Akira Horiuchi, a 54-year-old Nisei from Los Angeles, testified before the Commission about his family’s decision to leave voluntarily rather than face forced incarceration, and the devastating personal tragedies that followed.

• Father Arrested: On December 7, 1941, the FBI picked up his father while visiting friends on Terminal Island and held him for several days. That fear shaped the family’s decision to “voluntarily” leave Los Angeles.

• Racism at School: As a teenager, he endured stares, insults, and hostility on public transportation, eventually biking to school to avoid harassment.

• Utah Hardship: The family relocated to rural Utah as sharecroppers. For three years they lived under primitive, degrading conditions — no running water, no electricity, sleeping on bug-infested floors, laboring in fields and canneries. He described the work as “slave labor.”

• Family Tragedies: His baby sister died after falling into an outhouse while everyone worked in the fields. Soon after, his mother died giving birth in a hospital for the first time in her life. Akira was still in high school.

• Military Service: Drafted immediately after graduation, he served in the U.S. Army as an interpreter in the Occupation of Japan. He described the bitter irony of being pulled from “slave labor” only to be ordered to serve the same government that had uprooted his family.

• Lingering Anguish: Questioned how any monetary value could be placed on the loss of his mother and sister, or the fear and humiliation that still haunted him.

• Demand for Redress: Called for meaningful restitution from the U.S. government — at least $25,000 per individual — as the minimum recognition of the injustice.