First Published: Unity, Vol. 4, No. 13, August 28-September 10, 1981.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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The movement for redress and reparations is on the rise. At recent government hearings hundreds of people angrily denounced the U.S. government for their racist crimes against 120,000 Japanese Americans and Aleuts who were forcibly removed from their homes and locked up in concentration camps by the U.S. government.
Japanese Americans displayed courage and dignity as they relived their four-year ordeal. Their testimony graphically described the enormity of the U.S. government’s cruelty and barbarism. Nearly the entire Japanese American national minority was uprooted. Lives were forever altered as homes, businesses and farms were lost and communities destroyed. Loved ones died in the camps due to inadequate medical care. The national identity of an entire generation was crippled as Japanese Americans were taught that survival could come only through silence and assimilation. The government hearings expose the hypocrisy of bourgeois democracy, where the liberty and livelihood of non-white peoples are expendable.
Perhaps what emerges most strongly from the hearings is the sense of pride, unity and strength of the Japanese American people. Drawing upon a rich historical tradition of struggle, Japanese Americans from every sector of the population united in the demand for justice and monetary payment. Many people brought out the bitter past which had been long suppressed. No commission or lackey like Senator S.I. Hayakawa can silence this united voice. Japanese Americans are standing up for their rights with a militant and revolutionary spirit. This revolutionary spirit is a powerful force aimed at the U.S. monopoly capitalist class and will not stop until Japanese American people achieve full equality and political power.
The concentration camps and the redress and reparations movement have vividly brought out the many common threads that link the Japanese national minority with other oppressed peoples in the U.S. Because of the common experience of oppression, the Japanese American people’s call for justice is beginning to win support from other oppressed nationalities, workers and progressive forces. These are important steps towards forging the multinational unity necessary to make a socialist revolution in the U.S.
The U.S. League of Revolutionary Struggle (M-L) wholeheartedly supports the Japanese people’s fight for redress and reparations and will continue to be actively involved in this struggle. We call on other oppressed nationalities, the entire working class and all justice-loving people to support the Japanese people’s just demands. Redress and reparations for the Japanese people!