Legacy of Injustice

Exploring the
Cross-Generational Impact
of the ]apanese American
Internment
CRITICAL ISSUES IN SOCIAL JUSTICE
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Donna K. Nagata
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Legacy of Injustice
Exploring the
Cross-Generational Impact
of the ]apanese American
Internment

Donna K. N agata
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan

Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

 Llbrary of Congress Cataloglng-In-Publlcatlon Data

Nagata, Donna K.
Legacy of lnjustlee : explorlng the eross-generatlonal l~paet of
the Japanese-Aoerlean lnternoent / Donna K. Nagata.
p. em. -- (Crltleal Issues In soelal justlee)
1neludes blbllographleal referenees and Index.

1. Japanese Amerleans--Evaeuatlon and reloeatlon, 1942-1945.

2. Clvl1 rlghts--Unlted States. 3. World War, 1939-1945--1nfluenee.
I. Tltle. 11. Serles.
D7S9.8.ASN33 1993
973'.0495S--dc20 93-3927
C1P

ISBN 978-1-4899-1120-9 ISBN 978-1-4899-1118-6 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-1-4899-1118-6
© 1993 Springer Science+Business Media New York
Originally published by Plenum Press, New York in 1993.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1993
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No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any
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Für my parents
 Preface

At the age of 6, I discovered a jar of brightly colored shells under my

grandmother's kitchen sink. When I inquired where they had come from,
she did not answer. Instead, she told me in broken English, "Ask your
mother." My mother's response to the same question was, "Oh, I made
them in camp." "Was it fun?" I asked enthusiastically. "Not really," she
replied. Her answer puzzled me. The shells were beautiful, and camp, as
far as I knew, was a fun place where children roasted marshmallows and
sang songs around the fire. Yet my mother's reaction did not seem happy.
I was perplexed by this brief exchange, but I also sensed I should not ask
more questions.
As time went by, "camp" remained a vague, cryptic reference to
some time in the past, the past of my parents, their friends, my grand-
parents, and my relatives. We never directly discussed it. It was not until
high school that I began to understand the significance of the word, that
camp referred to a World War II American concentration camp, not a
summer camp. Much later I learned that the silence surrounding discus-
sions about this traumatic period of my parents' lives was a phenomenon
characteristic not only of my family but also of most other Japanese
American families after the war. "It's like a secret or maybe more like a
skeleton in the closet-like a relative in the family who's retarded or
alcoholic," said a woman whose mother was also in a camp. "Everyone
tiptoes around it, discussing it only when someone else brings it up, like
a family scandal. I'm aware of the shame of it, but it's really a paradox. It
wasn't anything she did to be ashamed of. There were things done to her,
like a rape victim!"
In fact, her mother and my parents-along with more than 110,000
Japanese Americans-were moved from their hornes to concentration
camps located in desolate areas of the United States. Forced to sell their
belongings and evacuate, they took only what they could carry and wore

vii
viii Preface

impersonal numbered tags for identification. Most ]apanese Americans

were forced to move twice-first to assembly centers at horsetracks and
fairgrounds, where many lived in animal stalls; and later to the barren,
hastily constructed camps themselves. Barbed wire and armed guard
towers surrounded the camps despite the fact that approximately two-
thirds of those incarcerated were D.S. citizens. More than 90% of the
]apanese American population on the D.S. mainland lived in confine-
ment, for up to 4 years, without the right to a trial or individual review.
Although the American government claimed that the action was neces-
sary to prevent espionage by ]apanese Americans in this country, it
would eventually be revealed that there was no evidence to support the
military necessity for such drastic measures (Commission on Wartime
Relocation and Internment of Civilians [CWRIC] (1982).
Ironically, at the same time that ]apanese Americans were living in
concentration camps and considered hazardous to national security,
23,000 additional ]apanese Americans (including the relatives of those
in camps) served in the D.S. military during World War 11, protecting the
American ideals of equality, justice, and democracy (Daniels, 1988).
These were American-born second-generation Japanese American (Nisei)
men who enlisted directly from the camps and from Hawaii in an effort
to prove their loyalty to the Dnited States. The service record of the Nisei
was exemplary. The all-Japanese American 100th Battalion and the
442nd Regimental Combat Team were among the war's most decorated
units, and the work of Nisei in military intelligence contributed signifi-
cantly to the American war effort.
In 1980, nearly 40 years after the war, the D.S. government seriously
reviewed the facts and circumstances surrounding the internment and
recommended redress for the injustices suffered by the Japanese Ameri-
cans during the war. At that time, an act of Congress established the
Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians. The
commission conducted hearings in cities across the Dnited States,
receiving testimony from more than 750 witnesses including former
interne es , government officials, and historians. Based on these testi-
manies and volurnes of government documents, it concluded that "there
was no justification in military necessity for the exclusion" and, ac cord-
ingly, "there was no basis for the detention" (CWRIC, 1982, p. 10). The
commission summarized its findings as follows:
The broad historical causes which shaped these decisions were race preju-
dice, hysteria and a failure of politicalleadership. Widespread ignorance of
Japanese Americans contributed to a policy conceived in haste and executed
in an atmosphere of fear and anger at Japan. A grave injustice was done to
American citizens and resident aliens of Japanese ancestry. (CWRIC, 1982, p. 18)
Preface ix

