Instructor’s Manual
for
CHILDREN OF THE
CAMPS
RACISM, CULTURE AND TRAUMA:
THE JAPANESE AMERICAN INTERNMENT
by
Satsuki Ina, PhD
children of the camps
© Copyright 2001, Satsuki Ina, Ph.D.
All rights reserved. Pages may be reproduced for classroom use
only. Any other use requires written permission from the author.
Satsuki Ina, PhD
Family Study Center
2716 X Street
Sacramento, California 95818
916.452.3008
[email protected]
Racism, Culture, and Trauma:
The Japanese American Internment
A Instructor’s Manual for the
Children of the Camps Documentary
Published and Distributed by:
The Children of the Camps Documentary and Educational Project
Funding for this project was made possible by:
The California Endowment
The California Endowment’s mission is to expand access
to affordable, quality health care for underserved
individuals and communities, and to promote fundamental
improvements in the health status of all Californians.
and
California State University, Sacramento
Pedagogy Enhancement Award
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to acknowledge the many family, friends and colleagues who
have provided emotional and material assistance and inspiration to
make the Children of the Camps Documentary and Educational Project
possible:
my mother and father, Shizuko and Itaru Ina
my brother and fellow internee, Kiyoshi Ina
my friendly critic, Mary Stroube
my gentle editor, Britt Alkire
my cultural teacher, Iko Miyazaki
my quality, qualitative analyst, Cheri Araki
my precious sons, Dylan and Adrian Tomine
and
my beloved husband and compassionate witness, Carey Covey.
I also want to thank Lee MunWah, who brought me to my edge, Audrey
Kasho-Wells who convinced me to take the leap, Stephen Holsapple who
took the project to unimagined heights, Emery Clay III who captured the
beauty, and my niece, Kim Ina, whose love and dedication was a constant
reminder of our responsibility to the future.
I am gratefully indebted to the pioneering work of Donna Nagata, Ph.D.
and Amy Iwasaki Mass, two Japanese American women scholars whose
work has laid the foundation for the research and study of the longterm psychological effects of the internment. I have drawn heavily from
their scholarly work for this Instructor’s Manual in order to explain the
experiences of the many children of the camps I have worked with in
workshops and clinical settings.
And finally, to the six individuals who courageously agreed to share their
stories so that others might learn, Bessie Masuda, Toru Saito, Marion
Kanemoto, Howard Ikemoto, Ruth Okimoto, Tatsuo Nagaoka, you are
the ones who gave life to this project; to you, I am deeply grateful.
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children of the camps
Table of Contents
Prologue
5
Introduction
6
I. The Social and Historical Context
Uprooting
and
7
Physical Conditions
10
Family Stressors
11
Psychological Stressors
12
Questions, Discussion
and
Learning Exercise
13
II. Racism as Traumatic Abuse
Culture
and
Indications
15
Trauma
of
15
Unresolved Trauma
17
The Abuse Dichotomy
19
Posttraumatic Stress
20
Cognitive Distortions
22
Altered Emotionally
26
Dissociation
32
Impaired Self-Reliance
28
Disturbed Relatedness
36
Avoidance
39
Questions, Discussion
and
Learning Exercises
41
III. Children of the Camps: Trauma and Healing
Children
of the
Camps Documentary
and
44
Educational Project
The A merican Public: National PBS Broadcast
45
Viewer’s Guide
47
The Japanese A merican Community: Community Education Forums
49
Mental Health Providers: Cultural Competence
57
and
IV. The Beginning
Discussion Questions
58
for
Clinicians
58
Earn Continuing Education Credits for Watching Videos
64
More Psychotherapy.net Videos
66
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Prologue: The Rice Ball Dilemma
I learned early on as a child growing up in San Francisco that rice was
not something just to be eaten to fill my stomach. At every family meal,
the children waited respectfully while the first portion of rice was placed
on the altar in front of the Buddha, and the second portion of rice was
served to my father. Rice was the main staple of the meal to be eaten with
small morsels of pickles or pieces of fish. We were admonished never to
leave one grain of rice in our bowls, and any left over rice always found
some secondary use. It could be dried and fried and mixed with honey
for dessert or it could be saved and used as paste for art projects when
needed.
My two brothers and I especially loved the rice balls our Mother would
make when we went on family fishing trips. As I watched her take the
steaming rice out of the pot with the bamboo spatula and gingerly shape
them into graceful balls for our picnic lunch, she would remind me that if
you made these rice balls too big, people would think you were a country
bumpkin; on the other hand, if you made them too small, people would
think you were stingy. As children we relished the discovery of whatever
little pickle surprise our mother would tuck inside the center of each rice
ball. How we looked forward to our rice ball lunches!
On occasion, my mother would put these rice balls in our school lunch
boxes; and the rice balls we loved so much suddenly became an enormous
burden for us. My brothers and I often spoke of the different ways we
dealt with the “rice ball dilemma” in our lives. My oldest brother would
throw his rice ball in the gutter before he got to school. He decided that
he would rather go hungry than be different. As a middle child and one
who could never give up a good meal, I would wait for the lunch bell to
ring and run as quickly as possible to hide in the alley behind the red
chimney; there I would choke down my rice ball before anybody saw me.
My youngest brother would slowly take out his rice ball in the middle
of the schoolyard and watch vigilantly for any negative responses. He
sometimes ended up punching someone who hadn’t even noticed what he
was eating.
Today, my brothers and I laugh and tease each other about our different
“rice ball solutions.” We also remember vividly the pain of our struggle
for acceptance.
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children of the camps
Introduction
The documentary, Children of the Camps, (Ina, S. & Holsapple,
S., 1999) follows the journey of six Japanese Americans who were
interned as children in American concentration camps during
World War II. The culmination of racism, wartime hysteria, and
the failure of political leadership (CWRIC, 1997), the internment
of 120,000 persons of Japanese descent provides a powerful lesson
for understanding the ramifications of the trauma of racism and its
lasting effects.
The purpose of this Instructor’s Manual is to:
• provide the social-historical context for the documentary,
• explore the psychological consequences of the internment
and mitigating cultural coping mechanisms,
• describe how the documentary was used as
a community intervention to address the
unresolved legacy of the internment trauma,
• and to offer classroom activities to increase
student awareness, empathy, and insight
regarding the effects of racism.
Although the target audience for the Children of the Camps
documentary is broad, this Instructor’s Manual is designed specifically
to be used as a tool for undergraduate, graduate, and professional
level training. Instructors teaching Ethnic Studies, Sociology,
History, Psychology, Counseling may find this guide appropriate for
understanding the Japanese American internment experience as a
case study of the interactive effects of racism, culture and trauma.
It may also be used as part of a comprehensive training program for
mental health providers seeking to understand the effect of racism and
culture on the mental health of diverse client populations.
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The Social and Historical Context
There was no possible way of separating the loyal from the disloyal, insisted
the Attorney General:
“…when we are dealing with the Caucasian race we have methods that
will test the loyalty of them…But when we deal with the Japanese we are
in an entirely different field and we cannot form any opinion that we
believe to be sound.”
Attorney General, Earl Warren, in M. Weglyn, Years of Infamy
In order to understand the context in which the imprisonment of
Japanese Americans was sanctioned by the United States government,
it is helpful to examine the level of social anxiety extant in America
prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese in 1941. The
report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment
of Civilians (CWRIC 1997) provides a rich historical account of the
Japanese American experience. A brief summary is presented here.
California in the early 1800s was at the center of American
discrimination against the Chinese and, later, against the Japanese.
A great many of the Chinese immigrants were recruited as railroad
laborers. When the transcontinental line was completed in 1869, the
Chinese were no longer needed. They were summarily discharged,
leaving almost 10,000 unemployed Chinese in a depressed labor
market. Anti-Chinese sentiment became widespread. The financial
recession of the 1870’s was blamed on “cheap Mongolian labor,” and
protests were directed against the Chinese. The Chinese threat, first
characterized as unfair labor competition, eventually included claims
of “racial impurity and injury to western civilization” (Daniels, 1962,
pp. 16-19).
By 1882, pressure mounted for the federal government to prohibit
Chinese immigration, and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was
passed. Following the Exclusion Act, the need for cheap agricultural
labor led to the recruitment and immigration of Japanese from Hawaii
and Japan. Japanese laborers were sought when the Alaska gold rush of
1897-99 left the Pacific Northwest in need of labor for linking Seattle
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children of the camps
and Tacoma by railroad with the eastern half of the United States.
By 1908, 127,000 Japanese had entered the United States. During the
time of the Great Depression and the war on the European continent,
an atmosphere of uncertainty and fear threatened the country. In the
meantime, Japanese immigrants had cultivated unwanted land in the
Central Valley of California and converted it into fertile and successful
truck farms. In addition, Japanese fishermen were developing
successful fishing enterprises along the southern coast of California.
Although forbidden by law to own land, these immigrants began to
gain an economic foothold nonetheless, and they came to be viewed
as a serious economic threat to mainstream agricultural and fishing
interests (McWilliams, 1945).
The hostile reception and treatment of Japanese immigrants on
the West Coast can be understood as the historical prelude to the
exclusion and evacuation of the people of Japanese descent during
World War II. The institutionalization of racism was reflected
in specific anti-Asian legislation such as the federal immigration
and naturalization laws, anti-miscegenation laws, the Alien Land
Law, and the segregation of public schools. Public perceptions and
misconceptions about the Japanese were shaped by myths and
stereotypes that characterized Asians as different and inferior people.
The fear of “the yellow peril” and negative interpretations of Japanese
cultural values further fueled the intolerance for differences. Remarks
by political leaders such as Mayor James Phelan of San Francisco
expressed the prevailing feelings of the early 1900’s:
The Japanese are starting the same tide of immigration which we
thought we had checked twenty years ago…. The Chinese and
Japanese are not bona fide citizens. They are not the stuff of which
American citizens can be made…. Personally we have nothing
against Japanese, but as they will not assimilate with us and their
social life is so different from ours, let them keep at a respectful
distance (Daniels, 1993, p. 9).
The Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians
(CWRIC, 1997) concluded, “Resentment of effective economic
competition also inflamed public feeling and, combined with
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differences of language and culture, left the small minority of Japanese
Americans on the West Coast comparatively isolated - a ready
target at a time of fear and anxiety” (p.28). As the level of anxiety
pervaded the United States, and a need to bind the untenable anxiety
increased, America was poised to target the people of Japanese descent
as scapegoats. The unjust and inhumane treatment of Japanese
Americans would continue to be justified by their purported racial
inferiority.
Pearl Harbor rekindled the fears and prejudices and the long years
of anti-Asian sentiment. Anger against the Japanese as they swept
through the Philippines and down the Malay Peninsula to Singapore,
and reports of American battlefield deaths together lit sparks in one
community after another up and down the West Coast, where fear
of invasion was very real (CWRIC, 1997). However, a five-year study
conducted by United States Naval Intelligence had confirmed that
in spite of the increasingly strained Japan-US relations, Japanese
Americans were loyal citizens and did not, in fact, pose a threat to
national security. In the face of this objective evaluation of the risk to
national security, the decision to evacuate, segregate, and imprison
Japanese Americans on the West Coast was, instead, fueled by racism
and fear.
