http://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8kp888m Online items available Inventory of Aiko Herzig Yoshinaga Papers SPC.2018.058 Jennifer Hill. Scope and Content, Biography, and edits by Eileen Yoshimura. California State University Dominguez Hills, Gerth Archives and Special Collections 2019-10-31 University Library South -5039 (Fifth Floor) 1000 E. Victoria St. Carson, CA 90747 [email protected] URL: https://www.csudh.edu/libarchives/ Inventory of Aiko Herzig SPC.2018.058 1 Yoshinaga Papers SPC.2018.058 Contributing Institution: California State University Dominguez Hills, Gerth Archives and Special Collections Title: Aiko Herzig Yoshinaga Papers Creator: Yoshinaga-Herzig, Aiko Creator: Herzig, John A., 1922-2005 Identifier/Call Number: SPC.2018.058 Physical Description: 60 boxesapproximately Date (inclusive): circa 1900-December 1, 2018 Date (bulk): 1980-2018 Abstract: This collection includes correspondence, media, publications, photographs, manuscripts, documents, and other materials related to Aiko Herzig Yoshinaga's life and work related to activism and social justice. Subjects in the collection include Redress and Reparations, the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, Japanese American incarceration, and Aiko's personal life. Some material has been digitized and is available online. Language of Material: English . Conditions Governing Use All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Director of Archives and Special Collections. Permission for publication is given on behalf of Special Collections as the owner of the physical materials and not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained. Preferred Citation For information about citing archival material, see the Citations for Archival Material guide, or consult the appropriate style manual. Related Materials This collection is part of the California State University Japanese American Digitization Project. For more information: CSU Japanese American Digitization Project. This collection is related to the Jack and Aiko Herzig Papers at the University of California, Los Angeles. Please consult the UCLA Library and Special Collections for more information. Jack and Aiko Herzig Papers. Conditions Governing Access Access is restricted to some material in the collection. During processing, personal and health-related information was removed from the collection. If access copies could be created that concealed the confidential information, they were added back into the collection. Other material is closed and restricted according to HIPPA guidelines and the judgment of the archives staff. For more information about the restrictions in this collection, please call the Gerth Archives and Special Collections (310) 243-3895. Processing Information The collection was processed by Eileen Yoshimura in 2019-2020. Biographical / Historical During her life and posthumously, Aiko Herzig Yoshinaga (Aiko) was recognized and honored with numerous awards and accolades for speaking out and fighting for social justice. She is best known for uncovering the "smoking gun" evidence that led to the passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, resulting in redress and reparations for the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Her research findings were also pivotal in bringing forth writ of coram nobis petitions in three wartime cases against Gordon Hirabayashi, Fred Korematsu, and Minoru Yasui, who were convicted of violating military orders under Executive Order 9066. Aiko Yoshinaga, was born on August 5, 1924 in Sacramento, California. Her parents, Sanji Yoshinaga and Shigeru Kinuwaki, were immigrants from Japan. Aiko was the second to the youngest among six brothers and sisters: brother Nobukazu Frank and sisters Aya and Ei were born in Japan; brother Tsugio John and sister Amy were born in Sacramento. The family moved from Sacramento in 1933 to Downey briefly, and then to Los Angeles until 1942. In Sacramento, Sanji Yoshinaga supported his family by managing hotels and running a small fruit and vegetable store. In 1933, when Aiko was 9 years of age, the family moved to Downey and stayed on her mother's cousin's farm for a few months until her father was able to find a home in "uptown" Los Angeles, a small community of Nikkei (Japanese American) families. For the next 9 years, until Aiko was 17, the family settled in Los Angeles where she attended Hobart Elementary School, Berendo Junior High School, Poly High, and Los Angeles High School. At the latter, Aiko and her fellow Nisei (second Inventory of Aiko Herzig SPC.2018.058 2 Yoshinaga Papers SPC.2018.058 generation Japanese American) students were a few weeks from graduating when their lives were interrupted by Executive Order 9066; Aiko would not receive her high school diploma until after the war. In February 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which cleared the way for the removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans within designated "military zones" located primarily along the West Coast. The