Attorney General Bonta Issues Formal Apology Acknowledging the Complicity of the California Attorney General’s Office in the Incarceration and Dispossession of Japanese Americans During and After World War II

OAKLAND – Today, on the 35th anniversary of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, California Attorney General Rob Bonta issued a formal apology acknowledging the California Attorney General’s Office’s past complicity in the unjust deprivation of Japanese Americans’ civil rights and civil liberties during and after World War II. 

“Today, my office formally apologizes for its past use of legal tools to deprive a generation of Japanese Californians of their liberty and financial security during the World War II era,” said Attorney General Bonta. “The forced relocation and incarceration of Japanese American citizens remains among the darkest periods of our history, and the suffering it caused Japanese American families across California is incalculable. While we can never erase the horrors of the past, we must take steps to atone for past wrongs by answering the call for accountability, truth and reconciliation, racial healing and transformation. The California Attorney General’s Office deeply regrets its past complicity in these heinous violations of civil rights, and with this apology, recommits to its mission of protecting and defending civil liberties for all Americans.”

In 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which targeted and imprisoned more than 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry who primarily lived on the West Coast. Former California Attorney General Earl Warren testified before Congress in support of this order and enforced the California Alien Land Law of 1913, which took possession of agricultural land owned by Japanese American families. In 1943, California Attorney General Robert Walker Kenny formed a special unit within the Attorney General's Office to enforce the California Alien Land Law. The California Alien Land Law prohibited Asian immigrants from purchasing or leasing land until 1952, when the California Supreme Court declared the law violated the Fourteenth Amendment. 

In 1944, the California Attorney General's Office joined the states of Washington and Oregon in submitting an amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in Korematsu v. United States, supporting the imprisonment of Fred Korematsu — a national civil rights hero who fought against the wrongful incarceration of Japanese Americans — despite the lack of any evidence that he posed a security threat. The Attorney General's Office recognizes today that this was unequivocally incorrect.

As racism, fear, and xenophobia continue to threaten our fundamental freedoms, Attorney General Bonta remains fully committed to fighting for the safety and inclusion of all of California’s diverse communities, evidenced by: 

• Launching the Racial Justice Bureau within the California Department of Justice.
• Holding virtual convening against hate crime with California’s big city Mayors.
• Creating the Community Engagement Office within the California Department of Justice.
• Hosting a public webinar for the National Day of Racial Healing.
• Implementing new guidance, reports, and resources to help public and law enforcement better understand and address hate crimes.

The formal statement of apology can be found here.