As the perceived threat to American society increased, innuendoes
and accusations were rampant. Fanned by the flames of politically
biased journalism, Japanese Americans became indistinguishable in
the eyes of the American public from the “Jap” invaders. Stereotypes
were used to explain how the sneaky, unconscionable, monkeylike people would betray America for the Japanese Emperor. By
arousing fears that Japanese Americans were potential saboteurs,
public attention was shifted away from the high-ranking military
personnel responsible for protecting America from foreign attack. The
inflammatory statements by those in power who publicly decried, “A
Jap is a Jap” (CWRIC, 1997, p. 66) served to redirect the escalating
anxiety.
On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, signed
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children of the camps
Executive Order 9066. This action ultimately led to the incarceration
of 120,000 innocent people in spite of the fact that the United
States government had in its possession proof that not one Japanese
American, citizen or not, had engaged in espionage, nor had one
committed any act of sabotage (Weglyn, 1976).
Nagata and Takeshita (1998) describe in detail the stressors faced
by the internees. These research findings are summarized here and
illustrated by the experiences of participants in the Children of the
Camps workshops.
Uprooting and physical conditions
Within hours of the attack on Pearl Harbor, West Coast Japanese
Americans were given a week’s notice of their removal to
unknown destinations, taking with them only what they could
carry. Thousands of families were initially placed in temporary
encampments such as fairgrounds and racetracks. Most were moved
at least one more time. Former internees participating in the Children
of the Camps workshop recounted the disruption and uncertainty
caused by the forced separation and uprooting from their familiar
surroundings. In the documentary, Marion describes the painful
childhood memory of being separated from her family and taken to
Japan, a foreign country, as part of the prisoner exchange program
where Caucasian Americans held captive overseas were exchanged for
Japanese from America. Others have described the pain of having to
leave behind friends, beloved pets, and familiar neighborhoods for
an unknown destination. One man told the story of being a child in
the hospital for a tonsillectomy at the time his parents received their
evacuation notice. He joined his parents in camp directly from the
hospital and never saw his home again.
The physical stressors associated with confinement in deserts and
swamplands during freezing winter and in the blazing desert heat
and sand storms of summer impacted the health and well being of
the internees. Whole families lived in cramped, single room living
quarters with eight thousand or more internees in a camp. Military
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style communal toilets and laundry facilities, mess hall dining and
inadequate medical care typified each site along with constant visual
reminders of imprisonment such as guard towers, soldiers with guns,
and barbed wire (Nagata & Takeshita 1998). In describing some of
the physical hardships endured, participants in one of the Children
of the Camps workshops were moved by the every day traumas of one
woman whose husband was imprisoned elsewhere, as she described
her struggle to care for her two small children in camp. She talked
about having to carry them both to the mess hall to stand in line
for meals three times a day. She said, “You have to realize, I didn’t
have a stroller in camp and because there was no privacy, I had to do
anything I could to keep the children from crying or making noise.”
family stressors
Families suffered multiple hardships. Within hours of the Pearl
Harbor bombing, 1300 Issei (Japan-born, first generation) men,
community and church leaders were arrested and imprisoned by
the FBI. Disintegration of the family began as Issei fathers lost their
status as head of household and primary breadwinner. Once interned,
mess hall dining led to the Nisei (American-born, second generation)
youth spending more time with peers than with families. Many of
the families were separated and prison life, defined by military living
conditions in barracks and meals at mess halls, led to the breakdown
of the traditional family structure. The “loyalty” questionnaire, that
required internees who were 17 and older, to foreswear loyalty to the
Japanese Emperor and to be willing to bear arms to defend America,
divided families and generations. Some internees answered “no-no,”
disillusioned by a country that had turned its back on them while
others answered with “yes-yes” in order to serve in the military to
prove their loyalty (Nagata, 1998).
Bessie’s painful recounting of her father’s arrest represents the
experience of many families who suffered from the absence of the
father and separation from extended families. Toru’s relationship
with his abusive stepfather illustrates the intensity of the frustration,
hopelessness and despair that can be turned against even more
11
children of the camps
vulnerable members of the family. The impact on the family did not
end with the release from prison. Tatsuo described the overwhelming
fervor with which his father returned to his life, determined to create
security and acceptance for his family in the face of the hostility and
racism that was ever present.
psychological stressors
Traumatic events are extraordinary because they overwhelm the
ordinary human adaptations to life’s problems. Fear and anxiety
pervaded the camps. There were no guidelines for the treatment of
prisoners of war interned by their own country. Many workshop
participants described the daily uncertainty about when they might
be reunited with family members, what would happen when the war
ended and how long they would be imprisoned. Rumors, accusations
of disloyalty to the community and the stressors of living in a
confined space over an extended period of time with no known end in
sight were the order of the day.
The most insidious stress resulted from the humiliation and
psychological assaults that internees suffered. Tagged with numbers
like prison inmates, many experienced feelings of shame or self-blame.
Not unlike victims of rape, they felt somehow responsible for their
fate. The indignities of the daily lack of privacy in all aspects of their
lives took its toll. However, the racism underlying the suspicions
of disloyalty caused the broadest psychological assault. Stripped of
their civil liberties and denigrated because of their ethnicity, the fact
that race was a primary factor behind the internment, magnified the
feelings of helplessness of the Japanese Americans (Nagata, 1993). The
pain of the injustice, impersonally based on the color of one’s skin,
is reflected in the documentary when Howard describes his lifetime
quest, “I was abandoned and I needed to know why. Why I was being
thrown away!” For many former internees, it was difficult to find
meaning in their suffering.
Jensen (1997) reports that the suicide rate for internees after camp was
double that of the national population with evidence suggesting this
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may have been as much as a four fold increase over pre-incarceration
rates. She concludes that psychological anguish along with increased
cardiovascular disease were some of the long-term consequences of
the internment.
Acts of racism are generally impersonal, based not on who the victim
is or what the victim does, but on the very fact of his/her existence
as a person of color. The psychological sequelae of being accused,
demeaned, and then stripped of freedom because of one’s race,
however, is a particularly difficult trauma to bear. Inherent in this
dehumanization process is the threat of death or serious injury, and its
ensuing fear and helplessness. With the suspension of their protection
under the Constitution of the United States, and in the absence of
any organized advocacy on their behalf, the Japanese Americans
were defenseless and without recourse. The author recounts in the
documentary, her mother’s diary entry, “I wonder if today is the day
they’re going to line us up and shoot us.”
Questions for Self-Reflection
1. What was the social-historical context in which you grew up?
2. With what social group/community did you
identify as a teen and as a young adult?
3. To what social group/community did you attribute
negative characteristics as a teen and as a young adult?
4. What do you think might have been sources
of anxiety within your sub-group?
5. What actions did you or people with whom you
identified take to distinguish your group from
the group with negative characteristics?
Questions for Classroom Discussion
1. How are today’s so-called “hate crimes” similar to
or different from institutionalized racism?
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children of the camps
2. How would you explain the rise in organized hate groups today?
3. What stereotypes are attributed to recent immigrants
to America such as Russians, Middle Easterners,
Filipinos, Mexicans, Southeast Asians?
4. What can today’s counselors, educators, and social
workers do to address the problem of racism?
Learning Exercise: Bridging Differences
The purpose of this exercise is to expand the student’s capacity for
empathy by gaining a deeper, more personal experience of another
person’s sub-cultural context.
Have students select a cultural or ethnic group with which they have
little familiarity and attend a cultural, social or religious activity
of that group. Have students discuss in class the reasons for their
selections. They are then to find one member of that sub-group,
and interview the individual about his/her family history and their
immigration experience. Prior to the interview, working in small
groups, students should develop at least 10 questions to guide their
interview. Students should be encouraged to include questions
regarding the subject’s experience with racism/discrimination.
Debriefing:
Describe your experience of the activity in which you participated.
What, if anything, happened to your stereotypes about the group?
How did members of this group respond to you?
What were your feelings before, during, and after the activity?
Describe your interview experience.
What did you learn from your interview experience that changed
or didn’t change your view of the interviewee’s group?
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Racism As Traumatic Abuse
Insidious trauma is characterized by repetitive and cumulative
experiences. It is perpetrated by persons who have power over one’s
access to resources and destiny, and directed toward persons who have a
lower status on some important social variable.
Maria Root, Reconstructing the Impact of Trauma on Personality
The previous section of this Instructor’s Manual described the
social-historical context in which the internment occurred and the
physical, familial, and psychological stressors faced by the internees.
Information for this section of the Instructor’s Manual is drawn
from clinical observations, personal interviews, and empirical data
to describe some of the long-term psychological consequences of
the internment on former internees. This information can provide a
useful perspective for understanding the interplay of culture, racism,
and trauma regarding the experiences of other oppressed groups.
Reference will be made to two different settings in which information
was gathered from former internees. The Children of the Camps
Workshops were three day intensive group sessions in which up to
ten former internees participated. It is one of these workshops that
is seen in the Children of the Camps documentary. The Children of
the Camps Community Forums were educational events offered in
various Japanese American communities and were open to the public.
At these forums the Children of the Camps documentary was shown
and group discussions were facilitated. These forums ranged in size
from 10 to 250 people in the audience, most of whom were Japanese
Americans.
Culture and Trauma
Several contributors to the hallmark text, Ethnocultural Aspects
of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, (Marsella, Friedman, Gerrity &
Scurfield, 1996) have identified cultural variations in the expressive
and phenomenological dimensions of the experience of trauma. In
particular, Jenkins and Karno (1992) explain,
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children of the camps
Culture is thought to provide an orientation of a people’s way
of feeling, thinking, and being in the world, and is the context
for experience, interpretation, and action. Culture may place
differential emphasis on particular symptoms, assign unique
attributions to the intensity of experience as well as expression, and
shape the general tone of emotional life to which a person should
aspire. In addition, what coping and defense mechanisms are used
and how, what is perceived, accentuated, or glossed over, how
the information pertaining to the stressful event and its effect is
processed are, in part, influenced by cultural factors (p. 165).
Thus, culture influences the perception of the traumatic event itself and
also influences the various steps attempted to counteract the effects of the
associated stress.
For the Japanese Americans, Japanese cultural values and life as an
ethnic minority in America led to the embracing of a unique coping style
in response to the internment trauma. Nagata and Takeshita’s (1998)
study of resilience factors influencing the Japanese American internees’
coping responses suggests that their prior experience with racism and
specific cultural values provided valuable strategies for coping with the
internment. The authors found that as a disempowered ethnic minority
group who experienced consistent and significant stressors related
to discrimination from before the war, Japanese Americans were not
unfamiliar with hardships, social hostility, and second-class citizenship.
They conclude that previous exposure to past discrimination helped some
internees to cope.
Nagata and Takeshita (1998) also found in interviews with former
internees, and consistent with comments made by Children of the Camps
workshop participants, that the two values most directly linked to positive
coping was gaman, the ability to endure or persevere under adverse
conditions, and shikata ga nai, which is an attitude of the acceptance of
events as they are. Together, gaman and shikata ga nai provided a cultural
framework for internees to cope with the immediate physical hardships
of being uprooted and imprisoned. The authors point out, “Even though
many Nisei (second generation Japanese Americans) felt frustration
and a sense of injustice at their treatment by the government internally,
the cultural emphasis on acceptance and stoicism guided their outward
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behavior and immediate coping response” (p. 596).
The Japanese focus on interdependence stresses group harmony (Fugita &
O’Brien, 1991), a strong avoidance of public confrontation (Kawashima,
1963; Kiefer, 1974), and an aversion of anger (Markus & Kitayama, 1991).
