Growing up in the 1950s, Kay Ochi heard nary a syllable about the incarceration camps where her parents and other Japanese Americans languished during World War II.
When Ochi began learning in painstaking detail in the early 1980s about the humiliation endured by the estimated 120,000 people housed at the rudimentary camps, she climbed aboard what became a long-term movement seeking justice for the mass detention.
Ochi and other activists around the country have devoted much of their adult lives to the cause while juggling careers and family responsibilities. This summer, she and others are commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Civil Liberties Act with the release of a new book, describing the uphill political battles waged by members of the Nikkei for Civil Rights and Redress (NCRR) and other Japanese Americans to gain reparations and a national apology.
The book, published by the University of California, Los Angeles’ Asian American Studies Center Press, was never deliberately intended to directly dovetail with this year’s news reports of controversial, tented communities of undocumented migrant children being detained separately from their parents along the U.S.-Mexico border. However, Ochi applauds the fact that the book’s publication has helped brighten the spotlight on this human rights debate.
For instance, Ochi was among countless Americans startled by the forthrightness of former First Lady Laura Bush, who in a recent Washington Post op-ed piece, criticized the current immigrant family separation camps along the border. Unlike some presidential spouses, Bush rarely voiced political opinions during her husband’s eight-year tenure ending in early 2009.
“Even though I disagree with the Bushes’ politics,” Ochi said, “I was glad that Laura Bush spoke out.”
She adds, “At a time when we should be celebrating the book’s release, I feel bittersweet, instead. But the fact that Laura Bush spoke up gives me hope.”
