The history of Japanese American incarceration is traditionally framed as one of the bleakest chapters in twentieth-century US history. Yet interest in the story of Japanese Americans and the lessons of the incarceration are not limited to the United States or the Japanese diaspora. This article examines media reactions to the story of the Japanese American incarceration and the redress movement of the 1980s in four Western European countries—the Netherlands, United Kingdom, West Germany, and France. In each country, media outlets discussed the redress movement and the Japanese American experience, larger issues of racism within the United States, and financial compensation for war victims. In doing so, these media accounts both dramatize the nature of public opinion on the subject of reparations and touch on larger debates on the collective memory of the Holocaust and colonialism that were emerging in Western Europe.

This dissertation examines the role of Congress in the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans. From 1941 until 1946, Congress was the most active and influential branch of the federal government in shaping government policies towards Japanese Americans and defining their public image. As this dissertation shows, it was members of Congress who submitted the first proposals for the forced removal of Japanese Americans from the West Coast, and called for their indefinite detention. Along the way, my project offers a new history on Asian American lobbyists and their role in shaping immigration policy. While members in Congress called for the imprisonment of the West Coast Japanese American community, the halls of the House and Senate offered Japanese Americans a forum to present their viewpoint. Over the course of the war, members of the Japanese American Citizens League lobbied Congress to present the views of the Japanese American community and dispel anti-Japanese rumors of coddling in the camps, and supported the efforts of Japanese Americans leaving the camps.