Conformity, within the Japanese culture is not viewed as a negative
behavior, rather as Markus and Kitayama (1991) point out, “it can signify
a willingness to be responsive to others and to adjust one’s own demands”
(p. 247). Values of resourcefulness, strong family ties and education were
demonstrated in the internees’ ability to normalize life in the camps to
the extent possible, developing strong friendships and organizing dances,
sports, scouting and religious events as well as providing schooling.
While families suffered from the stresses of separation, guided by family
commitment and filial piety, most managed to maintain strong ties
(Modell, 1973).
Indications of Unresolved Trauma
There are, however, indications that the psychological assaults of
the underlying racism and consequent injustice have remained
unresolved. The withdrawal of society’s confidence and public
accusations of misconduct challenged the Japanese American’s most
honored values of loyalty and belonging. While Japanese culture
promotes collectivity, being banished from the group is considered
a deeply humiliating consequence of an unspeakable act, to be
accused of disloyalty, an unspeakable crime. Where “family” is the
center for ancestral and intergenerational identity, to be torn apart
and separated was a terrible tragedy. With the suspension of their
constitutional rights and determination of their guilt based on race,
Japanese Americans were subjected to an insidious form of trauma.
There was not an identifiable perpetrator, but rather an amorphous,
ominous force working to deprive them of their rights. The extent to
which they would be punished was uncertain and the duration of their
prison sentence was unknown. Internees were confined under harsh
physical conditions, some living behind barbed wires for up to six
years (Fukuda, 1990), separated from other family members and never
certain of the future .
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children of the camps
Former internees have maintained considerable silence about the
personal consequences they suffered (Weglyn, 1976; Hallenberg,
1988; Nagata, 1993). Japanese cultural constraints against the
public expression of personal suffering and anger may account
for this silence, as well as the fear that former internees might
compromise their fragile acceptance in society if they spoke against
the government. In many ways, the years of silence of the Japanese
Americans mirrored the silence of the larger social, educational, and
political context. The internment trauma was minimized, discounted
and distorted to the extent that some of the internees believed that it
was “for their own good.”
When an event is traumatic, normal coping responses become
overwhelmed and defensive strategies are devised to minimize the stress.
However, the continuation of adaptive responses when the threat is no
longer imminent is an indication of post-traumatic effect. Japanese
American cultural prescriptives were socially acceptable to the larger
society while synchronous with psychological repression. Avoidance of
conflict and confrontation, respect for, and acquiescence to authority,
and silent endurance of suffering coincided with the government’s
minimizing of the impact of the internment and the absence of political
advocacy. Many former internees, like other victims of oppressive
trauma, responded with defensive strategies of denial, distortion,
internalization and repression for many years.
In both the Children of the Camps Workshops and the Community
Education Forums, this author observed that many internees were adept
at adjusting to the physical hardships of the internment, but cultural
constraints of forbearance, fatalism, and emotional restraint may have,
at the same time, hidden the true nature of the psychological trauma for
some. Many workshop and forum participants expressed surprise at the
intensity of emotions that was evoked by the film and the discussion.
For many participants, previously unexpressed and unresolved grief was
released. Some of the lasting effects were reflected in the internee’s stories
regarding ruptured family relationships and issues of self-esteem.
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The Abuse Dichotomy
When abuse occurs at the hands of someone who is needed and depended
upon, a psychological double bind is created. The victim’s anger about the
mistreatment must be suppressed in order to maintain the relationship,
however painful, with the perpetrator. Briere (1992) describes the
classic abuse dichotomy as an internal conflict that compels the victim
to manage the dissonance between the two conflicting beliefs that the
perpetrator is needed and the perpetrator intends harm. Maltreatment by
a parental figure, whom one is dependent on and fearful of, results in the
child’s attempts to make sense of the maltreatment by using self-blame,
denial or minimization. Although distortions such as minimizing and
denying the harm may seem illogical and reflect passivity, self-blame and
low self-esteem, such strategies are often a heroic effort on the part of the
victim to maintain his/her attachment to the depended upon perpetrator.
Examining the parallel relationship of an oppressed minority group
and a dominant power structure with that of a powerless child and an
abusive parent, Briere’s definition of psychological abuse can shed light
on the consequences for victims of racism. He describes abuse in terms
of various types of parent or caretaker behaviors to include, rejecting,
degrading, terrorizing, isolating, corrupting, exploiting, denying essential
stimulation and unreliable and inconsistent parenting.
The United State government justified the violation of the rights of
an entire community of people based on race. This “racism” trauma
then, similar to victims of abuse, affects the person’s sense of self and
results in specific conflict and confusion. Research exploring the issue
of racism as traumatic stress indicates that victims of racism must deal
with issues of internalized negative self image, confused self identity
and other psychological symptoms associated with victimization
(Allen, 1986; Parson, 1990; Penk and Allen, 1991). Typical of victims of
abuse, Japanese American internees found themselves faced with the
psychological conflict of being dependent upon the very source of their
abuse. In order to manage this abuse dichotomy, defensive responses
are called into action. Briere (1992) identifies seven major characteristics
of the long-term impact of abuse trauma that can be applied here to
better understand the trauma experienced by former internees. These
include, posttraumatic stress, cognitive distortions, altered emotionality,
dissociation, impaired self-reference, disturbed relatedness and avoidance
(pp. 9-10).
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Posttraumatic Stress
Psychological defense mechanisms serve the immediate purpose of
keeping the individual from being overwhelmed and psychologically
disorganized, particularly when neither resistance nor escape is possible.
When trauma is severe and sustained, victims will maintain their
defenses even when the immediate source of the threat is no longer
imminent. Consequently, repressing, denying, and rationalizing the
significance of the trauma can prevent the resolution of the traumatic
experience. More specifically,
Traumatic events produce profound and lasting changes in
physiological arousal, emotion, cognition, and memory. Moreover,
traumatic events may sever these normally integrated functions
from one another. The traumatized person may experience intense
emotion but without clear memory of the event, or may remember
everything in detail but without emotion. Traumatic symptoms
have a tendency to become disconnected from their source and to
take on a life of their own (Herman, 1997, p. 34).
Judith Herman (1997) further comments on the specific experiences of
people who were held in captivity, “…although the prisoner may appear
as though he has returned to ordinary time, the discontinuity between
present and past frequently persists even after the prisoner is released”
(p. 89). Studies of Nazi concentration camp survivors (Jaffe, 1968) and
other prisoners of war (Krystal, 1978) consistently remark on their refusal
to speak of the past. Many Japanese American internees, not unlike other
former captives, have consciously suppressed or avoided talking about of
their captivity.
One elderly Japanese American man’s reaction illustrates how, for some,
the long-term trauma of the internment had still not been integrated
into the person’s ongoing life story and sense of self. At a Children of the
Camps Community Forum, the man complained that he was there just to
“tag along” with his wife, but felt that it was unnecessary to “keep digging
up the past.” He was adamant that he “survived camp and that was that.”
After the viewing, the same man was seen leaving the building carrying
several copies of the video that he had apparently purchased. He was
gently stopped and asked what he thought about the documentary. Visibly
shaken, he said, “You know, these stories are a lot like my own, nothing
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exceptional, just like everyone else who was in camp. I realize that for
some reason I can’t talk to my children about it, so instead, I’m going to
send each of them a copy of the video.”
Some former internees described sudden memories and associations with
the camp experience as mildly upsetting, while others reported more
severe reactions. A 78-year-old participant had taken his granddaughter
to the zoo. Approaching the sheep and goat barns, he was overtaken by
a wave of nausea and remembered the repugnant smell of the mutton
that he had to eat while in camp. Another former internee who had lived
as a child with her six young brothers and sisters in crowded barracks
with limited privacy from the other families talked about her life long
struggle with anxiety. She was unable to enter crowded elevators or to be
comfortable in any confined space. She remembered being told, “If you
cry or fight, everyone in camp will know what bad kids you are.”
Nagata and Takeshita (1998) found that the age of the individual at the
time of internment influenced the varying effects and retrospective
assessment of the experience. This was also confirmed in the Children
of the Camps clinical interviews and workshop/forum self reports. In
examining the long-term physical and psychological health consequences
for the internees, Gwen Jensen (1997) concludes, “… traumatic stress
was buffered by culturally constructed coping mechanisms that were less
inculcated in the youngest prisoners. They reported more post-traumatic
stress symptoms of unexpected and disturbing flashback experiences than
those who were older at the time of incarceration” (p.v).
Early theorist, such as Freud and Janet in the early 1900s, observed that
some trauma victims have a need to re-enact the experience in a symbolic
way as a means of integrating and overcoming the feelings of helplessness
associated with the event. Briere, (1992) also describes this phenomenon;
“There is something uncanny about reenactments. Even when they are
consciously chosen, they have a feeling of involuntariness. Even when
they are not dangerous, they have a driven, tenacious quality” (p. 41). In
the Children of the Camps documentary, Ruth’s disturbing, yet poignant
images of American flags juxtaposed onto little girls with broken bloody
dolls portray her own healing process. Her decision to represent her
childhood experience of camp led her to create many images with the
repeated theme of the betrayal of her innocence. Ruth recounted a period
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when, at the behest of her adult children, she attempted to paint subjects
that were not related to the internment. She agreed to do just that, but in
spite of her conscious decision and desire to do so, she would find herself,
once again, painting the characteristic red, white, and blue images. Ruth’s
replication of her experience can be understood as both a conscious and
unconscious effort to gain mastery over an overpowering past trauma.
Cognitive Distortions
Navarre (1987) points out that trauma is not limited to the assault upon
the physical body but upon the individual’s cognitive perception of
the self as valuable and competent, and on the individual’s cognitive
perception that the world is a beneficent rather than innately hostile place.
When the American government took the stance that all people of
Japanese ancestry on the west coast presented a risk to national security,
a political and psychological double bind was imposed on the Japanese
Americans that race determined loyalty. Herman (1997) uses the term,
“doublethink” to describe ways in which people in captivity cope with
an unbearable reality. Doublethink means the power of holding two
contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both
of them (p. 87). This cognitive process results when the perpetrator
uses power and fear to obscure the true nature of the abuse. In order
to exaggerate the threat presented by the Japanese Americans and to
minimize any negative perception of the imprisonment, the government
officials used confounding euphemisms such as “evacuation” and
“relocation” of “non-aliens” to “pioneer” communities. These were the
terms used to describe what was in fact, mass incarceration of American
citizens in concentration camps.
The following statements made in various Children of the Camps
Workshops and Forums illustrate the contradictions.
I am a loyal American citizen, but by virtue of my race I am the enemy.
I’m told that I’m being put in a prison for the good of the country and
for my own protection, so why were the rifles aimed inside the camp?
I didn’t commit any crime, but I am treated as if I am guilty.
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I pledged my allegiance to the American flag in my school room behind
barbed wire.
I thought it couldn’t have been bayonets. We were just little kids.
While I was in camp, my son gave his life in the war for democracy.
I was abandoned by my own country, and I wanted to know why.
Barbed wire was all around us, so why was this called “internment,”
“evacuation,” “relocation,” when it really was imprisonment and
punishment?
It’s like admitting that you did something wrong when you know damn
well you didn’t.
I was accused of being a spy for Japan, why would I do a thing like that?
I’m an American…I’ve never even been to Japan.
