Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga

Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga (August 5, 1924 – July 18, 2018) was a Japanese American political activist who played a major role in the Japanese American redress movement. She was the lead researcher of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC), a bipartisan federal committee appointed by Congress in 1980 to review the causes and effects of the Japanese American incarceration during World War II. As a young woman, Herzig-Yoshinaga was confined in the Manzanar Concentration Camp in California, the Jerome War Relocation Center in Arkansas, and the Rohwer War Relocation Center, which is also in Arkansas. She later uncovered government documents that debunked the wartime administration's claims of "military necessity" and helped compile the CWRIC's final report, Personal Justice Denied, which led to the issuance of a formal apology and reparations for former camp inmates. She also contributed pivotal evidence and testimony to the Hirabayashi, Korematsu and Yasui coram nobis cases. Her parents, Sanji Yoshinaga and Shigeru Kinuwaki, immigrated from the Kumamoto Prefecture on Japan's island Kyushu. In 1933, Yoshinaga's family moved to Los Angeles, where her father worked as a hotel manager.

Incarceration Herzig-Yoshinaga was a high school senior at Los Angeles High School in Los Angeles when President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which authorized military commanders to designate areas from which "any or all persons may be excluded." This action led to the imprisonment of over 110,000 Japanese Americans from the West Coast and Hawai'i under the justifications of "military necessity" and "national security" as the United States became involved in World War II. She recalls her principal saying when he informed her and the other Japanese American students at her school of the situation, "You don't deserve to get your high school diplomas because your people bombed Pearl Harbor." Before the war's end, she also spent time in the Rohwer War Relocation Center which, like Jerome Relocation Center, is also located in Arkansas.

Activism In the 1960s, Herzig-Yoshinaga became involved with Asian Americans for Action, a civil rights organization composed mostly of Nisei women that engaged in activism protesting the Vietnam War and nuclear research. She also joined the staff of Jazzmobile, a non-profit organization dedicated to education through jazz music based in Harlem, which helped deepen her consciousness around race and racism in the United States.

In 2009, Herzig-Yoshinaga published a dictionary of terms related to the incarceration, where she encourages avoiding euphemisms to describe the experience of Japanese Americans during World War II such referring to the camps as "concentration camps" instead of "internment camps," given "internment's" connotation with an action that is militarily justified.

Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga was prominently featured in the podcast produced by Rachel Maddow entitled “Burn Order” that was released in December 2025 and included archival interviews of her from years before about her critical research role and partnership with attorney Peter Irons.