Title: What Happened to Japanese Latin Americans After Pearl Harbor | Time
Headings: The WWII Incarceration of Japanese Americans Stretched Beyond U.S. Borders
The WWII Incarceration of Japanese Americans Stretched Beyond U.S. Borders
Get our History Newsletter. Put today's news in context and see highlights from the archives.

Content: And 365 Japanese Peruvians like Art Shibayama fought for the right to remain in the U.S., with the help of lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union. While waiting for the U.S. to adjust his immigration status, Art was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1952. He served honorably for the country that was trying to kick him out. The Shibayamas were finally granted entry visas in 1954. In his later years, Art and his wife Betty became fierce advocates in the Japanese American redress movement, which established a government commission to investigate the government’s claim that incarceration had been a “military necessity.” In 1982, the commission issued a scathing rebuke of the government’s actions and condemned the “grave injustice” done during the war. Japanese Americans eventually received an official apology from the U.S. government and a reparation payment. Applications from Japanese Latin Americans like Art Shibayama, however, were denied, because the government had designated them as illegal aliens at the time of incarceration. Art continued to fight for a full apology and fair restitution on behalf of all Japanese Latin Americans. But it never came.