I was asked to declare my loyalty to a country that put me and my
ailing parents in camp for something we didn’t do.
The psychic dissonance created by the injustice and disruption
required internees to employ psychological defense mechanisms
similar to those elicited in victims of traumatic abuse. These defensive
responses require the individual to split off parts of their awareness
and aspects of the experience to act “as if” there is a singular truth
rather than a contradictory duality. Although providing temporary
relief from the dissonance, it can also lead to suppression or denial of
the emotional response to the trauma.
Amy Iwasaki Mass (1986) a social worker and former internee, refers
to the experiences of those second generation Japanese Americans
who were teens or young adults in camp, “As traumatic experiences
threaten the basic assumptions about personal invulnerability and
self worth, the internment harshly challenged the assumptive world
of the Nisei who believed their citizenship would protect them from
an internment” (p. 160). The Nisei developed a variety of cognitiveemotional strategies to reduce the dissonance. Analogous to the
reaction observed by mental health professionals in children abused
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by their parents, some Nisei responded by pledging their complete
loyalty to the United States, hoping that a display of cooperativeness
would demonstrate their patriotism. Abused children may diligently
comply with their parents’ every request, hopeful that their good
behavior will lead their parent to treat them well. Other Nisei were
seen as displacing their hostility toward the government onto fellow
Japanese Americans. This was reflected in the intense intra-group
conflicts and accusations against fellow internees who were suspected
of collaborating with the government.
The government demanded loyalty and espoused values of liberty and
equality. Adults who were children at the time of internment describe
the pain and confusion of such a contradiction. In the documentary,
Marion, an American citizen by birth describes the painful identity
confusion she suffered when she arrived in Japan, “I didn’t ever feel
that I was Japanese, because the classmates that I had addressed me as
Amerikajin. Meaning that I was a foreigner. They never accepted me,
and the Japanese culture never accepted my style or my beliefs.” Toru’s
vivid memory of seeking solace from his teacher when he complains
to her about the taunting from other children further illustrates the
cognitive dissonance experienced, “I went crying to my teacher and
told her that those kids were calling me a Jap. And she looked at me
and said, ‘Well, you are aren’t you?’”
Cognitive emotional strategies develop as a defensive response in order
to manage untenable, double bind messages. The resulting cognitive
distortions leads to a negation of a threatening event that has occurred
as well as negation that one even has negative feelings about the event
(Janoff-Bulman and Frieze 1983). Such denial can be conscious or
unconscious. Horowitz (l986), for example, states that cycles of
denial and the intrusion of memories of negative events are common
in response to traumatic stress. Denial in the former internees took
various forms. Some individuals minimized the significance of their
losses or the trauma they had experienced, while others acknowledged
the significance of the injustice but stated they did not retain lingering
emotional responses to it.
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At one of the community screenings of Children of the Camps, a man
in his early eighties stood up and adamantly insisted, “ Camp was not
a bad experience. In fact, I had fun in camp. I learned martial arts, got
to be with my friends, and I didn’t have to labor in the field.” All the
while he was talking, he seemed unaware of the tears streaming down
his face.
At a similar event, a woman in her seventies declared that she had
never experienced discrimination, even after her release from camp
as a young adult. She went on to say that she began her job search by
calling potential employers, letting them know from the beginning
that she was Japanese American “ in the event they had a problem with
that.” She said that several people did in fact say that they don’t hire
Japanese Americans, “so I just kept calling until I found employers
who were willing to interview me.” The woman’s matter of fact
presentation somehow belied the underlying emotions. Whether it
was the pain of rejection, or the anger about the injustice, it was all
somehow submerged and intellectualized.
Mass (1999), a Japanese American social worker eloquently described
the abuse dichotomy and the resulting consequences experienced by
many Japanese Americans.
I tried to understand why so many Americans, Japanese and
others, were able to rationalize, justify, and deny the injustice and
destructiveness of the whole event. I came to realize that we lulled
ourselves into believing the propaganda of the 1940’s so that we
could maintain our idealized image of a benevolent, protective Uncle
Sam. We were told we were being put away for our own safety. We
were told this was a patriotic sacrifice necessary for national security.
The pain, the trauma, and the stress of the incarceration experience
was so overwhelming, we used the psychological defense mechanism
of repression, denial, and rationalization to keep us from facing the
truth.
The truth was that the government we trusted, the President we
idealized, the country we loved, the nation to which we pledged our
loyalty, had betrayed us, had turned against us. Our natural human
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feelings of rage, fear, and helplessness were turned inward and
buried. Experiencing and recognizing betrayal by a trusted source
leads to a deep depression, a sense of shame, a sense that there must
be something bad about me. Our greatest loss was the loss of our
sense of honor and worth.
Altered Emotionality
Traumatic events are by their very nature, occurrences outside of the
range of normal daily life. Because trauma is experienced as a threat to
one’s well being, emotional responses are often intense and confusing
and may last for sustained periods of time. When abuse trauma is
unacknowledged, psychological healing is inhibited and emotional
states of depression and anxiety may continue over time.
Depression
In discussing the psychological losses endured by people held in
captivity, Herman (1997) describes the resulting tenacious state
of depression. She reports that protracted depression is the most
common finding in virtually all clinical studies of chronically
traumatized people.
The chronic hyper-arousal and intrusive symptoms of posttraumatic
stress disorder fuse with the vegetative symptoms of depression. The
dissociative symptoms of the disorder merge with the concentration
difficulties of depression. The paralysis of initiative of chronic
trauma combine with the apathy and helplessness of depression. The
disruption in attachment of chronic trauma reinforces the isolation
of depression. The debased self-image of chronic trauma fuels the
guilty ruminations of depression. And the loss of faith suffered in
chronic trauma merges with the hopelessness of depression (p.94).
Due to the underutilization of formal mental health resources
by Japanese Americans, there is very limited clinical assessment
data regarding the mental health of former internees; however,
retrospective self-report and interview studies provide some
indication of the emotional effects of the internment experience.
Kiyoko Hallenberg’s (1988) doctoral study examined the internment
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experience of Japanese American elderly and their emotional
adjustment. With the use of retrospective interviews and instruments
to measure presence of depression and anxiety symptoms, she found
that participants who reported not talking about the internment had
higher depression scores than those who talked. Given the strong
propensity for silence by former internees, and the known effects
of suppressing emotions associated with trauma, these results may
indicate the possible presence of depression in many other former
internees. Certainly, underlying sadness, fear of risk taking, and lack
of assertiveness, and self esteem issues were prominent themes for
many who participated in the Children of the Camps intensive group
process.
Jenson’s (1997) earlier cited report of the suicide rate during
internment as twice that of the general population and likely four
times that of pre-internment rates indicate that depression was
significant. Manifestations of depression and anxiety were also found
in clinical cases seen by the author where instances of child abuse,
spousal abuse, sexual abuse, gambling and alcoholism reportedly
occurred during confinement. Workshop participants described
unremitting anxiety of their unknown future and the fate of husbands
and sons fighting overseas, as well as the indignity of being suspected
of disloyalty.
Traumatic situations often involve some degree of enduring loss. For
internees, feelings of despair and futility resulted from the severe
economic distress of losing jobs, farms and homes after years of hard
work. Workshop participants often described the intangible losses of
childhood. Ruth mourns the loss of her childhood and “the freedom
to cross the streets without barbed wire.” Toru holds in his hand
marbles that he buried in camp and retrieved fifty years later - a
symbol of his lost childhood. Several internees who were children
at the time of incarceration, shared painful stories of leaving their
best friends and beloved family pets behind. Many of these stories
represent losses that were never fully acknowledged and grieved.
Participants in the Children of the Camps Workshop often reported
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problems with asserting themselves at work, resulting in job and
relationship dissatisfaction. One Sansei participant reported,
“I have difficulty handling paper work, official forms, bookkeeping,
business information, and documents. I am easily distracted from
priority work. I procrastinate. I am tentative and unclear as to my
life’s primary work.”
Although initially unable to label his feelings and understand the
roots for his chronic state of depression, with the support of the group,
this man was eventually able to recognize the depth of his feelings.
His experience as a child internee, the anxiety that his parents felt
during the internment, and the subsequent discrimination and
displacement led him to choose an acceptable career to ensure his
security and status in society (Ina, 1997, p.194).
The intense anger of the imprisoned person adds to the depressive
burden. Similar to victims of other forms of abuse trauma, the pain
of unexpressed rage against all those who remained indifferent or
failed to help was also evident in stories shared by participants in the
workshops. In the documentary, Toru describes the multiple traumas
of living in confinement with a stepfather who physically abused him
and a mother who did not protect him. Toru and Howard struggle
to understand each other’s different responses to the injustice and the
pain of abandonment that surfaced in the dialogue. Some form of
this very confrontation between the two men occurred repeatedly in
many of the workshop intensives and may well reflect the suppressed,
collective anger that has persisted over the years, misdirected toward
one another, rather than directed toward the true perpetrator.
anxiety
Because unjust imprisonment is by its nature, threatening and
disruptive, it is likely that victims of such maltreatment are prone
to feelings of fearfulness and anxiety, even well after the trauma has
transpired. One internee shared the story of his family’s frantic efforts
to resettle after the internment. His teachers advised the child’s
mother to change his first name from Tadashi to Tad to demonstrate
his identity as an American. When he decided to reclaim his Japanese
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name forty years later, as an adult, his Nisei-Kibei (second generation
Japanese Americans who were educated in Japan) mother vehemently
opposed his decision, saying that it was too dangerous to do so.
Very few clinical case studies regarding Japanese Americans who were
interned have been available in the literature; however, one detailed
case study is cited in Ethnocultural Aspects of Posttraumatic Stress
Disorder (Marsella, et al, 1996). This case study illustrates the anxiety
that results from trauma.
Fifty years after his release from camp, “Pat,” who was 15 at the
time of his release, was faced with the destruction of his home and
personal possessions during a major flood. This event triggered
common signs of posttraumatic stress. As the federal application
process to repair his home became increasingly complicated by
bureaucratic procedures, Pat experienced overwhelming anxiety.
The cognitions associated with his anxiety included suicidal
ideation, helplessness, and the existential angst of questioning
who he was and where he belonged. The governmental procedures
precipitated a reactivation of the intense psychological sequelae
of the internment: feelings of mistrust, shame, alienation, and a
tenuous sense of identity. (Gusman, Steward, Young, Riney, Abueg,
Blake, 1996, p. 440).
In Emmy Werner’s (2000) book, Through the Eyes of Innocents:
Children Witness World War II, graphically telling accounts are
described detailing how the war experience shaped the lives of
young children, including Japanese American children facing
internment. The stories provide repeated examples of the child’s
multiple traumas when parents are rendered helpless by trauma and
the unbearable sense of vulnerability when the protective role of the
parent is lost either through separation or incapacitation. Anxiety
was pervasive in camp and children can sense their parent’s distress.
In the video Toru describes how he was affected by his mother’s
trauma, “She went through hell, and I remember that hell through
my Mother’s eyes. You know when you see your mother suffer…
you suffer.” In the workshops and forums, participants recounted
the anxiety experienced when fathers were indefinitely separated
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from their families, leaving the mother and children imprisoned in
separate camps. Bessie describes the shock of watching her father
being disempowered as he is removed from his home taking only
a toothbrush and a comb. Having retrieved her letter from the
government over fifty years later, she reads the letter she wrote as
a child, appealing to the President of the United States in an effort
to reunite her family. “…I am writing this letter for the sake of my
mother. She always worries a lot, and I don’t want her to worry
because she has been ill so many times. I am asking you again to
please release my father. He hasn’t done any harm to this country.”
