Immigration law and defined “refugee” reduced restrictions and admitted refugees on a systemic basis for humanitarian reasons. Primarily Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian political refugees benefited from this Act.
This Commission was set up by Congress holds hearings across the country and concludes the Japanese internment was a "grave injustice" and that Executive Order 9066 resulted from "race prejudice, war hysteria and a failure of political leadership."
In Detroit, Chinese-American Vincent Chin, mistaken for a Japanese National is clubbed to death w/ baseball bat by 2 unemployed auto workers who blame layoffs in the auto industry on the Japanese Auto industry. Case receives nationwide attention and mobilizes the Asian-American community as a whole.
Fred Korematsu, Min Yasui and Gordon Hirabayashi file petitions to overturn their World War II conviction for violating curfew and evacuation orders.
First formal signing of the Proclamation of Asian Pacific American Heritage Week by the White House.
The U.S. Senate Civil Liberties act votes 69 to 27 and signed granting reparations to Japanese-Americans interned during WW2 as a result of Executive Order 9066. The act granted surviving internees $20,000 dollars in compensation. The US apologized and acknowledged the internments were unjust.
American Homecoming Act allows children in Vietnam born to American fathers to immigrate to the U.S.
Sanjay Mehrotra co-founds Sandisk (U.S. manufacturer of flash memory products, including memory cards and readers, USB flash drives, and solid-state drives).
President George H. Bush signs an entitlement program into law paying surviving Japanese American internees $20,000.