GETTING TO REPARATIONS:
JAPANESE AMERICANS and AFRICAN AMERICANS
Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann, 2004

Why is it so difficult for African Americans to achieve reparations for slavery and segregation, while the Japanese American reparations movement was successful? African Americans encounter several problems. Victims of direct harms are dead, perpetrators are diffuse, some of the actual harms were legal at the time they were committed, and the causal chain of harm is long and complex. Some estimates of reparations due would also impose unreasonable burdens on government and American citizens. By contrast, Japanese Americans received reparations for victims who were still living, for actions where the perpetrator was known, and where the harm was immediate: the amount finally distributed to them was also quite small.