The person’s subjective experiences of any form of maltreatment,
and, particularly, racially motivated maltreatment, may be associated
with perceptions of danger and fears of retribution. Several workshop
participants described the need for a constant state of vigilance and
the fear of unpredictable racial bias or hatred. Participants recognized
that because they must rely on their government and their fellow
citizens for their well being, feelings of insecurity and uncertainty
about what they are entitled to are ever present. The dehumanizing
impact of hostility based on racism threatens the victim’s very
existence. Fear of continued victimization requires vigilance and
constant need for security. One internee reported that whenever
Japan-America relations show any sign of conflict, he becomes anxious
and fearful. He reported that he is vigilant about Japan’s economic
situation and any other world event that might cause him to be viewed
as the enemy. He was able to name specific events such as the rise of
the Japanese automobile industry, Japanese whaling conflicts, and
even the recent Firestone tire recall as potential “red flags” for him.
Many workshop participants discussed their rising concerns whenever
issues of national security are targeted at individuals of color such as
Iranians, Arabs, and most recently, in the case of the Chinese scientist,
Wen Ho Lee.
Nagata, Trierweiler, & Talbot (1999) analyzed a national survey
that investigated the long-term effects of World War II internment
on family communication, ethnic preference, and confidence in
personal rights. The authors conclude that the sustained level of
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trauma and the intergenerational transmission of emotional anxiety
and depression is the legacy for subsequent generations Japanese
Americans. They found that compared to non-interned Sansei
(American-born, third generation), interned Sansei exhibited greater
in-group ethnic preference, less confidence in their civil rights, and
a greater level of family silence about camps. Many interviewees
identified lasting psychological effects in their fathers and mothers,
reflected in either an enduring sense of insecurity or a loss of selfesteem. They further found that this impact was transmitted to the
Sansei as well and that negative effects included their own sense of
self-esteem and identity. This manifestation of the lasting anxiety was
striking in the documentary when Toru and Howard confront their
differences about their identification and social involvement with the
“safe” Japanese community. Howard expresses the dialectic of this
experience when he says, “As a matter of fact, the Japanese community
was a safe haven. As a matter of fact, I felt limited in that safe haven. I
wanted to go to China, I wanted to go to Istanbul…and I was going to
deny myself that because someone put me in a prison camp?”
Dissociation
Briere (1992) defines dissociation as a defensive disruption in the
normally occurring connections among feelings, thoughts, behavior,
and memories, consciously or unconsciously invoked in order to
reduce psychological distress (p. 36). A number of writers and
researchers relate the onset of such behaviors to psychologically
traumatic events, most notably trauma that occurred in childhood
(Kluft, 1986; Putnam, 1989; van der Kolk, 1987; Herman, 1997). The
pervasive and long-term silence about the internment reflects the
protective psychological defense of “dissociation” - the splitting of
consciousness between the reality of the event and the experience
of the event. In this author’s discussions with former internees,
there were repeated, and sometimes extraordinary experiences of a
person stating emphatically that they were not affected by the camp
experience, and yet within minutes, they would share, without
emotion, a memory that to any outside observer, would be considered
disturbing and even traumatic.
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One woman who was a young teen in camp reported that she could
not relate to the stories presented in The Children of the Camps because
she had a “great time” as a teenager in camp. When asked if she would
mind sharing a memory from that time, without any awareness of the
painful contradiction in her story, she went on to say that her family
remained in Tule Lake after it was identified as the segregation camp
for “disloyals” who answered the loyalty questionnaire with “no-no.”
She explained that although her parents had answered the loyalty
questionnaire with “yes-yes” they remained in the “disloyals” camp
in order to be with their Issei grandparents. Her family had gone to
the mess hall to eat and be seated at their regular place. When they
arrived, they found that someone had tied string to some beef bones
and hung them above their table from the ceiling. When she asked her
father why, he told her angrily that it was to mark the family as “inu”
(dogs). This was a derogatory term used to label and vilify internees
who were suspected of spying for the administration. This was a
disturbing story illustrating the conflicts, internal strife, and rampant
rumors that were part of every day life in camp. However, what was
particularly striking was the way in which this former internee shared
the story without any awareness of the contradiction in her initial
statement.
Impaired Self-Reference
The development of a sense of self is widely understood to be one of
the earliest tasks confronted by the infant and young child (Bowlby,
1988; Mahler, Pine, and Bergman, 1975; Johnson, 1994). Because this
process unfolds in the context of attachment and the internalization
of important others’ perceptions and expectations, early childhood
experience is viewed as essential in influencing the child’s growing
awareness of self. Early trauma may interfere with the child’s access
to a sense of self – the ability to refer to and operate from an internal
awareness of personal existence that is stable across various contexts
and experiences. Regarding abuse victims, Briere (1992) concludes,
“Without such an internal base, the survivor is prone to identity
confusion, boundary issues, and feelings of personal emptiness” (p.
43). In addition, Herman (1997) asserts that traumatic events “…
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shatter the construction of the self that is formed and sustained in
relation to others” (p. 5l).
Herman further describes how the specific trauma of prolonged
captivity produces profound alterations in the victim’s identity.
The psychological structures of the self – the image of the body,
the internalized images of others, and the values and ideals that
lend a person a sense of coherence and purpose are invaded and
systematically broken down. She further states, “This dehumanizing
process is carried to the extent of taking away the victim’s name. In
concentration camps the captive’s name is replaced with a nonhuman
designation, a number” (p.93). The result, for most victims, is a
contaminated identity. Victims may be preoccupied with shame, selfloathing, and a sense of failure. Madsen (1964) further elaborates that
if in fact the trauma is a result of a racist act, that any one individual
may have a multicultural identity or several self-conceptualizations
that may or may not form a unified, culturally coherent identity.
Tatsuo describes the burden of his childhood feelings, “I used to feel
so ashamed of being Japanese. That somehow I envisioned that I was
responsible for WW II.” His efforts to become invisible and to disidentify with his family and the Japanese American community are
reflections of his efforts to resolve the abuse dichotomy. He reflects
on his early years saying, “I recall having to find ways to make my
family wrong, and people who looked like me wrong, because I felt
wrong.” The victim of abuse often concludes that somehow if he or
she could be different, the perpetrator would stop the victimization.
This is poignantly reflected in Tatsuo’s early wishes as he looked in the
mirror, “If I could only change these lips or eyes so that I could fit in.”
Toru states adamantly, “Sure, you may try to convince yourself…I’m
an American…intellectually, rationally, I know I’m American. But do
they treat me like an American? Hell no…because I’m not Caucasian.”
This identity split illustrates the impaired self-reference specifically
of victims of racism. Identification with one’s nationality may be as
equally intense a struggle as any personal identity confusion when an
individual has been excluded from the rights and privileges of that
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identity. This author has observed in several of the group discussions
that self-reference is strongly associated with a sense of belonging.
The desire for attachment and belonging is requisite to achieve a stable
sense of self, however the answer to the implicit question of, Who am
I? depends on one’s self-reference, e.g. I am an American. When the
referent source finds you unacceptable and abuses you, your identity
is called into question and can lead to increased reliance on others
to define one’s self. The focus on this need for belonging and the
confusion surrounding it was evident in several statements made in
the documentary:
“There was no place I could get validation.”
“They were going to demand with their lives, a place for themselves.”
“This is my country, my home and nobody is going to take that away
from me.”
“What are you doing here?”
“This was their place, their home.”
“They’re going to put me in my place.”
“Because there hasn’t been a place where you could really be angry.”
Abuse victims are often seen as characterized by their continuing
inability to define one’s self in contradistinction to the needs or views
of others. Such an over-reliance on the dominant culture’s definition
of the Japanese American sense of self can be seen in the phenomenon
of the “model minority.” The model minority characterizes
Japanese Americans as heroes of the bootstrap philosophy, the noncomplaining, quiet Americans, who have succeeded in spite of their
subordinate minority status. Such myths minimize the impact of
the oppression that was suffered and by implication, defines the
problems of other minority groups as a result of some inherent lack
of motivation or character. The internalization of this success myth
presents many stresses for younger Japanese Americans. Sansei
workshop participants spoke of the overwhelming intensity of the
pressure they felt from their internee parents to succeed and to
fit into American society. Some gave up preferred career goals in
deference to their parents’ need to attain some assurance of security
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and acceptance in American society. One woman who had dreams of
being an artist and musician described her life with poignancy, “I’m
realizing now that I became a medical doctor because that’s what my
parents needed as some kind of insurance against discrimination,
against…being imprisoned again, not because that’s what I really
wanted to do.” Tatsuo further illustrates this point well when he talks
about how as a child, he felt overwhelmed by his father’s expectations
of him, “I used to worry all through my childhood, would I be able to
live up to his expectations?” Marion describes her father’s hard work
and determination as a model for how she should live her life, “I had
to kind of live up to that. And I think that really helped me because I
can’t let him down.”
Mass (1978) described this “model minority” striving as a means of
gaining acceptance by accommodation, and the lasting effects of the
internment. She concludes, “Such a defensive strategy is often at the
expense of the individual’s sense of true self worth. What is sacrificed
is the individual’s own self-acceptance while placing an exaggerated
emphasis on surface qualities like a pleasant non-offensive manner,
neat grooming and appearance, nice homes, new cars, and wellbehaved children. Though we may be seen by others as model
Americans, we have paid a tremendous price for this acceptance” (p.
63).
Feelings of fear, guilt or shame contributed to many Nisei’s postwar
disassociation of their cultural heritage and increased desire to
assimilate. Takezawa (1989a) describes the Nisei’s identity struggle,
“The self-contempt and feeling of being second class citizens, the
desire to prove themselves good Americans, and their aspirations to
be successful, compounded by the total economic loss, the dispersal of
the community, and all other factors derived from the internment and
discrimination…” were added to the striving for Americanization (pp.
18-19). For some Nisei, this press toward assimilation took an extreme
form, resulting not only in a desire to blend into the mainstream but
also in efforts to be 120% super-Americans” (Maykovich, 1972, as
cited in Takezawa, 1989a).
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children of the camps
Nagata and Takeshita’s (1998) study affirms the intergenerational
affects that the Sansei’s felt emanating from the internment
experience. Children of former internees, whether they themselves
were interned or not, expressed a shared sense of shame or
humiliation, a feeling of “assumed rejection,” and they expressed
less confidence about their rights in this country. They also felt
the pressure to achieve and do well as a way of continually proving
one’s entitlement to citizenship. The Sansei felt pressure within their
families to Americanize and assimilate into mainstream society,
which may account for the inordinately rapid loss of language and
culture in the subsequent generations. Thus, feelings of self-worth
have been greatly influenced by the mass rejection to which their
parents were subjected.
Disturbed Relatedness
The interpersonal consequences of abuse is often seen in relational
issues such as distrust of others, anger or fear of those with greater
power, concerns about abandonment, perceptions of injustice, and
low self-esteem. Briere (1993) states that former abuse victims tend
to assume that the world is a hostile environment, where nothing
is inherently deserved and thus nothing is ever freely given. Two
African American psychiatrists, Grier and Cobbs (1968), labeled
this form of vigilance and defensiveness against vulnerability, as
“paranorm.” This term describes the African American’s tendency
to be hyper-vigilant and mistrustful – a necessary norm of paranoia
that is required to survive in a hostile environment. Rather than the
confident expectation of the secure individual, s/he must constantly
assess the relative safety of the environment, whether at home, school,
or work. Sustained use of such a defensive strategy could impact the
individual’s overall ability to form intimate relationships.
