife, Alicia, both experienced the humiliation of the camps. He received an official apology and a $20,000 reparations check from the government. She got a rejection letter.

"How can the U.S. government go to Peru and kidnap us?" she asked rhetorically.

Alicia Nishimoto, along with more than 2,000 others, were taken from their homes in South America, most of them in Peru, and shipped to the detention camps in the U.S. The U.S. government called Japanese living in Latin America "alien enemies."

Civil rights attorney Robin Toma filed a lawsuit Wednesday demanding an apology and reparations for those sent to the camps.

"The United States had sent government agents to Latin American countries to develop black lists of nationals of those countries, people of Japanese ancestry ... (to) create a list to target for mass arrest and deportation," Toma said.

Koshio Henry Shima was arrested at his home near Lima, Peru. A half a century later, he can pick himself out of a photograph of a group taken to a Texas camp, where he spent three years behind barbed wire.

"I'm going to be 73 pretty soon," Shima said. "Before I die, I'd like to get my redress, because I can not wait another 50 years."

The Justice Department said it could not comment on a pending lawsuit.

But a department spokesperson pointed out the 1988 law that gives apologies and payments to Japanese-Americans states payments can be made only to those who became U.S. citizens or legal resident aliens by 1952. Both Nishimoto and Shima became U.S. citizens after that.

The plaintiffs say they only want what is fair, because they suffered the same unfairness.

Correspondent Jim Hill contributed to this report.

Related sites:

• US Department of Justice
• Internment of Japanese Americans: Military Necessity or Racial Prejudice?

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