Yoshinaga family, living in a designated military zone, was initially sent to live in the horse stables at Santa Anita Racetrack before being imprisoned in April 1942 at Jerome, one of ten American incarceration camps. For Aiko, shortly before incarceration, she married Jake Miyazaki and joined him and his family at Manzanar. There, she gave birth to her first child, Gerrie Lani Miyazaki. Upon hearing that her father was gravely ill, she and her daughter transferred to the Jerome incarceration camp, and later to the Rowher incarceration camp. Her father died while imprisoned in Jerome. At war's end in 1945, Aiko and Gerrie relocated to Denver, Colorado with Jake's family. After their divorce, Aiko and Gerrie eventually moved to New York City where her widowed mother and siblings lived. In 1948, after attending night school in New York City, Aiko earned her high school diploma. She also met and married her husband Davis Abe, a US. Army officer who served in the postwar occupation in Japan. While in Kyoto, Japan, she had two more children, Lisa Jo Abe and David Louis Abe. After divorcing her second husband, Aiko relocated to New York and became the single parent of two daughters and a son. She found work in secretarial and office clerical positions, supporting her family while at the same time, developing meticulous organizational and research skills. A turning point for Aiko came over dinner table talks with her teenage daughter Lisa during the 1960's when they would discuss current events. In Aiko's own words: I found myself hard-pressed to satisfactorily explain to my daughter, let alone myself, the stark contradictions between what we had been taught about American values and American democracy versus the stark realities carried into our home by the news. I had naively accepted the dictum that we lived in a society based on the rule of law, but it was increasingly clear that laws were not synonymous with justice and fairness. It became clear to Aiko that she had suppressed and denied her own painful memories of her incarceration and injustice. She started to confront issues of racism, including her own personal experiences, and sought to educate herself and become involved in political change. In New York, she joined a group called the Asian Americans for Action (AAA) and participated in demonstrations about social, economic and political issues in the U.S. and abroad. At one point, Aiko found herself arrested along with President Jimmy Carter's daughter Amy while demonstrating in front of the South African Embassy to protest that country's apartheid policy. Aiko would also meet Michi Nishiura Weglyn, author of Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America's Concentration Camps, who became a close friend and inspiration to Aiko in her pursuit against social injustice. In 1978, Aiko married John "Jack" Herzig (Jack), a former U.S. Army Lieutenant colonel paratrooper. They moved to Washington, D.C. and Aiko began visiting the National Archives, initially to find documents relating to her family's World War II incarceration. It was Weglyn who encouraged her to broaden her research to the various issues relating to the wartime exclusion history. Aiko found herself at the National Archives Monday through Saturday and spending 50 to 60 hours a week. After his retirement, Jack joined his wife as a research partner and together, they amassed about 8,000 documents from the War Relocation Authority and War Department records and other federal agencies. In 1980, the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Citizens (CWRIC) was created by the U.S. Congress to officially study the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. In 1981, Aiko was hired by the CWRIC as a researcher. Her documents and research proved invaluable to the study and was the core of the CWRIC's 1983 final report, Personal Justice Denied, which led to the passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, redress, and a formal apology by the U.S. government to Japanese Americans. While conducting research at the National Archives for the CWRIC, Aiko along with her husband, uncovered the tenth copy of General John L. DeWitt's final report. DeWitt's report had documented the fact that J. Edgar Hoover of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Federal Communications Commission, the Office of Naval Intelligence and other agencies categorically denied that Japanese Americans had committed any wrongdoing. DeWitt's report was never presented to the U.S. Supreme Court during the original 1944 case of Korematsu v. United States. Instead, it was suppressed and all copies, but one were destroyed. With the discovery of the tenth missing copy, it was revealed that the U.S. government based its decision to incarcerate Japanese Americans on racist and unconstitutional arguments versus its long-standing position of military necessity. This discovery was also instrumental in laying the foundation for writ of coram nobis petitions for three wartime cases, resulting in decisions to vacate the wartime U.S.