Race In America Under President Reagan

Japanese Americans

The treatment of Japanese Americans under the Reagan administration was that of a apology, as during the second world war most Japanese residents in the U.S. and in Latin America were sent to internment camps as prisoners of war regardless of what they did or their position in the war.
     

   Reagan's attempt to address the in balance of rights towards Asian-Americans came in the form of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988  The act granted each surviving internee about US$20,000 in compensation, with payments beginning in 1990. The legislation stated that government actions were based on "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership" as opposed to legitimate security reasons. A total of 82,219 received redress checks.

Because the law was restricted to American citizens or legal permanent residents, the ethnic Japanese that had been taken from their homes in Latin America (mostly from Peru) were not covered in the reparations, regardless of whether they remained in the United States, returned to Latin America or were deported to Japan after the war. In 1996, Carmen Mochizuki filed a class-action lawsuit, and won a settlement of around $5,000 per person to those eligible from what was left of the funds from the CLA. 145 of those affected were able to receive the $5,000 settlement before the funds ran out. In 1999, funds were approved for the attorney general to pay out to the rest of the claimants.