For the last five years, Guam native son Johnny Cepeda Gogo has dedicated himself to a deeply personal mission: bringing historical flags across the country to gather signatures from aging survivors of one of America’s most painful chapters. 

While many from Guam may be aware of his “Hasso” project involving WWII liberators and CHamorus who survived the war signing Guam flags, he was simultaneously traveling around the country to have Japanese Americans who were interned on the mainland during the same war. 

His work on the latter project  has now earned him a humanitarian award — recognition that not only celebrates his personal mission but also ensures these powerful narratives of dignity and resilience continue to resonate, even as he begins to wind down his active pursuit of signatures.

Weeks after being recognized by his peers in the California Judges Association, the Santa Clara County Superior Court judge responded with characteristic humility at being awarded the 2025 Alba Witkin Humanitarian Award. The award recognizes his work honoring Japanese Americans who were confined to WWII internment camps without due process.

“You know, it's still sinking in,” he said.  “While I never started this project to get any type of recognition or awards … when people do recognize the significance of the work, sometimes you're taken aback. You're thinking, ‘Wow, this is pretty neat, but I didn't expect it’ — and now that I think about it, it's absolutely quite an honor.”

The inspiration for the Japanese American flag project stemmed from a community assignment in 2018. While conducting outreach events in San Jose's Japantown, he learned about California’s recognition of Fred Korematsu Day commemorating the Japanese American civil rights leader who defied the government’s WWII incarceration order. 

He connected with fellow Superior Court Judge Roberta Hayashi, a leader in the Japanese American community, and discovered more about the unjust incarceration of 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry during World War II, the majority of whom were U.S. citizens. 

"As a prosecutor, I was thinking, I do not want to prosecute and incarcerate somebody unless their rights have been afforded and protected, and they've been given a trial and found guilty by a judge or a jury after evidence," Judge Gogo said, highlighting the impact this historical injustice had on him.

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He sought to honor these individuals, realizing that while Fred Korematsu had a national holiday, many others who suffered similar hardships did not. He chose the 48-star American flag, a poignant symbol from the internment era. 

"During World War II, the 48-star flag was actually raised in those incarceration camps," he said. "They were raised in these classrooms and the incarcerated students stood up and put their hands over their hearts, and said the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America." He noted the "immediate irony" of young men drafted from the camps who were killed in war and had those flags draped over their coffins, which were returned to their families who remained incarcerated.

Initially intending to collect signatures on a single flag for the Japanese American Museum in San Jose, the project quickly expanded. What started as one flag has now grown to 13, with 12 already donated to museums and veteran organizations across the country. 

Judge Gogo has traveled to more 75 cities and communities, including Honolulu, Portland, Seattle, and sites of former internment camps in Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho and Utah, collecting signatures from an estimated 2,000 individual survivors, with many descendants also signing on behalf of their relatives. 

"I've never said no to anybody," he affirmed, acknowledging the desire of descendants to honor their family's experiences.

While Judge Gogo is no longer actively traveling to track down signees, the project itself can continue. He has already donated flags to Japanese American organizations involved in pilgrimages to the former internment camps “so that they can continue to to invite folks to put their name on the flag.”

 At first glance, the two flag-signing projects might seem starkly juxtaposed: one gathers signatures from Japanese Americans unjustly interned by their own government, while the other honors American soldiers who fought against Japan and the CHamoru people who endured a brutal Japanese wartime occupation. 

Yet, for Judge Gogo, a common thread interweaves these two narratives. He sees both as powerful explorations of how "during wartime, rights and human dignity can be put ... to the bottom because of people's perceptions that... somebody is the enemy or looks like the enemy." 

Recognizing a shared story of oppression and the need to preserve those histories, Judge Gogo views the flags as both tribute and testimony — a tangible reminder for generations to come.

“The plan is to continue to try and share these stories because, as is often said and is often sometimes actually experienced, those who don't know history are bound to repeat it.”

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