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Washington — Ayano Kondo was a small child when her family was forcibly taken from their home in Lima, Peru, deported to the United States and interned during World War II.

"We stayed in an internment camp in Crystal City, Texas, and after the war ended we moved to Chicago," Kondo said. "I haven't lived in Peru since."

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., was outraged when he learned that the U.S. government pressured South American governments during World War II to deport Latin Americans of Japanese descent. This came as more than 120,000 Japanese-Americans were being rounded up within the United States and sent to internment camps.

To help these Latin Americans of Japanese descent, Nadler is cosponsoring legislation with Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., that would give a presidential apology and $20,000 to those and their heirs who were taken from their homes and interned in the United States. It would also reauthorize a $50 million education fund.

This group did not qualify for the apology and restitution under a 1988 law, called the Civil Liberties Act, because they were considered illegal aliens in the United States even though they were brought here forcibly.

Now, Latin Americans of Japanese descent have again turned to Congress for compensation and to re-establish the fund.

"It's a shame they even have to ask for it," said Ellen Levine, a Manhattan writer who has extensively studied the fate of Japanese-Americans during World War II. Most of these people don't want the money, she said. "But as one man told me: If you don't put a dollar sign on it, it doesn't have any meaning, and people won't remember."

According to Levine, the State Department ordered several South American governments to round up Latin Americans of Japanese descent and deport them to the United States after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

Children remember their fathers trying to escape police, Levine said. "They took the fathers first," she said. "And their families followed later."

More than 2,000 Latin Americans of Japanese descent, most of whom were from Peru, were held in internment camps run by the Justice Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service during the war. Although the U.S. government never fully explained why it held Japanese-Americans, officials acknowledged one of the reasons was hostage exchange.

The families were stuck on boats from Lima to New Orleans. Food they brought was thrown overboard. Once they were in international waters, officers took away their identification papers and told them they were illegal aliens.

In New Orleans, they were stripped, showered and disinfected and then put on trains to the internment camps, Fusa Shibayama, a late survivor of the camps who was originally from Peru, told Levine.

After the war, most of the remaining Latin Americans of Japanese descent were sent back to Japan, unless they had sponsors in the United States who would "parole them out," said Grace Shimizu, a founding member of Campaign For Justice; Redress Now For Japanese Latin Americans. "Somebody had to sign for them, as if they were criminals."

Shimizu's organization has been working with Congress and provided the necessary background information. "We hope that Congress will understand it's time to do the right thing," said Shimizu. "We hope that President Bush will understand the importance of this issue and sign the bill into law."