Interviews

1. Childhood shame for being Nikkei in Enumclaw, Washington

2. Recalling Pinedale and Tule Lake concentration camps

3. Impressions of student relocation in South Dakota

4. Challenges of finding a summer job

5. Why I joined the Japanese American Citizens League

6. Becoming active in the Civil Rights Movement

7. Figuring out a dollar amount for redress

8. Deciding to serve on the CWRIC

9. On hearing of CWRIC selection from Senator Inouye

10. Personal feelings as a Nikkei commissioner

11. A memorable CWRIC testimony of an unjust situation

12. Understanding the passion behind the people giving testimonies

13. Rationale for rejecting redress payment

14. Post-redress future of Japanese Americans

Marutani,William

Judge, only Japanese American to serve on CWRIC.

A memorable CWRIC testimony of an unjust situation

There’s a testimony by a witness who was only sixteen years old at the time. She related that when they got to camp that they were required to strip down naked, and that some doctor or some health official, if indeed he was, conducted a vaginal examination of all the girls. And she said, “I was one of them.”

Now in this age, today, where things are kind of free and loose, people might shrug their shoulders and say, “Okay, so what?” But by the standards of 1942, and particularly by the standards of the Nikkei community, not withstanding the fact that presumably the Nikkei engaged in bathing co-ed at night in the ofuro [public bath house], I was very aware of the sensitivity of not exposing your body.

And that when this girl testified about having a vaginal examination made, to me it was a very serious encroachment—very grave encroachment. That stuck with me. I thought to myself, why did you even dare examine these people? I mean, these people didn’t come out of some leper colony. These were ordinary Americans living in a community like anybody else, and you had to bring them in together, and you’re now conducting a vaginal examination! How dare you? How dare you? And that stuck very much in my mind.

imprisonment incarceration Redress movement

Date: August 27, 1998

Location: Pennsylvania, US

Interviewer: Darcie Iki, Mitchell Maki

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum

Interviewee Bio

The Honorable William Marutani was born in Kent, Washington. With the enforcement of Executive Order 9066, Marutani was forced to leave his classes at the University of Washington and sent to Fresno Assembly Center in 1942, and later Tule Lake concentration camp. He was released to attend Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, SD in the fall of 1942 as a pre-law student.

After being rejected by the U.S. Navy for being classified as a 4-C enemy alien, Marutani was finally able to serve by joining the Army where he was assigned to the Military Intelligence Service. Following his service, Marutani attended law school at the University of Chicago and moved to Pennsylvania for a six-month clerkship, where he stayed until 1975, when he was appointed to the bench of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas.

Marutani became active in the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) and served in many different positions. Marutani was appointed to serve on the nine-member Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC) that was created by President Jimmy Carter to investigate matters concerning the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans. Marutani was the only Japanese American to serve on the commission. (April 11, 2008)