Born in Seattle: The Campaign for Japanese American Redress
Robert Shimabukuro
The story of the World War II internment of 120,000 Japanese American citizens and Japanese-born permanent residents is well known by now. Less well known is the history of the small group of Seattle activists who gave birth to the national movement for redress. It was they who first conceived of petitioning the U.S. Congress to demand a public apology and monetary compensation for the individuals and the community whose constitutional rights had been violated.
Robert Sadamu Shimabukuro, using hundreds of interviews with people who lived in the internment camps, and with people who initiated the campaign for redress, has constructed a very personal testimony, a monument to these courageous organizers’ determination and deep reverence for justice. Born in Seattle follows these pioneers and their movement over more than two decades, starting in the late 1960s with second-generation Japanese American engineers at the Boeing Company, as they worked with their fellow activists to educate Japanese American communities, legislative bodies, and the broader American public about the need for the U.S. Government to acknowledge and pay for this wartime injustice and to promise that it will never be repeated.
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Reviews for Born in Seattle: The Campaign for Japanese American Redress
Journal of Asian American Studies
"Shimabukuro presents a unique perspective on the beginnings of redress. Seattle Nisei engineers at Boeing, convinced that the expulsion and incarceration of Japanese Americans resulted in mistreatment by Boeing managers, decided to campaign for redress. . . . Shimabukuro’s account is convincing, interesting, and documented, making it a book which should interest scholars, laymen, and those who are just looking for a good story to read."
Pacific Citizen
"This slim volume emphasizes the significance of the Seattle Japanese American struggle for redress that ultimately succeeded as it gained statewide and national support."
Choice
"Born in Seattle describes the ground-breaking efforts of Seattle-area activists to win redress for the injustice a generation later. . . . Shimabukuro tells the fascinating and historically overlooked story of how the Seattle activists conceived the first concrete plan for redress, and how they succeeded in spite of tepid support from national leaders of the Japanese American Citizens League."
The Seattle Times