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Intergenerational communication of race-related trauma by Japanese American former internees. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 73(3), 266-278

American Journal of Orthopsychiatry
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Donna K. Nagata
Donna K. Nagata
Donna K. Nagata
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Wendy J. Y. Cheng
Wendy J. Y. Cheng
Wendy J. Y. Cheng
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Abstract

The present study investigated the intergenerational communications between Japanese Americans who were unjustly ordered into U.S. concentration camps during World War II and their offspring born after the war. Survey data were collected from 450 2nd-generation (Nisei) Japanese American former internees to assess patterns of communication with their children about the internment. The study and its results are discussed in relation to racial socialization and the influence of ethnicity on reactions to traumatic stress.
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266
American Journal of Orthopsychiatry Copyright 2003 by the Educational Publishing Foundation
2003, Vol. 73, No. 3, 266–278 0002-9432/03/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/0002-9432.73.3.266
I remember parts of that train ride [to the concentration
camp] because every once in a while we would stop and
we couldn’t get out. We’d just poke out our heads out
the window . . . but we had soldiers on the train guard-
ing us. . . . It was pretty scary because the shades were
all drawn so that we didn’t know where we were going.
I can remember the dust and the chaos when we were
taken . . . It was quite a traumatic experience. (Quote
from a Nisei Research Project participant)
The World War II internment of more than 120,000
Japanese Americans represents one of this country’s
most striking examples of social injustice. Ten weeks
after the Japanese military attacked Pearl Harbor,
President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive
Order 9066, which authorized the removal of all per-
sons of Japanese descent from the west coast. Men,
Intergenerational Communication of Race-Related Trauma
by Japanese American Former Internees
Donna K. Nagata, PhD, and Wendy J. Y. Cheng, MA
University of Michigan
The present study investigated the intergenerational communications between Japanese Americans
who were unjustly ordered into U.S. concentration camps during World War II and their offspring
born after the war. Survey data were collected from 450 2nd-generation (Nisei) Japanese American
former internees to assess patterns of communication with their children about the internment. The
study and its results are discussed in relation to racial socialization and the influence of ethnicity
on reactions to traumatic stress.
women, and children of Japanese ancestry were
falsely portrayed as a threat to national security and
put into concentration camps without trial or individ-
ual review even though two thirds of them were
U.S. citizens. Most had only a week’s official notice
in which to sell their belongings and evacuate to
desolate areas. Once removed from their homes, they
remained incarcerated behind barbed-wire fences
beneath armed guard towers for an average of 2 to
4 years. The sudden uprooting and the adverse condi-
tions of the camps violated many internees’ sense of
self and dignity (Commission on Wartime Relocation
and Internment of Civilians [CWRIC], 1997). Sub-
sequent investigations by the 1980 Commission on
Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians con-
cluded that the Executive Order was unjustified and
the treatment of the Japanese Americans was a “grave
injustice” (CWRIC, 1997). Although letters of apol-
ogy and $20,000 payment were issued to each surviv-
ing internee as symbolic redress decades later, effects
of this unjust event linger.
Loo (1993) conceptualized the Japanese American
concentration camp experience as a form of race-
related trauma. Race-related trauma may not be pin-
pointed to a singular stressful event in the traditional
sense. Rather, repeated exposure to overt or covert
racial discrimination is a lifelong and cumulative
experience (Feagin, 1991) that can lead to more inter-
personal and psychological difficulties than trauma
resulting from natural or accidental design (Loo, 1993).
Studies on traumatized groups, including Holocaust
survivors (Danieli, 1998; Lichtman, 1984; Sorscher &
Cohen, 1997; Weiss & Weiss, 2000), American Indian
survivors of genocide (Duran, Duran, Brave Heart, &
Yellow Horse-Davis, 1998), and Japanese American
internees (Carr, 1993; Loo, 1993; Nagata, 1990a, 1993,
1998) suggest that historical race-based trauma can be
Donna K. Nagata, PhD, and Wendy J. Y. Cheng, MA,
Department of Psychology, University of Michigan.
This research was supported by grants provided by the
University of Michigan Center for Japanese Studies,
the United States Civil Liberties Public Education Fund,
and the University of Michigan Office of the Vice President
for Research. We thank Yuzuru J. Takeshita for facilitating
data collection and survey formatting and Deb Halinski and
Michelle Cunningham for assistance with data entry. We
would also like to express our sincere appreciation to all
those who participated in this project.
Portions of this article were based on a poster entitled
“Family Communication Patterns About the Japanese
American Internment,” presented in August 2000 at the
108th Annual Convention of the American Psychological
Association, Washington, DC, and on Wendy J. Y. Cheng’s
master’s thesis.
For reprints and correspondence: Donna K. Nagata,
PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Michigan,
2229 East Hall, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109–1109. E-mail:
nagata@umich.edu
orth_2019.qxd 6/30/03 3:41 PM Page 266
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