While historians are now able to develop a retrospective accounting

for the causes of the internment, it is more difficult to document the
long-term effects of that injustice. The writings that do exist describe the
social and psychological suffering created by the internment and forced
evacuation (e.g., Mass, 1986; Morishima, 1973). Although they had done
nothing wrong, many Nisei felt ashamed and humiliated by what hap-
pened to them, and some even blamed themselves for not being Ameri-
can enough.
Today the aftereffects from the internment elude casual inspection.
Educationally and economically, both those ]apanese Americans who
were interned and their offspring seem outwardly successful and un-
affected by their experiences of racism; they have accomplished much.
Discussion of what happened has been conspicuously absent from
classroom history books, and the vast majority of Americans know little,
if anything, about the internment. Only through efforts leading to the
passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which apologized for wrongful
imprisonment and authorized the payment of $20,000 redress to each
surviving internee, has the silence begun to break.
Most adult children of the internees, third-generation ]apanese
Americans (Sansei), were born after the war and did not experience the
internment. Although they were born and raised in the United States
like their Nisei parents, these Sansei-who are now primarily in their
30s and 40s-have experienced significantly less overt racism than their
parents. Yet recognizing the great injustice that took place, they carry
with them the legacy of their parents' internment. Time has not severed
the psychological ties to events that preceded them, nor has the fact that
their parents will not openly discuss the internment. On the contrary,
the vast majority of Sansei feel that the incarceration has affected their
lives in significant ways, and the re cent ]apanese American redress
movement was "led largely by younger ]apanese Americans whose
parents and grandparents still bore the psychological scars of intern-
ment" (Irons, 1983, p. 348).
What is the nature of this legacy? How is the impact of one genera-
tion's historie injustice passed on to the next generation? And what long-
term effects has the internment had for the offspring of those who were
incarcerated? These are the questions addressed in this book through
data collected for the Sansei Research Project.
The Sansei Research Project, conducted in 1987, represents the first
large-scale study to explore the impact of the internment on third-
generation ]apanese Americans. The Project surveyed over 700 Sansei
from across the United States and included in-depth interviews with
over 40 Sansei. Responses from participants confirmed the salience of
x Preface

the internment for the Sansei generation. More than half who completed
the 20-page survey wrote additional comments to express their personal
views, attaching lengthy descriptions of their emotional reactions to the
topics raised in the survey. Others expressed surprise that there might be
other Sansei beside themselves whose families had been silent about the
camps. Several Sansei requested additional copies of the survey to pass
on to friends and relatives or requested permission to share it with
Sansei in their community to stimulate dialogue about the internment.
Many thanked me for giving them an opportunity to participate in the
research and express views that they had kept inside for years. Inter-
viewees who stated that they had little to say other than the fact that their
parents never discussed the internment were surprised to discover many
feelings and observations related to their parents' camp experiences.
The Sansei Research Project employs a cross-generational frame-
work to examine the transmission of trauma and injustice from the Nisei
to the Sansei generation. The impact of parents' traumatic experiences
on their children has been well documented by an extensive body of
research on the adult children of Holocaust survivors (e.g., Danieli, 1985;
Davidson, 1980; Epstein, 1979; Keinan, Mikulincer, & Rybnicki, 1988;
Rose & Garske, 1987; Sigal, 1971; Wanderman, 1976). This study explores
the presence of similar long-range effects of the internment on the adult
children of previously interned Japanese Americans. In contrast, justice
literature reveals relatively little work in the area of intergenerational
issues. Yet the question of how experiences of injustice from one genera-
tion affect subsequent generations is a crucial one. Conceptualizations
of what is viewed as just or fair change historically and culturally over
time (Sampson, 1981). By comparing the Sansei and Nisei, we can begin
to explore how perceptions and responses to the internment differ
across the generational lines.
At the broadest level, the Project's cross-generational framework
allows us to study a specific historical event-the internment-and its
consequences over time. Because the large survey sampie included both
Sansei who had a parent interned and those who did not, it was possible
to statistically compare these groups on a range of demographic and
attitudinal variables and to describe the population characteristics that
distinguish the children of former internees. Differences on these vari-
ables between Sansei who had parents interned and those who did not
were hypothesized to reflect the cross-generational effects of a parent's
incarceration. The Sansei Research Project also studied the cross-
generational impact of the internment at the individual level through the
use of in-depth interviews. These interviews yielded rich narrative data
Preface xi

