Raymond Wiedemann, a retired teacher and educational consultant from San Pedro, California, appeared before the CWRIC not as a Japanese American, but as a citizen moved by conscience. His testimony highlighted the injustice of wartime incarceration and the moral obligation to make amends.

• Background: Wiedemann traced his ancestry to the Amish of Bavaria and Irish immigrants. A descendant of Captain William Parker of the Revolutionary War, he framed his testimony as part of a long American tradition of conscience and justice.

• Speaking as an Ally: He stated he came to “add the weight of my conscience” for his Japanese American “brothers and sisters” who were denied rights during WWII.

• Racism at the Core: Emphasized that Japanese Americans were incarcerated while German and Italian immigrant communities—who also had ties to enemy nations—were not subjected to mass removal. He charged racism, bigotry, and prejudice as the underlying cause.

• Denial of Rights: He listed what was stripped away—freedom of movement, education, self-improvement, careers, businesses, property, and dignity.

• Educational Lens: Drawing from his career in schools, he compared government treatment of Japanese Americans to unfair practices by authority figures: arbitrary punishments, double standards, and broken promises. He warned these behaviors produce withdrawal, depression, lowered aspirations—outcomes he saw echoed in the community’s struggles.

• Survivors vs. Losses: Urged commissioners not to assume success stories meant there was no damage. Survivors who thrived were “the winners,” but many others had been crushed, broken, or diminished, unable to reach their potential.

• Moral Duty of the Commission: Insisted that only a genuine acknowledgment of error, regret, and reparations could begin to heal wounds—both of Japanese Americans and of American democracy itself.

• Closing Words: Ended with a Japanese proverb he had learned: “In the sky, the sun. On earth, mankind. And mankind—love.”