This week we’ve been marking the 75th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack with a series of recollections from people who lived through it. The days following the violence of December 7th brought further challenges.
For the nearly 40% of the population that was of Japanese descent, there was another concern that added to the uncertainty—worries about being taken away by authorities. It was a topic our Morning Edition host Derrick M?lama talked about with his mother, Annie Shirabe M?lama.
In 1944, President Franklin Roosevelt rescinded his executive order the created the internment camps…and the last one closed in 1945.
In 1988, Congress passed legislation awarding payment of 20,000 dollars to each of the surviving internees---which at that time numbered about 60-thousand around the United States.
