William Hohri, advocate for Japanese in WWII
NEW YORK — William Hohri, aveteran of a World War II internment camp for Japanese-Americans whobecame the lead plaintiff in a politically charged class-action suitthat claimed $27 billion in damages for internees, died Nov. 12 at hishome in Los Angeles. He was 83.
His family announced the death.
Mr.Hohri’s efforts represented an important prong in what many saw as abelated effort to right one of American history’s most grievous abusesof civil liberties, the internment of Japanese-Americans after theJapanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The lawsuit ultimately failed,but Mr. Hohri’s work, along with that of other activists, helpedpersuade Congress in 1988 to pass a bill apologizing toJapanese-Americans and President Reagan to sign it. It provided $20,000for each surviving detainee.
AfterPearl Harbor, the United States reacted with a mix of confusion andresolve. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in February 1942 issued anexecutive order authorizing military commanders to remove residents ofJapanese descent from any areas they designated, which turned out to bethe entire Pacific Coast. Around 110,000 were evicted from their homesand taken to detention camps.
Authoritiescited fears of espionage to justify the action, which brought littleopposition in a war-shocked nation despite the lack of formal charges,trials, and procedural protections. The US Supreme Court upheld theconstitutionality of the “exclusion orders’’ in 1944.
Butyear by year, criticism mounted until, in the 1960s, what came to becalled the “redress movement’’ emerged to demand an apology andcompensation.
Mr. Hohribrought experience in the peace and civil rights struggle to theredress movement, as well as a hard-nosed but expansive perspective. Hecontended that each individual deserved substantial compensation andshould receive it through the courts, not Congress.
Hislawsuit spelled out 22 “causes of action’’ and sought $10,000 for eachone, which came out to $220,000 a person for a total of $27 billionwhen multiplied by a potential 125,000 detainees.
Afterlong, tangled litigation, the suit brought by Mr. Hohri’s organization,the National Council for Japanese American Redress, ended up losing ona technicality before a federal appeals court in 1988. The SupremeCourt let the judgment stand.