For Japanese Americans, the cultural value of silent forbearance and
conflict avoidance could well intersect with the traumatic defenses of
silence and emotional distance.
As Nagata and Takeshita’s (1998) studies revealed parental
expectations, family communications, ethnic preferences and ethnic
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identification were significantly effected by the internment experience.
This author’s clinical experience with Japanese American clients
indicates that for some, the internment trauma has had some bearing
on Sansei marital problems regarding intimacy and communication.
Family Communication
Nagata (1993) states that a particularly important area of observed
intergenerational trauma is that of family communication. Not
unlike many Holocaust survivors, Nagata and other scholars report a
similar silence has been observed among former Japanese American
internees (CWRIC, 1997; Hosokawa, 1969: Miyoshi, 1994). Her
study of the third generation Japanese Americans concluded that
Sansei who were interned at an early age differed from non-interned
Sansei primarily in their reports of family communication and family
distance. Respondents reported their parents as being evasive, cryptic,
or entirely non-communicative about their internment experiences.
Trauma specialists view this silence as the psychological defense of
compartmentalizing the trauma. More specifically, Herman (1992)
describes the loss of communication within families as an indicator
of traumatic withdrawal. The experience may be so traumatic that
the victim avoids being emotionally overwhelmed by avoiding any
thoughts, feelings, and communications about the trauma. However,
not passing on information to the next generation about past suffering
can create heightened anxiety in the family who may sense the
intensity of the experience and yet not know how to prevent its reoccurrence. Nobu Miyoshi (1994) a Nisei social worker and family
therapist has been conducting intergenerational family sessions with
Japanese Americans for over twenty years. In describing her work with
former internees and their families, she notes, “For the Sansei the
lack of communication regarding their forebearer’s camp experience
represents a symbol of an intergenerational ethnic and personal gap”
(p. 8).
Nagata (1993) found that virtually all Sansei reported that their
parents maintained a silence about their experiences in the camps;
a silence which inhibited communication generally within some
families and created a sense of foreboding and secrecy about the
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internment in most. Culturally this silence could be defined as
appropriate coping mechanisms of stoicism and internalization, a
cultural prescription of self-restraint and endurance in order that
painful personal experiences are not discussed publicly (Doi, 1980).
Due to the language barrier and traditional Japanese values of shame
associated with having emotional problems, the Issei were more likely
to cope with personal problems by relying on their religious beliefs
and drawing on the cultural coping mechanisms of stoicism, privacy,
fatalism, and family support (Maykovich, 1972). Issei interned in
the camps during the war typically did not talk about the shame and
humiliation they experienced, nor of the guilt they may have felt about
their children who had to be imprisoned because of their parents’
nationality (Kiefer, 1974). Traditional loyalty, propriety, and fear of
retribution were also likely factors that inhibited complaining or being
openly critical of the government (Kitagawa, 1967). However, Nagata
suggests that the lack of communication surrounding the internment
may have created a feeling of emotional distance between the Sansei
and their parents and that as a result, Sansei felt a gap between their
personal and family identities. Miyoshi (1994) attributes this silence
to the need of the parents to protect their children from the realities
of their experience as well as the cultural constraints against the
expression of strong feelings.
Bessie who was a teen in camp revealed that until she participated
in the group workshop, she had never spoken to anyone about her
internment experience, and especially not to her own daughters.
Sharing her experience with others and particularly with her own
children allowed Bessie to bridge an emotional and relational gap
that had existed for years, “I feel better knowing that I can talk about
it…because I wasn’t alone. So just being able to share is a blessing.”
Marion describes her reluctance also, “I didn’t want to put my story
onto anybody…for the first time I had this opportunity … that people
would listen to me.”
In the Children of the Camps workshops, siblings and spouses often
respond with surprise to learn of a family member’s actual experience
and feelings related to life in camp. Some were tragic stories of family
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disequilibrium and mental illness; others seemed less traumatic,
yet replete with grief. A 78-year-old woman revealed to her siblings
for the first time that her first name was really “Hatsuye” and not
“Lillian”. None of her younger siblings knew of the name she had to
forsake because her teacher told her that she would never be a true
American unless she had an American name.
Avoidance
Trauma victims often minimize, forget, distract themselves, or
anesthetize themselves with substances in order to avoid the painful
memories of abuse. These defensive strategies temporarily reduce the
psychic tension associated with the extremely negative affect. These
include self-loathing and guilt, intense depersonalization, feelings of
helplessness, or painfully fragmented thought processes. Briere (1993)
sees these behaviors as abuse-related tension-reducing behaviors, to
cope with the anxiety. Although the absence of research data makes
it impossible to confirm the extent of this problem, it is interesting
that Miyoshi (1994), in considering the psychiatric casualties among
the Issei and Nisei since internment, believes that there may be
some correlation to “…the puzzling drug addiction problem among
the Sansei in Southern California to their way of dealing with
their untenable camp legacies” (p. 46). Nagata (1993) quotes an
interviewee who reported that many of his friends have had severe
problems that included drug abuse. One interviewee reported, “I
remember one summer there was something like 35 people that were
Japanese Americans overdosing on drugs…” (p. 140).
A recent documentary video by Janice Tanaka, (1999) When You’re
Smiling, explores the experiences of Japanese American youth in
South Central Los Angeles during the anxiety-ridden post internment
resettlement period. Tanaka interviewed Sansei who describe their
own experience and those of their friends abusing drugs. She also
describes efforts by the Japanese American community to suppress
information regarding Sansei deaths by suicide and drug overdose.
She suggests that local Japanese American newspaper stories and
Japanese American death certificates were written in such a way as to
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protect the families and the community from being exposed.
Another form of avoidance by some Japanese Americans is the active
dissociation from things related to the internment. Understandably,
survivors of trauma typically avoid situations that serve to reactivate
emotionally disturbing thoughts and feelings. However, today,
particularly following the successful movement for redress and
reparations in 1988, opportunities to visit historical sites, art exhibits
and community events highlighting the camp experience have
flourished. Though many attend and seek healing from re-visiting the
experience, many have also vowed not to participate or be involved,
and some have actively discouraged dialogue regarding the camp
experience not just in their families, but in the community as well
(Nagata & Takeshita, 1998).
Silence is a powerful avoidance mechanism. Nagata, et al. (1999) has
confirmed that silence was the predominant response of the parents
who were interned. The fact that Sansei whose parents were interned
were least likely to have discussed the internment as a central topic, in
contrast to Sansei whose parents were not interned, may reflect a posttraumatic avoidance of unpleasant associations from the time. Mixed
responses were received from Japanese Americans who participated in
a video screening and discussion of the Children of the Camps. Some
reported a sense of profound relief listening to others express feelings
that they themselves felt and had suppressed for 50-plus years. Others
were offended and embarrassed by the personal disclosures and
expressions of anger and grief and, what one gentleman referred to as,
“touchy-feely” closeness.
To conclude this section, values of respect for authority, saving face,
loyalty, forbearance, and acceptance of fate were clearly effective in
the service of positive adaptation. However, these values along with
the continued threat of individual and institutional racism, may have
served as a factor in the continued legacy of the unresolved trauma
(Mass, 1978; Nagata, 1993; Ina, 1997; Jensen, 1997). Adherence to
familiar coping responses such as the internalization of emotions
and the avoidance of dwelling on the past, along with an intense
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need for acceptance can contribute to an unhealthy psychological
accommodation that further hinders the resolution of the trauma.
Nagata & Takeshita point out, “…positive adaptation to trauma
should not be equated to resolution of that trauma. New information
continues to shape resilience over time and we must be careful not to
diminish the internment’s enduring effects by treating it simply as a
past racial victimization” (p. 603).
Questions for Self-Reflection
1. How would you imagine yourself coping with life in the camps?
2. If you were imprisoned behind barbed wires for up to four years,
what would be the most difficult aspect of your life?
3. How would you imagine that your family would be affected as
individuals and as a group?
4. What strengths and weaknesses do you and your family have that
would play a part in coping with prison life?
5. What are common lessons or messages that were passed down
in your family about how to live your life? In the face of being
victimized, how would these lessons serve you or not?
Questions for Classroom Discussion
1. Almost 60 years have passed since the internment. Why do you
think people are still dealing with its after effects?
2. Could internment ever happen again? Why or why not?
3. Under what conditions do you believe the suspension of
Constitutional rights of a specified group is justified?
4. If “silence” is a coping mechanism for trauma, what are its possible
long-term effects?
5. Describe how you think “effective” as well as “ineffective” coping
strategies might be passed on to the next generation?
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children of the camps
Learning Exercise: A Subjective Experience
The purpose of this exercise is to help students identify personally
with the experience of the Japanese Americans. Rather than using a
detached, historical perspective, students are encouraged to imagine
themselves in the experience. By identifying their own values and
their own family structure within the confines of an oppressive, unjust
process, students can gain some understanding of the intersection
between culture, oppression, and trauma.
List five distinctive physical characteristics about yourself.
List five of your most important values.
Now imagine that you and all people who have the very same
distinctive physical characteristics and hold the same values are
identified as “undesirables.” You now have 24 hours before you are
placed in segregated prisons away from society. Assume that at least
10,000 others like you will be confined together and surrounded by
barbed wire and armed guards.
Staying consistent with your values and your “family” as it exists
today, write about the experience, in first person dialogue. Allowing
one paragraph for each topic.
1. Taking only what you can carry, what would you bring with you?
2. What is the most important thing that
you would have to leave behind?
3. Based on the requirement that only those with the same
physical characteristics and values as yours will have to
be interned, which family members would have to go
and which family members would not have to go
4. What are your thoughts and feelings as you
settle into your life in confinement?
5. What will be your greatest challenge and greatest strength as you
6. determine how you will survive the experience?
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7. What values might you have to modify in
order to insure your survival?
8. How would you imagine you would spend the time?
9. Upon your release four years later, what would be
your greatest fears? And your greatest hopes?
10.At the end of your life, how might you look back
on how you survived this experience?
11.What would you want your children to learn about the experience?
Debriefing:
What was the most difficult part of this exercise for you? Why?
To what extent did your five values serve you well or work against
your well-being?
What feelings did you experience as you wrote?
What insights did you gain about the experience of the Japanese
American internees?
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Children of the Camps: Trauma and Healing
Remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are
prerequisites both for the restoration of the social order and for the
healing of individual victims.
Judith Herman, Trauma and Recovery
The intent of this last section is to summarize and describe how
the Children of the Camps documentary was used as a community
intervention to promote healing from the trauma of racism.
Pressures applied to the American government by third generation
Japanese American attorneys, politicians, and community activists
led to government acknowledgment of the wrong that had been
perpetrated against the Japanese Americans during WW II. In 1988
Congress passed Public Law 100-383, known as the Civil Liberties Act
of 1988, providing for a presidential apology and monetary redress of
$20,000 for each former internee. The full impact of the redress is yet
to be measured; however, if extrapolations can be made from abuse
trauma and systemic theory, a profound healing process can take
place when the victim group, with the support of the compassionate
witness, (in this case non-Japanese Americans) is able to confront the
perpetrator with its wrong-doing and exact some form of reparation
for the harm caused.
