Obituaries

Ex-U.S. Senator Who Worked for Japanese-American Internees Dies

AP file photo
FILE – President Joe Biden awards the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, to former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson at the White House in Washington, July 7, 2022.

Jiji Press

12:04 JST, March 16, 2025

Washington (Jiji Press)—Former U.S. Republican Senator Alan Simpson, who worked to restore the honor of Japanese-Americans imprisoned during World War II, has died at age 93, according to a local organization where he served as an executive.

Simpson, who died on Friday, was a cross-party ally of the late Democrat Norman Mineta, the first Japanese-American to hold a U.S. cabinet post.

As a boy, Simpson met Mineta, who had been taken to an internment camp. Together, they worked to restore the honor of incarcerated Japanese-Americans and contributed to the enactment of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which included an apology from then President Ronald Reagan and compensation to such Japanese-Americans.

Simpson was born in Colorado in 1931. He served three terms as a U.S. senator from western Wyoming from 1979 to 1997.