A Little Known Case For Redress Railroad and Mine Workers

              National Japanese American Historical Society
Japanese employees
of the Southern
Pacific roundhouse,
Carlin, Nevada,
1920s. Courtesy of Kay
Ogasawara/Mas Hatano.
wanted to commit suicide," she
remembered. "He wanted to kill me,
and then kill himself so there would be
two less mouths to feed.
"I went outside and hid, because I
didn' t want him to find me. I was
scared to death of my dad."
On Dec. 7, 1941, President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt signed Proclamation
2525, which, according to Shimada,
stated that no "alien enemy" found to
constitute a danger to the public peace
and safety of the United States should
be found within a designated area surrounding railroad terminals, depots or
yards - or the immediate vicinity.
Apparently the proclamation, which
caused much confusion, was lifted
later. The ambiguity of the proclamation, however, was replaced by the
clear-cut firings.
Wartime Firings
Mas Hatano, a volunteer docent at
the California State Railroad Museum,
and a retired CalTrans engineer, has
collected historical information on
Japanese Americans in the railroad
industry. He noted that in 1941 the
Union Pacific Railroad had 193
Japanese working for them. UP
President Jeffers fired the Japanese
workers and gave them five days' pay
and free transportation to any point
on their line.
"They were given one-and-a-half
days to vacate company property,"
Hatano said. "The Southern Pacific
followed suit shortly after and fired 39
[Japanese] workers."
While it is well documented that the
Japanese were indeed fired as a result
of Pearl Harbor, the point of contention was who ordered the firings.
Recent research by historians, and
testimony from railroad families, point
the finger at the U.S. government.
"I think the federal authorities had
some hand in firing them," said historian Andrew Russell, who wrote his
master's thesis on Japanese Americans
in wartime Nevada. He wrote the
groundbreaking thesis last year while
at University of Nevada-Las Vegas.
Fumie Shimada discovered the thesis while doing research in Nevada, and
sent it to the Office of Redress
Administration in Washington, D.C.,
along with other documents supporting her claim.
According to historian Michi
Weglyn, Russell's thesis contains
"remarkable materials that clearly
expose FBI involvement in mass layoffs
of Japanese workers" - hence, the
"smoking gun" that advocates of the
railroad and mine workers were looking for.
The "Smoking 6un'?
Shimada said that her father's job
was fought for by his boss, a state
assemblyman. "He personally made an
appeal to the governor of Nevada to
please spare this man's job." said
Shimada. "The governor told him it
was out of his hands, since it was a
'presidential order'," Shimada said.
A Little Known Case (cont'd on p 12)
Victo
at Las
Fired Railroad, Mine Workers
To Get Redress.
March 2, 1998: In a surprise announcement that climaxed years of bitter
struggle, the Department of Justice
announced on Feb. 27, 1998, that
Japanese American railroad and mine
workers and their families previously
denied redress and reparations under
the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 will be
eligible for compensation. The historic
announcement also paves the way for
family members of the fired workers to
receive compensation.
Kay Ochi, vice president of the Los
Angeles chapter of the National Coalition for Redress and Reparations said,
"This is something we're been working
on for years."
"What we fought for for six years,
they decided in two weeks," said Fumie
Shimada, daughter of a fired Southern
Pacific Railroad worker. She was referring to a recent lobbying trip to
Washington, DC, organized by the
NCRR. Family members of fired railroad workers and civil rights advocates
had met with Acting Assistant U.S.
Attorney General for Civil Rights Bill
Lann Lee and other Justice Department officials.
Lee made the announcement in Los
Angeles' Little Tokyo, saying, "I'm
pleased that the federal government
could come through for these individuals. I hope that this will finally end a
tragic period in American history for
these workers and their families."
Reversing their previous position,
the Justice Department's Office of
Victory At Last (cont'd on p. 13)
Nikkei Heritage-Spring 1998    11