When the truth is finally recognized and publicly acknowledged,
victims can begin their recovery. They can be freed to tell the truth
about what happened, label the suffering and express the sorrow
and anger. They can share the burden of the pain with others and
convert their losses in a generative way to prevent future incidents
of mistreatment. The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 gave voice to the
victims of a shameful event in American history. One former internee,
an 82 year old woman, attending a Children of the Camps workshop,
responded to the discussion of redress, “I know I didn’t do anything
wrong, but somehow I felt I had lost face and now I have my face
back.”
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The increasingly open and public dialogue being voiced within
and beyond the Japanese American community is an indication
of the healing. To varying degrees the victims, in the face of their
powerlessness, often unconsciously identify with the perpetrator,
seeking to blame wrongdoers within their community, becoming
extreme in their patriotism or dissidence, and criticizing the
solutions others chose to cope with the trauma. Although conflict was
suppressed within the community for years in order to avoid further
vulnerability, the intensity with which various Japanese American
groups or individuals are now expressing themselves is indicative of
a healthy process. As former internees retrospectively evaluate their
experiences before, during, and after internment, a richly diverse,
controversial, and sometimes contradictory story has emerged.
In addition to individual reparations granted to internees, the Civil
Liberties Act allocated funds to develop educational resources
available to the general public and to educational institutions.
Availability of these materials can serve to counter the emotionally
charged ideology and the behavior, which stems from racism. An
enlightened society is more likely to be realized when an informed
public is no longer able to stand silent in the face of injustice, but
rather, are willing to speak out and take action to assure that an
injustice, such as the WW II internment of Japanese Americans, will
never be permitted to happen again.
Children of the Camps Documentary and
Educational Project
During a ten-year period this author conducted several weekendlong group therapy sessions for former internees. During the course
of the ten years, the repetition of themes and issues that surfaced
were remarkably similar across workshops. Many of the participants
reported that going through this process helped them to better
understand themselves and the ways in which they and their family
members were impacted by the internment over their lifetime.
Following the workshop, participants often described a profound
sense of release they experienced from being able to identify and
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acknowledge the trauma that they had suffered. The motivation to
capture this healing process on film was based on the hope that many
more Japanese Americans and other victims of racism could benefit
from viewing this process.
Consequently, a group of six former child internees were invited to
participate in a documentary filming of the Children of the Camps
group process. There were no scripts or rehearsals, and most of the
participants had never met one another before the weekend filming.
For specific details regarding the group process developed for this
purpose, the reader is referred to “Counseling Japanese Americans:
From Internment to Reparation,” (Ina, 1999 in Multicultural Issues in
Counseling, Ed., C. Lee, pp. 189-206). The treatment approach, with
some necessary cultural accommodations, was primarily based on
abuse trauma and systemic theory.
The Children of the Camps Documentary and Educational Project
was awarded funding from The California Endowment, a private
foundation with a mission to expand access to affordable, quality
health care for under-served individuals and communities and
to promote fundamental improvements in the health status of all
Californians. Racism was identified as a symptom of an unhealthy
social system and the goal of the project was to develop materials
to be used to educate specific populations about the damaging
effects of such personal and social victimization. In an effort to
facilitate healthy systemic change, the Japanese American internment
experience was used as a case study to examine the traumatic abuse
effects of racism. The three target populations for this educational
intervention included the American public, the Japanese American
community, and mental health providers. To foster relevant insight
and dialogue, the documentary video was used as an emotional and
intellectual stimulus for discussion. Different de-briefing formats
were designed for the specific needs of each group. The goals of the
Children of the Camps Documentary and Educational Project were
the following:
1. educate the American public about the historical
injustice experienced by Japanese Americans and
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provide a humanizing perspective on the damaging
effects of personal and institutionalized racism.
2. provide a culturally sensitive context for healing
for members of the Japanese American community
to safely share with others their experiences and
feelings about their internment experience.
3. increase the cultural competence of mental health
providers by educating them about the long-term
psychological and familial impact of racism and the
cultural implications for treatment of the trauma.
The American Public: National PBS Broadcast and Viewer’s Guide
The education of the American public is a crucial element of the
systemic healing, for it was the American public in 1942 that was
witness to the mass removal of innocent Japanese Americans from
their homes. The absence of organized protest and outrage by
individuals and groups who were aware of the injustice, reflected
the abrogation of civic duty necessary to support a healthy, welldifferentiated social system. In their collective silence it can be
said that the American public, caught up in the wartime hysteria,
implicitly joined the perpetrator against the victim group.
Judith Herman (1997) makes the point that the witness/bystander
is thus unavoidably drawn into the trauma dialectic. Following the
television broadcast, correspondence and email via the Children of the
Camps website was received from several European Americans who
themselves, or their parents, were actual witnesses to the internment.
The unresolved legacy of the witness trauma was evident in the selfrecrimination and guilt about the internment expressed by some. One
woman wrote about her 90 year old father who had recently passed
away. She explained how he often talked with heartfelt regret about
not standing up for fellow co-workers who were being fired from their
jobs because he was afraid to be identified as a “Jap lover.” Letters of
condemnation and racial hatred were also received; however, more
typical, was the emotion-laden, uninformed comments. One of these
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letters closed with, “After all, look what you guys did in Nanking. The
camps were the right thing to do then and now. Let your hearts bleed
then sit and wait for the rest of your organs to follow suit!”
The dehumanization process that effectively justifies inhumane
treatment is at the core of racist thinking. Self-differentiation of the
witness from the perpetrator occurs with increased understanding
and empathy for the victim. This increased self-differentiation can
contribute to the healing. By presenting the very personal and real
stories of six people who were children behind barbed wires, the
injustice suffered is “humanized” and serves to educate individuals
who possess inaccurate and out-dated information. Children of
the Camps will be broadcast across the country on public television
broadcasting stations for three years and will also be nationally
distributed to community colleges and universities, and mental health
agencies.
For the television viewers, a Viewer’s Guide (Ina, 2000) was made
available and distributed without charge to the public. Guidelines for
discussion were provided along with specific suggestions for dialogue
with former internees. For classroom use, this Instructor’s Manual
is being made available to any individual or educational institution
that purchases the video. The Children of the Camps website (www.
children-of-the-camps. org) was also designed to further disseminate
information about the internment experience. Responses and
requests from as far away as Russia, Israel, Japan, and all parts of the
United States have been received.
Funding received from The California Endowment made it possible
to conduct a statewide outreach effort to publicize the national
PBS television broadcast of Children of the Camps. In addition,
educational workshops for schools, churches, civic groups, and similar
organizations throughout California were funded. Donations from
private citizens have made it possible to conduct similar educational
workshops throughout the United States and Japan.
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The Japanese American Community: Community Education Forums
Rationale:
The Children of the Camps group sessions were informal gatherings
that generally took place by “word-of-mouth” communication.
Often, a weekend retreat was organized by a small group of friends,
colleagues, or church members who shared an interest in exploring
their camp experience. Over time it became evident by the intensity
of expressed feelings, the commonality of the themes, and the need
to share one’s story, that the experience of internment remained
unresolved for many. The shame of victimization, the ostracism from
society, and the suppression of feelings had left some former internees
silenced and isolated. The issues permeated the community, the
family, and the individual’s life in America, and yet, former internees
continued to be reluctant to discuss their internment experience.
The concept of community trauma, introduced by clinicians working
with survivors of political repression, war, or natural disasters
recognizes the widespread effects of trauma upon entire communities
(Lira, Becker, & Catillo, 1988; Herman, 1997). For the Japanese
Americans living in a tightly woven family and community network
in small “Japan towns” or rural farming areas in 1942, the mass
exclusion of all people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast,
resulted in a collective trauma.
One significant aspect of the community trauma that persists today
is the resulting intra-group polarization and conflict. Where there
was no “question of loyalty” in the Japanese American community
prior to internment, the implementation of the government’s
exclusion order created a perceived “crisis of loyalty” which resulted
in accusations, suspicions, in-group scapegoating, power struggles
and sometimes violent conflict. Internees, like other victims who
were powerless, internalized the perpetrator’s accusations. Issues of
loyalty then served to divert attention away from the injustice of the
internment. In reality, this so-called “crisis of loyalty” masked the
true, but indefensible, “crisis of faith” that Japanese American’s were
confronted with regarding the country they had called their home.
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children of the camps
Rigid boundaries of self-definition continue today as former internees
refer to themselves and others as either “yes/yes” or “no/no” boys
depending on how they responded to the two questions on the socalled loyalty questionnaire years ago. Internees who responded “no”
to the question of forswearing loyalty to the Emperor of Japan, and
“no” to the question of their willingness to bear arms in defense of
America, were identified as “disloyals” and were eventually segregated
and placed in the Tule Lake Segregation Camp. For most, “no-no”
answers were statements of protest about their unjust treatment,
rather than true statements disavowing loyalty. Identification as
“loyal” or “disloyal” served to replace the previously shared ethnic
pride and identity as Japanese Americans. Protests against the
violation of constitutional and human rights, were now confused with
disloyalty inside the prison camps. The resulting polarization and
conflict reflects the complex trauma perpetrated on a community that
values harmony and interdependence.
Silence and secrecy are also prominent aspects of trauma. The
internees’ silence about their internment experience created, for
some, disconnection in the family and the continuation of defensive
coping mechanisms. These consequences can have negative health
effects and ultimately hamper the mastery and resolution of the
trauma. Pennebaker, Barger, & Tiebout (1989) reported that the active
constraint of behavior or emotional expression can cause an increase
in autonomic processes. These researchers reasoned that if trauma
victims are unable to discuss their experiences, they could suffer the
cumulative effects of stress on the autonomic nervous system. In
their study of health variables of Holocaust victims, the researchers
concluded, “Disclosing an extremely traumatic event over 40 years
after its occurrence has apparent positive health benefits” (p. 586).
Goals:
Herman, (1997) identifies the primary goal of recovery from traumatic
experiences as the psychological task of “mastering” the past trauma.
This mastery is necessary in order to overcome the suppressed, yet
continued fear of vulnerability. To create opportunities for safe
community dialogue where differences of opinions could be heard
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and respected, Community Education Forums were designed to
enable Japanese Americans, in the comfort and familiarity of their
own community, to share their stories. They could review their
camp experience, increase understanding of their own and other’s
experience, increase communication between family members, and
open the door for further exploration of the impact of their experience
on their current lives. All activities developed for the forums were
designed to facilitate movement towards psychological healing and
mastery.
The forums were sponsored by local Japanese American churches and
by community and civic organizations. The members of the audience
viewed the documentary, listened to a presentation, and then were
encouraged to share their experiences and insights. The educational
presentation provided a framework for examining the impact of the
internment experience that included:
1. the possible traumatic and long-term effects of the
internment and the underlying effects of racism.
2. Japanese American culture and its positive and negative
mediating influence on recovering from the trauma.
3. the generational and personal variations in coping
responses to the internment experience.
This community-based, educational format provided a culturally
acceptable environment and made it possible for some former
internees, their friends and family to view the very personal
experiences of other former internees from the vantage point of the
observer. Following the lecture that places the internment in the
context of a societal problem, internees were encouraged to share their
stories and perspectives.
