Matsunaga was instrumental in the passage of the redress bill in 1988 for people of Japanese descent who were incarcerated in the United States during World War II. According to this article, "No one worked harder to make redress a reality than Spark. After three intense years, he put together a solid bi-partisan coalition of 69 yes votes largely by himself. And so to him we owe Senate passage of S. 1009. The reason the bill received so much support was that nearly all of Sparky’s Senate colleagues just loved him. And if Sparky – the very spirit of Aloha — really wanted something, his colleagues were going to make it happen for him. I remember in particular a group of seven people – all guests of Spark – at lunch right in the middle of the august Senate dining room. All around us were men wearing expensively tailored suits and sporting $200 haircuts, but here we were: two huge Samoan guys in flowered shirts, a small Filipina woman, a nice Nisei couple, me, and the senator. Spark’s message: we are all Americans here. And Spark’s colleagues got the message and they loved and respected him for it."