PROF. MITCH MAKI TO GIVE OVERVIEW OF REDRESS; PANEL TO DISCUSS OTHER GROUPS' STORIES ON AUG. 10

The Japanese American National Museum will commemorate the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 which provided a government apology to thousands of Japanese Americans forcibly removed from their homes during World War II with a public program, "America’s Promise", featuring Professor Mitch Maki and a panel discussion of other civil rights issues, set for Sunday, August 10, 2008, in the Democracy Forum of the National Museum in Little Tokyo.

On August 10, 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 into law, granting an official apology and reparations to those eligible Japanese Americans still alive on that day who were unconstitutionally forced to leave the West Coast and parts of Hawai`i by their own government during World War II. That culminated years of grassroots efforts by members of the Japanese Americans and their supporters, seeking to redress a massive constitutional violation which included the unlawful incarceration of over 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry.

Professor Maki, lead author of the book, Achieving the Impossible Dream: How Japanese Americans Obtained Redress, will provide a summary of the struggle within the Nikkei community to come together to petition for a government apology and how it recruited allies, especially within Congress, to finally reach that goal.

Prof. Maki will then introduce a panel of representatives from other communities, who are still seeking redress: Dr. Christine Valenciana and Dr. Francisco E. Balderrama, who will discuss the deportation of thousands of Mexican Americans during the 1930s; Clyde W. Namu`o, who will explain the struggle of Native Hawaiians; and, Dr. David L. Horne, who will address the issues involved in the African Americans and reparations.

Dr. Valenciana is member of the faculty at California State University, Fullerton, in the department of elementary and bilingual education. Her research interests center in the educational impact on the Mexican American children who were unconstitutionally deported during the 1930s. Dr. Valenciana is a major contributor to California State University, Fullerton’s Center for Oral and Public History, Mexican American History Collection.

Dr. Balderrama is professor of Chicano Studies and History at California State University, Los Angeles and has done research on the Mexican community during the early 20th Century. He co-authored the book, Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s and written In Defense of La Raza: The Los Angeles Mexican Consulate and Community, 1929-1936.

Namu`o, who earned his Master of Education in Secondary Education, Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, is currently an administrator for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. He formerly worked as deputy administrative director of the Courts and served as chief court administrator of the legal documents branch of First Circuit Court.

Dr. Horne is a tenured professor of critical thinking and African History and former chair of the Pan African Studies Department at California State University, Northridge. The inaugural executive director of the California African American Political Institute at California State University, Northridge. Dr. Horne is the founder and chair of the Reparations United Front. He is author of the only national reparations survey and was coordinator and convener of the National Reparations Congress held in 2004.

This program is part of the National Museum’s commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. This program is part of a series, "Redress Remembered", in which the story of Japanese American redress has been explored. The National Museum also featured the subject in its annual dinner, "Fulfilling the Promise of America: Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988", and several major sessions were devoted to redress at the Museum’s national conference, "Whose America? Who’s American? Diversity, Civil Liberties, and Social Justice".

This program is free to National Museum members or with general admission. For more information, call the Japanese American National Museum at (213) 625-0414.