Peggy Nagae
JACL Social Justice Action Committee
For several months, I have been working with Naoko Fujii and Carol Kawase and others to identify descendants of Issei who were detained under the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) during World War II. Invoked by President Roosevelt after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the AEA allowed for Issei (as well as German and Italian nationals) to be apprehended and held in Justice Department or Army-run camps without due process. We also seek descendants of Japanese Latin Americans (JLA) who were taken from Latin American countries and imprisoned in the U.S. as enemy aliens under the AEA.
Our work group has since turned into the JACL Social Justice Action Committee, and we are focusing on matters related to the Alien Enemies Act, Birthright citizenship, and Alien Land Laws. This article focuses on the descendants of the Alien Enemies Act (AEA).
The descendants of the approximately 17,000 Issei detained under the AEA will be part of our amicus brief (i.e., “friend of the court” brief by those who are not a party to the case but offer a particular perspective to help the court make their decision.) to the U.S. Supreme Court. This brief is in support of the ACLU’s case challenging the use of the AEA to deport Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador. Our goal is to prevent current injustices under this antiquated law that created such devastation in our community.
The identification process has been tricky because we do not seek descendants whose Issei relatives were incarcerated solely under Executive Order 9066; the authority used to incarcerate over 120,000 Japanese Americans. That is why we ask that AEA descendants confirm their relative’s name(s) in the Ireicho Book of Names: https://ireizo.org/#
Jeff and I would love to see as many descendants as possible from Oregon included in the amicus brief. Let’s do this! Thanks so much for your consideration.