Community Response:
The Community Forums were well attended by former internees who
were now in their 70’s and 80’s as well as those internees who were
children of the camps, now in their 50’s and 60’s. In addition, children
and grandchildren as well as other relatives and friends of former
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internees were in attendance. In order to create a sense of safety and
familiarity, the events were held in local churches and community
centers. The audience, primarily Japanese American, often included a
small number of non-Japanese people. These individuals, ostensibly
representing the “witness” in the victim-perpetrator-witness abuse
triangle, often provided the healing presence of the informed
compassionate witness. An elderly European American gentleman
spoke up following one of the video screenings, “I was reluctant to
attend this event, but my very dear Japanese American friend passed
away recently and I realized how little I knew about his experience
during the war, so I decided to come even though I’m not a member
of your church. Of course I knew about the internment, but I never
really grasped the meaning and the pain of the whole thing. I’m so
sorry for what you had to endure and so moved by your strength to
survive.” The members of the audience were visibly moved by this
man’s heartfelt acknowledgement.
Nagata and Takeshita (1998) explored the various ways that the
Japanese Americans demonstrated resilience in dealing with the
internment. They found that, for some internees the developmental
change in older adulthood toward acceptance of their internment
experience contributed to the resilience that enabled them to let go
of the past. For others, becoming more aware of aspects of their
experience contributed to a form of resilience by providing external
information on which to build a previously unarticulated sense of
injustice. Though the intensity of the community discussions varied
from group to group, viewing the documentary and listening to the
experiences shared on screen, enabled many to gain new insight about
themselves or someone in their family. One former internee reflected
this resiliency while maintaining his awareness of the injustice, “What
happened to us was wrong, and it was especially hard for my Issei
parents, but one thing I gained from that terrible time is my life-long
friends, many of them are right here in this room today. And for that I
am eternally grateful.”
Compartmentalization of affect and the absence of a viable frame
of reference inhibit the mastery of a traumatic experience. Viewing
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the Children of the Camps video offered the therapeutic benefit of
reviewing the traumatic experience from an observer’s safe place.
Unlike the group process depicted in the video, where affective
responses are fully encouraged and examined, in the Community
Education Forum, the facilitator acknowledges the emotional impact
of the video while carefully guiding the audience to a more cognitive
level in order to allow for discussion and dialogue. The purpose of
the lecture, which follows the viewing, is to offer a cognitive frame of
reference. Viewers are then able to re-construct a personal perspective
of the internment in light of the trauma, the racism, and the Japanese
American culture. This reframing allows participants to confront and
challenge their deeply felt sense of shame. With sensitivity for cultural
values of stoicism and avoidance of public display of emotions,
the discussion of the experience, stimulated by the video, permits
participants to modulate their emotions and examine the experience
with some distance. Further, the facilitator identified the silence and
the divisions in the community as consequences of the victimization;
and former internees and their family members were encouraged to
share their stories, as part of an intergenerational healing process. In
this way, the educational forums provided an opportunity to confront
some of the painful and lasting effects of the trauma.
Responses varied from extremely objective intellectual commentary to
tearful acknowledgment of painful losses. It was evident that positive
identification with the internees seen in the video facilitated personal
insight into the previously unspoken trauma. Family members of
former internees listened to stories shared by others and learned
about the personal struggles that they never heard from their own
parents or grandparents. One young man in his twenties expressed his
appreciation for the documentary and the opportunity to hear former
internees’ stories since he never took the opportunity to talk to his
own grandfather before he passed away.
There were some who were offended by the emotions and personal
vulnerability expressed by the participants in the video; others denied
that they suffered at all during the internment, while some followed
up requesting information regarding Japanese American mental
53
children of the camps
health providers who might help their family resolve remaining
internment issues. For the most part, the grief shared in these
community gatherings was palpable, and several people who were
silent later wrote letters to us describing the ways in which they
benefited from being present while others in the audience shared their
stories. One man stood up, tears in his eyes, thanked the audience and
said, “My father recently passed away. He never talked about his life in
Tule Lake so this video and your stories are the closest I will ever come
to knowing what it all meant for him.”
Outcome:
People attending the Community Forums shared their diverse points
of view and disclosed previously untold stories. One Nisei man told
about how he was able to get his Issei parents inland to Minnesota
to avoid the internment; but after several months of social isolation,
unfamiliarity with their surroundings, and fear for their future, they
begged him to take them to camp to be with their family and friends.
Sadly, all three traveled back to one of the camps, were admitted and
interned for three years during which time the father died.
To have other Japanese Americans bear witness to one another’s
experience was a powerful opportunity for former internees and their
families to share their burden. Bessie described her initial reluctance
to participate. Because of the silence in her family and in her
community, she too believed that she should remain silent. She shared
her relief in discovering that, “I’m not the only one who suffered;
others had their hard times.” Another 70-year-old internee when
asked what her tears were about said, “I’m crying because I didn’t
know that others felt the same shame and sadness that I have felt all
these years.”
As dialogue emerged between generations, this culturally meaningful
educational setting afforded elders the opportunity to educate younger
members of the audience about the internment. Herman (1997)
concludes that, “The trauma story is part of the survivor’s legacy; only
when it is fully integrated can the survivor pass it on, in confidence
that it will prove a source of strength and inspiration rather than a
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Psychotherapy.net
blight on the next generation” (p. 207). A fourth generation Yonsei
spoke of her new found pride in learning about the internees’ stories,
“I feel so grateful to my parents and my grandparents for what they
endured in order that I could have the life that I have today. I have
never been so proud to say that I am a Japanese American.”
Herman believes that empowerment and reconnection are the
core experiences of recovery from trauma. It was evident that the
Community Education Forums helped to empower individuals
by placing the internment in the context of the dysfunction of
the broader social system and by facilitating communication and
connection within families, across generations and between conflicted
groups.
Mental Health Providers: Cultural Competence
The third objective of the Children of the Camps Documentary and
Educational Project is to increase the cultural competence of mental
health providers by educating them about the long-term psychological
and familial impact of racism and the cultural implications for
treatment of the trauma. The examination of the internment
experience from a systemic perspective requires that mental health
professionals consider the pathology, not just of the victim, but also of
the contextual social system in which oppression is sanctioned.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-IV (1994), the primary
psychiatric diagnostic system used by practitioners in mental health,
is largely non-contextual, placing people of color and other oppressed
groups at a disadvantage when personal history of discrimination
and oppression shape a worldview that is context-driven. Without
the consideration of context, clinicians will be limited in their ability
to determine the extent to which behavior, affect and cognitions are
situation-specific, or trait characteristics, or normal responses to
environmental conditions of devalued status. Racism trauma, when
understood as a complex societal process, includes the interaction
between the perpetrator, the victim, and the witness.
The training workshops for mental health professionals include an
introductory lecture followed by the viewing of the documentary.
55
children of the camps
Critical incidents in the video are then used as illustrations of key
concepts. These include the systemic perspective of racism trauma as
well as cultural mediators of perception, symptom presentation, and
coping responses to trauma.
The Children of the Camps video demonstrates a group process
designed specifically to identify the internalized blame, shame,
and self-hatred resulting from the internment experience. The film
puts the experience in the context of victimization by racism. In
a safe, supportive, and empathic environment, participants share
their stories, eventually identifying their losses, self-recriminations,
and their means of coping with the trauma. The healing process
is woven with culturally meaningful symbols and rituals that give
rise to expressions of culturally embedded beliefs and values. The
spontaneous group recollection of a faintly remembered childhood
song in the language of their parents is illustrative of the power of
the group to provide a safe journey back to a painful childhood.
The trauma-laden secrets and culturally constrained expression of
emotions are gently confronted to avoid the risk of loss of face. The
trauma is confronted directly, and defined concisely as victimization
from racism and social injustice; this is done in order to mitigate
the minimization and denial previously imposed by the perpetrator.
Culturally conflict-avoidant, yet caught in the grips of the “loyalty”
polarity, the Japanese American participants are guided through a
respectful conflict resolution process. Wide variation of emotional
expression is accepted and acknowledged. A father’s expression
of love, the loss of face, the experience of shame, and the resulting
identity confusion are identified as culturally meaningful and, as such,
provide resonance and congruence for members of the group.
Following the viewing of the documentary, the mental health
professionals are helped to examine the ways in which trauma and
minority status interact to produce a heightened sense of isolation and
disenfranchisement. Further, they are encouraged to consider how
individuals who grow up and live in a context that is not congruent
with aspects of their cultural identity often experience conflicts
centered on belongingness, trust, and safety. Discussed in depth
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Psychotherapy.net
are the negative effects of experiencing racism on self-esteem and
identity, particularly for children who are more likely to personalize
the maltreatment. Clinicians are challenged to examine their own
responses when issues of racism are raised or ignored by the client.
In addition to having empathy and understanding in order to
work effectively with individual victims of racism, mental health
professionals can facilitate the reversal of institutionalized racism
by directly addressing issues of their own bias and intolerance. In
the workshop they are asked to examine their reluctance to confront
clients, colleagues or others who make racial slurs or hold prejudicial
stereotypes. They are also challenged to examine the degree of
ethnocentrism implicit in their clinical approach that may limit
their ability to provide culturally relevant treatment. Therapists,
specifically, are urged to avoid the replication of the abuse by
minimizing the trauma of racism or remaining silent about the client’s
experience of racism. The familiar stance of “therapeutic neutrality”
is challenged as a failure to assist the client in actively searching out
and accurately labeling the experience of racism. Such neutrality
inhibits the differentiation of self from the victim-witness–perpetrator
triangle. Active empathy-driven involvement by the therapist is
essential to strengthen the victim’s sense of self. By challenging the
silence of neutrality, the therapist also differentiates him/herself from
the perpetrator. The powerful presence of this compassionate witness
offers dignity to the distress and offers safety and containment for the
work. Only then will the client be able to retrieve memories, discharge
suppressed emotions, and integrate the racism trauma, and ultimately
transform the victimization experience into one of self-empowerment.
Cultural competence requires that mental health professionals
understand the context of oppression and their own position in that
context. Those who are committed to developing such competencies
can serve as powerful healing agents, not just for the individual client,
but for families, communities and society as well.
57
children of the camps
The Beginning
For some Japanese Americans the shame of being unjustly imprisoned
has inhibited the telling of their stories. The truth was sacrificed
for acceptance and reintegration into the human community. In
sharing their stories, Bessie, Toru, Ruth, Howard, Marion, and
Tatsuo, challenge the unspoken pact between the Japanese American
community and the larger society to keep the personal, emotional and
psychological wounds of that event a deeply buried secret. It is our
hope that through the courage of these six children of the camps that
others may proclaim injustice aloud and contribute to the healing of
all forms of oppression.
Discussion Questions for Clinicians
1. What was it about this workshop that made it safe enough for the
participants to take emotional risks and have a new experience?
2. What specific interventions or approaches did Dr. Ina
use that stood out for you as having an impact on one or
more of the participants? What about her approach here
do you see yourself integrating into your clinical work?
3. What aspects of Dr. Ina’s work did not fit as well for you?
What made you uncomfortable or seemed like something you
would be uncomfortable using in your own work with clients?
Talk about why you answered these questions as you did.
4. What are the most important aspects of this video for you
as a therapist? In what ways do you see this approach as
relevant to therapy outside the context of working with
Japanese Americans who were in camp as children?
58
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