John Tateishi

John Tateishi gained national prominence in 1978 when he launched the JACL's redress campaign and crafted and directed the legislative and public affairs strategies of the campaign that ultimately culminated in 1988 with the signing of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. Ten years later, as the national director, he brought the JACL onto the national stage after 9/11 as an important national voice challenging the Bush administration's policies that targeted Arab and Muslim communities and undermined the civil liberties of all Americans. He is the author of And Justice for All, an oral history of the WWII internment, and a contributing author of Last Witnesses, a collection of personal essays about the camp experience. He was the subject of television documentaries in England and Japan and has appeared on national and local television and radio programs. Among his recognitions, he is the 2007 recipient of the Spendlove Prize on Social Justice.

Articles by John Tateishi:

JACL Logo

Years ago during the Redress campaign, I made it a point always to wear the JACL membership lapel pin with my suit. In the days when the organization had a larger membership and more cash in the till, we used to have a variety of lapel pins for various membership categories. I wore the regular member pin. At a glance, you could easily mistake it f...Read More

National Board

Throughout my 35- plus years’ association with the JACL, I’ve served in various capacities at various levels of the organization. I was a founding member of the Marin County chapter, served as its vice president and president and attended three conventions as a delegate; served on the NCWNP district board as a v.p. twice and was the cha...Read More

Japanese American Farmers and WWII

Several years ago, I spoke at a university where students surprisingly knew a lot about the internment — surprising because this wasn’t on the West Coast, wasn’t in an area where there was a significant Japanese American or Asian American population. This was the University of Kentucky, deep in the heart of bluegrass country. Duri...Read More

Reign of Fear: The Unnecessary Price of Democracy

Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear, kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor, with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it.' — Gen. Douglas MacArthur For the past ...Read More

Endgame

Earlier this year there was an Internet blog report claiming that the Bush Administration had given a single-bid contract to Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) to build secret detention centers around the country under the aegis of the Department of Homeland Security under the codename "Endgame." Because I tend to be skeptical ab...Read More