Alan Nishio, born in Manzanar and a founding member of the National Coalition for Redress and Reparations, testified before the CWRIC on behalf of the Little Tokyo People’s Rights Organization. His testimony connected personal history, community loss, and the fight for justice.

• Who He Is: Sansei, activist, and community leader. Spoke as part of the Little Tokyo People’s Rights Organization, representing residents and workers of the community.

• On the Camps: Declared that incarceration was not about military necessity, but about racism, greed, and hysteria.

• Beyond Individual Loss: While many testimonies focused on families losing farms and businesses, Nishio emphasized the destruction of community itself.

• Little Tokyo Shattered:

  
  

  • Before the war, it was the largest Japanese community in the U.S., with one out of five Japanese Americans living there.

  • After camp and dispersal, it shrank to one-quarter of its size.

  • Postwar attempts to rebuild were further gutted by “urban renewal,” replacing family homes and shops with banks, hotels, and tourist businesses.

  
  

• Division & Assimilation: Inside camp, people were divided—Issei vs. Nisei, citizens vs. non-citizens, English speakers vs. Japanese speakers. After release, the government even encouraged Japanese Americans to “stay away from large groups of Japanese,” eroding cohesion further.

• Need for a Community Fund: Called for government reparations not only as cash payments but as a community development fund to:

  
  

  • Support affordable housing in Little Tokyo.

  • Provide services for Issei elders, many of whom were still in need.

  • Rebuild the cultural and social fabric destroyed by incarceration.

  
  

• Solidarity Across Communities: Framed Japanese American redress as part of a broader fight for justice, citing parallels with Alaskan Natives, Aleuts, and Native Americans.

• Closing Appeal: “It is more than monetary compensation. It is a fight to regain our pride and dignity as a people and as a community.”