'NEGLECTED LEGACIES' SERIES CONCLUDES WITH 'SEEKING JUSTICE' PROGRAM AUG. 2

The series, "Neglected Legacies: Japanese American Women and Redress", a collaboration between UCLA’s Asian American Studies Center and the Japanese American National Museum, concludes with its third public program, "Seeking Justice" set for Saturday, August 2, beginning at 2 p.m. at the Japanese American National Museum. This program will feature Karen Kai, Grace Shimizu and Professor Diane Fujino with the series organizer Professor Lane Hirabayashi acting as moderator.

This series was organized by Prof. Hirabayashi, George and Sakaye Aratani Professor of the Japanese American Internment, Redress & Community, Asian American Studies Center at UCLA, and included two other programs on "Reconsidering Roots" and "Organizing the Community". This collaboration is part of the National Museum’s commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which granted an official government apology and reparations to thousands of eligible Japanese Americans who were unconstitutionally forced to leave their homes by the U.S. government during World War II. The National Museum has organized its own series of public programs under the theme of "Redress Remembered: A Moment of National Redemption".

The concluding program, "Seeking Justice", features a panel of Japanese American women involved with different causes and campaigns. Karen Kai will draw from her experiences with the coram nobis legal cases, in which three Nisei men, Gordon Hirabayashi, Fred Korematsu and Minoru Yasui, who were falsely convicted by the government during World War II, had their cases reopened in the 1980s and overturned. Grace Shimizu will provide an update on the campaign for Japanese Latin Americans to also receive redress. Japanese Latin Americans, who were forcibly removed from their homes in South America, mostly Peru, were not included in the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. Prof. Fujino is a psychologist who, among her research, has studied Asian American activism, activists, and social movements. Her scholarship also attends to women’s issues, especially how gender has impacted the lives of women of color activists.

Shimizu is director of the Japanese Peruvian Oral History Project (JPOHP) and coordinator of the Campaign For Justice: Redress Now For Japanese Latin Americans! (CFJ). Her father survived U.S. rendition under the WWII Enemy Alien Program when he was kidnapped from his home in Peru. Ms. Shimizu has community and campus experience spanning over 35 years. She is a leading organizer for the documentation and preservation of the experiences of former Japanese Latin American internees and their redress struggle.

Kai is a lawyer and community activist with extensive involvement in the Japanese American community. She received her law degree from the University of San Francisco in 1978 and was a member of the legal team that represented Fred Korematsu in his successful challenge, by petition for writ of error coram nobis, to his conviction for refusing to comply with the military orders during World War II. Karen also served as liaison among the coram nobis legal teams representing Fred Korematsu, Gordon Hirabayashi and Min Yasui.

Fujino is Chair and Associate Professor of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She teaches classes on Japanese American history, Asian American social movements, Asian American gender and sexuality, and an experimental high school outreach course on Puerto Rican history and resistance. She is author of Heartbeat of Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama and editor of Wicked Theory, Naked Practice: A Fred Ho Reader (forthcoming).

The National Museum will mark the actual signing anniversary of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 on Sunday, August 10, at 2 p.m. with the program, "America’s Promise", featuring Professor Mitchell Maki, lead author of Achieving the Impossible Dream: How Japanese Americans Obtained Redress.

This program is free. To make reservations or for more information on this series, special events and other programs, call the Japanese American National Museum at (213) 625-0414.