Interned Japanese eligible for degrees

If you’re a Japanese American who was sent off to an internment camp while World War II played out, you could now qualify for an honorary degree from a state university or University of California campus, and any of the community colleges in California, including Orange Coast College and UC Irvine.

The special program is part of a state Assembly bill signed into law last fall by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The monumental task of finding some of these former prisoners, many of whom are in their 80s and 90s, is beginning to take shape statewide.

The program intends to rectify the educational gaps that Japanese internees suffered through their wartime relocation and imprisonment at internment camps scattered in remote locations around California and other Western states.

“At this point, we’re just trying to get the word out and let everybody know that the honorary degrees are available,” said Paige Marlatt-Dorr, a spokeswoman for California Community Colleges in Sacramento. “And the thing is, if you were a Japanese prisoner and you would like a degree, you don’t necessarily have to have been a college student at the time. You can qualify if you just feel that you lost out on the opportunity for an education.”

It’s not the first time that Japanese Americans have been compensated for being confined to the infamous barbed-wire camps that cropped up along California’s coast and valleys, where many served as farm workers. Many have received cash compensation, but now comes the educational payback.

The idea for the honorary degree program was created by Assembly member Warren T. Furutani (D-55th District), who sponsored Assembly Bill 37.

“Every now and again a special opportunity comes along for an elected official to right past wrongs,” Furutani said. “This is our chance to complete unfinished business. The vast majority of former students eligible for the higher education diplomas are from the California Community Colleges. This is our opportunity to learn from history.”

More than 120,000 Japanese were forcibly removed from their homes by U.S. soldiers and sent to Western internment camps in February 1942 under an executive order signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Of those, 2,567 were enrolled in higher education institutions, both public and private, while roughly 1,200 students attended 44 community colleges, most of them in the Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay areas, according to the California Community Colleges.

About 62% of the prisoners at the time were American-born citizens — commonly referred to as Nisei, or second-generation Japanese Americans; or Sansei, third-generation Japanese Americans.

Newport-Mesa wasn’t immune from this. In the spring of 1942, two star football players of Japanese origin from Harbor High School, George Matoba and Johnny Ikeda, were sent off to relocation camps, dealing a psychological blow to the team, according to past Daily Pilot articles.

Members of the Nisei generation are in their 80s, or may have died, so there’s an urgency for California colleges and all of the universities to “fulfill the intent of AB 37,” according to Furutani’s office.

The bill also makes amends for those Japanese prisoners who have already died: It allows the surviving next of kin to accept the honorary degree on behalf of the deceased.

Although OCC and UCI did not exist at the time, the California Community College System is still looking for potential candidates in Orange County, Marlatt-Dorr said.

“There might be a case where somebody was sent to a camp and was never able to get a degree as a result,” she said. “If so, we’d love to talk to them and interview them if they’re out there in Orange County.”