CWRIC flyer

After extensive lobbying undertaken by Nisei activists and their third-generation children, in 1980 Congress created the Committee on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians to investigate the incarceration of Japanese Americans during the war and to recommend remedies. Because the CWRIC lacked the power to formally correct grievances, activists feared that it was a symbolic, placating measure. Beginning in 1981, the CWRIC conducted hearings in 20 cities and heard testimony from formerly incarcerated Japanese Americans from all over the nation. After hearing thousands of testimonies and poring over declassified documents that revealed that the government itself had questioned whether incarceration was a military necessity, the CWRIC recommended, among other things, a formal apology and $20,000 individual redress payments for every surviving individual Japanese American who had been incarcerated. These reparations would be the basis for the Congressional redress bills that followed