David Inoue
The phrase “Perfect is the enemy of the good” is widely attributed to Voltaire and has no better application than when talking about the legislative process. It seems that every day, the components of the $1.75 trillion-$3 trillion Build Back Better social infrastructure package keep shifting depending on what priority is taking precedence or which costs need to be cut.
What is inevitable is that the final legislation, if passed, will be very different from what the president originally envisioned as ideal. But that doesn’t mean that the final bill will be bad and likely not something anyone would oppose because of what it does or doesn’t fund.
Compromise is a key part of the process, and while some of our top priorities may be excluded, it’s not a reason to torpedo the legislation for the other good that it can do.
Similarly, in our own community, we are seeing this process play out in the evolution of the Japanese American Confinement Education Act.
When the JACE Act was initially conceived, it was as a direct analog to the Never Again Holocaust Education Act, which supports Holocaust education through the National Holocaust Museum.
The JACE Act was written to be as close a replica of that model, run through a museum-based organization. We had a model, and the legislation was penned as a fairly direct copy of the model that had already passed through Congress with no opposition.
As with any legislation, it then had to go through the process of review by other members of Congress, the Department of Interior and National Park Service and, of course, the public. The result is that the legislation that is now going through the House Natural Resources Committee is quite different from the original proposal.
The most noticeable change is that the new education program funded by the JACE Act would be open for application from any “Japanese American organization established to promote the understanding and appreciation of the ethnic and cultural diversity of the United States by illustrating the Japanese American experience throughout the history of the United States.”
Rather than focus on a single museum site as the Holocaust education act did, this would be open to a broader range of funded organizations who would apply for competitive grant funding.
Funding would be split amongst grantees, with minimum funding in the range of $500,000-$750,000 per grantee. This would ensure the depth of programming possible through the program and set it apart significantly from the JACS program, which funds at a lower level.
Just as the original concept of the JACE Act was to create significant programs with permanence, the minimum funding levels would similarly promote programs that would stand the test of time and be established for permanence.
On the other hand, permanence is also a concern for Congress. We had hoped to eliminate the sunset provision on the authorization. Unfortunately, some in Congress do not like to create permanent programs such as this and would not be supportive of this permanent authorization.
Instead, it is looking like Congress will authorize an additional $28 million in funding for the JACS program, which will extend it another seven to eight years.
This is not necessarily a bad twist, in that we will need to continue to mount our advocacy efforts with Congress to continue to educate them on the need to continue to tell our Japanese American story from our nation’s history. As we observe Veterans Day this week, we are reminded of the need to continue to educate everyone of the contributions of the Nisei soldiers during World War II.
In expanding the program to a wider range of potential applicants, one concern was that the funding could be swallowed up by organizations that are not rooted in the community. One provision to prevent this would be a limit on the size of applicants to under a threshold of employees.
This would prevent an organization such as a university from capturing significant amounts of funding. The hope is that universities might engage in the program by working in collaboration with an organization from the community that could seek the direct funding.
Before I close, I want to especially highlight the leadership of Rep. Doris Matsui, who has marshalled this legislation from the original concept. It was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office that highlighted the Never Again Holocaust Act as the model for developing around.
Without the leadership of these two women, we would not be where we are today, on the cusp of millions in additional funding for the JACS program and a $10 million commitment to further develop resources to educate on the Japanese American story.
As the JACE Act has gone through the grinder of Congress, it is in some ways very different from the original details of the bill, however, the overall concept remains the same. Most importantly, it will shore up the existing JACS program and create a new program to solidify the importance of the Japanese American wartime story to our nation’s history by allocating significant resources to our community to better tell the story for generations to come.
That would be a sausage worth our community gathering and feasting on together.
David Inoue is executive director of the JACL. He is based in the organization’s Washington, D.C., office.
