Through strategic activism and lobbying, Japanese activists won reparations from the federal government. This movement would go on to set the tone for activism from later generations of Japanese Americans.

In 1988 President Reagan signed into law the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. The Act provided a formal apology for Japanese Internment on behalf of the U.S. government and authorized $20,000 in reparations for each former internee who was still alive at the time the Act was passed. This historic win came on the heels of two decades of Japanese activism and lobbying, and is considered by some to be the most successful reparations movement in the US.

The movement for Japanese reparations was organized by and had support from key players. There were four Japanese members of Congress who brought the fight for reparations directly to their colleagues. In addition, numerous Japanese veterans were able to leverage American patriotism to gain support from more conservative members of Congress. The organizers also leveraged shame and embarrassment to win reparations. In 1983, a district court reopened Korematsu v. U.S., finding that Japanese internment had been racially motivated rather than based on military necessity. The publicity this case garnered helped gain public sympathy and support for Japanese reparations.

Any reparations movement is going to come up against opposition, and formerly interned Japanese were well positioned to meet the most common of those objections.

I. Factual objections or justifications of illegal acts.
While the internment was legal at the time, by the 1970s support for Japanese internment had severely waned. It violated the equality principle at a time when racial justice was gaining mainstream understanding. This also led to coalition building with organizations like the NAACP and the ACLU. In addition, Japanese internment violated traditional notions of private property. While in the 1940s violating private property rights of nonwhite Americans was generally accepted, by the 1970s this practice was losing mainstream acceptance.

II. Difficulty of identifying perpetrators and victim groups.
Because the harm directly stemmed from the federal government through Executive Order 9066 and the community of Japanese-Americans who were interned was small and finite, Japanese activists were able to overcome this objection.

III. Lack of sufficient connection between the past wrong and the current claim.
When the push for reparations began in the Japanese community, internment was only 30 years in the past. Many of those who were forced into the camps were still alive, as were many Americans and members of Congress. Because of this collective knowledge, it was easier for Japanese Americans to illustrate how they were currently affected by Japanese internment.

IV. Amount of damages or how damages are calculated.
The American public generally found the $20,000 per individual award reasonable, in part because it was more symbolic than actually restorative--those interned did not receive the actual value of the property they had lost. In addition, because the community was small, at only around 80,000 by the time all the reparations had been paid, the cost of reparations did not trigger a great deal of opposition.


Sources:
Mari Matsuda, Mari Matsuda: Critical Race Theory is not Anti-Asian, Reappropriate (March 12, 2021), http://reappropriate.co/2021/03/mari-matsuda-critical-race-theory-is-not-anti-asian/?fbclid=IwAR1nm1OUTeE_FkHhWMcdDbN6YEgQGOmhfOHd7A0s4S9LOJQZBrciLET4a50.

Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann, Getting to Reparations: Japanese Americans and African Americans, Social Forces Vol. 83(2) (December 2004), https://uosc.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01USC_INST/273cgt/cdi_proquest_journals_229885438.