Speaking with the Associated Press, Helena Pagano shared that her great-grandfather, Mike Hodikoff, died of starvation during the Second World War while being held prisoner by the Japanese on Hokkaido Island. Pagano has long felt Japan should pay reparations for what took place during the Aleutian Islands Campaign, with this belief only increasing after she visited Attu in the summer of 2024, alongside Japanese officials who were looking to recover the remains of soldiers killed abroad in the conflict. The Associated Press write that, in 1951, the Japanese government offered to pay surviving Attuans $4,000 annually for three years, as a form of compensation for what occurred in World War II.