Following Dr. Mazukazu “Jack” Fujimoto’s testimony, commissioners pressed him and others on issues of education and economic loss. Their questions reflected concern over how incarceration disrupted the futures of Japanese American youth and farm families.

• Education Interrupted: Asked whether Japanese American youth were denied the right to attend college before the war, and how the camps shaped their opportunities afterward. Commissioners wanted to know if dispersal across the country created more or fewer chances for higher education.

• Financial Barriers: Raised the question of how families, stripped of resources after release, could possibly afford college. Commissioners highlighted testimony that the lack of savings or property after camp closed doors for many.

• Farm Losses: Noted that many testifiers came from farm families and asked whether the Farm Security Administration provided any assistance in selling equipment or property.

• Follow-Up Request: Invited Dr. Fujimoto to submit a memorandum expanding on an idea he had mentioned in his statement, showing their interest in carrying his proposal further into the record.

Bill Izumi Nakagawa, an architect from Washington, testified before the Commission about his family’s forced removal, their losses, and his own journey from the assembly centers to the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. His words drew from diary entries kept at the time, offering a vivid picture of daily life under incarceration.

• Life Before the War: Lived with his family on a 25-acre truck farm in Bingen, Washington, across the Columbia River from Hood River, Oregon. Owned farming equipment, vehicles, and boats, all sold off at a fraction of their value under evacuation orders.

• Cultural Fear: His mother burned her beloved Japanese records, fearing they might cause trouble. Their spring cabbage crop, nearly ready for harvest, was left to rot in the fields.

• Evacuation at 19: On his birthday in May 1942, he and 600 others boarded trains from Hood River to Pinedale Assembly Center in California. He described the exhaustion of the train ride and first impressions of camp life in diary entries.

• Work and Wages: Began working at Pinedale, enduring 110-degree heat for $4.99 a half month. He saved his first paycheck as evidence of their meager pay. Later transferred to Tule Lake, then Jerome in Arkansas.

• Camp Conditions: Food was monotonous — “lamb stew, lamb stew, and lamb stew.” Despite hardships, he witnessed meetings where young men volunteered for the U.S. Army, defying block managers who questioned their loyalty.

• Military Service: Passed his physical in Chicago but was restricted to the infantry due to discrimination. Joined the 442nd Regimental Combat Team; his brother Kiyoshi served in Military Intelligence.

• After the War: Returned with no farm to go back to, settling in Kingsburg, California. His mother passed away young at 57, which he attributed to the strain of repeated uprooting.

• On Injustice: Declared three main wrongs — the evacuation of U.S. citizens, the reclassification of draft status from 1-A to “enemy alien,” and the denial of his right to choose his military branch.

• Redress Demands: Urged resettlement of unpaid claims from 1948, fair monetary compensation including for time lost in camp, and inclusion of incarceration in U.S. history textbooks so future generations would learn from the injustice.

Dr. Yoshiko “Fred” Fujikawa, a physician born in San Francisco in 1910, testified before the Commission about the forced removal from Terminal Island and his work as a doctor inside the camps. His story highlights both the chaos of evacuation and the crushing conditions of providing medical care for thousands of Japanese Americans.

• Life on Terminal Island: Practiced medicine from 1936 until February 1942. The community of 3,000 Japanese Americans, mostly fishermen and cannery workers, lived surrounded by shipyards, Navy installations, and military facilities.

• Pearl Harbor & Crackdown: After December 7, soldiers blocked off access, jeeps patrolled with machine guns, and the FBI rounded up hundreds of men. He lost hospital privileges by mid-December, leaving him unable to fully care for patients.

• 48-Hour Evacuation: On February 25, 1942, residents were ordered off the island. With his family, he worked around the clock dismantling X-ray machines and packing medical equipment while neighbors were preyed upon by opportunists offering pennies for cars and furniture. His mother, in grief, burned family heirlooms and handmade furniture rather than see them stolen.

• Emergency Medical Work: Recruited by the U.S. Public Health Service, Fujikawa set up the makeshift “hospital” in the horse stalls at Santa Anita, caring for 18,000 people with only six doctors. He described severe vaccine reactions, fainting, and diarrheal illness in long lines. Paid just $16 a month.

• At Jerome Camp: Later transferred to Arkansas, where seven doctors cared for 10,000 people. Facilities were slightly better, but the scale of need remained overwhelming.

• Life After Camp: Left in 1943 to work at a TB sanatorium in Missouri, eventually returning to Long Beach in 1949.

• On Redress: Closed by saying many of those who most needed monetary support had already passed away, underscoring the urgency of reparations.