that detail specific and personal ways in which Sansei perceived the
internment to have influenced their lives.
Taken together, the survey and interview results presented here
illustrate the many levels at which the internment remains a significant
force in the lives of the Sansei. It is clearly impossible to capture the
viewpoint and experiences of all Sansei, and this book does not purport
to do so. What emerges from the present data can perhaps best be seen
as a snapshot of a generation, a snapshot that describes how many Sansei
experience the internment's effects today.
Definitive statements on the cause-effect relationships between a
parent's internment and current Sansei characteristics and perceptions
are equally impossible. A true experimental design cannot be applied to
the internment because Japanese Americans were not randomly as-
signed to "camp" or "no camp" conditions during the war (Kitano,
1986). The numbers of Sansei on the V.S. mainland whose parents were
interned far outnumber those whose parents were not, and, as described
in Chapter 4, there can be no true "control" group when it comes to
evaluating the effects of the internment.
There is also a fine line between focusing on the suffering created by
the internment and focusing on the strength and resilience with which
Japanese Americans have been able to respond to this trauma. Over-
emphasis on suffering runs the risk of portraying the Japanese Ameri-
cans as "damaged" victims, while overemphasis on their coping
strengths runs the risk of minimizing the negative aspects of the intern-
ment. I have made an effort to describe the variety of ways, both positive
and negative, in which the internment has had a cross-generational
impact.
By focusing on the effects of the concentration camps, the book does
not cover other important Japanese American experiences related to the
internment. Although much smaller in numbers, there were, for example,
Japanese Americans who moved inland to avoid the incarceration and
experienced a unique set of hardships trying to relocate. There were also
citizen and alien Japanese Americans who, disillusioned by their incar-
ceration, left the Vnited States to live in Japan. The long-term effects of
such circumstances are fascinating in their own right. They deserve
extensive research but are beyond the scope of this study.
Writing this book has reminded me of my own silence about the
internment. Colleagues and friends who read early drafts encouraged
me to include personal anecdotes and perspectives, yet I was reluctant
to do so. It was much easier to stay with academic information and
remain "anonymous." However, in conducting this research I have,
xii Preface

like the participants in the Project, become aware that my personal

story is linked to the stories of thousands of other Japanese Americans.
I hope that my perspective as a Sansei whose parents were also in-
terned has helped put into context the origins of this research and its
findings.

Organization of the Book

The chapters of this book can be grouped into four general sections.
The first seetion, consisting of Chapters 1 and 2, sets the context for
understanding the significance of the internment. Chapter 1 discusses
the events and conditions surrounding the internment decision. Chapter
2 presents an overview of the judicial, economic, social, and psychologi-
cal impacts of America's concentration camps. Together, these initial
chapters provide a sociohistorical context for the book. In the second
seetion, the Sansei Research Project is described. Chapter 3 provides the
theoretical rationale for adopting a cross-generational paradigm that
assesses the impact of the internment, highlighting literature on the
children of Holocaust survivors as an example of cross-generational
research on traumatic stress. Chapter 4 then presents the specific meth-
odology of the Sansei Research Project.
Chapters 5 through 11, which discuss the Project results, make up
the third section of the book. Chapter 5 presents descriptive data on
actual patterns of communication about the internment. Next, Chapter 6
presents results on the interest and knowledge levels of the Sansei
regarding the internment, while Chapter 7 evaluates findings on the
Sansei's attitudes toward ethnic preferences, their sense of confidence in
this country, and their predicted reactions to a future internment. Chap-
ter 8 describes data on how the internment affected seH and family
perceptions, while Chapter 9 presents the Sansei's perceptions of paren-
tal coping and suffering. In Chapter 10, data on Sansei dating and
marriage patterns, understanding of the Japanese language, and level of
activity in Japanese American organizations are summarized. Chapter 11
is devoted to a discussion of the redress movement, a critical and recent
piece in the continuing story of the internment. This chapter includes
both a summary of events that led to the redress effort and a presentation
of Project results on the Sansei's views on redress.
In the last section of the book, Chapter 12 provides an overview of
the Project results and evaluates these findings in the context of existing
literature on the consequences of injustice and trauma. The final chap-
ter, Chapter 13, raises questions for future research.
Preface xiii

A Word about Definitions

One will notice that the term concentration camp has been used to
describe the locations where Japanese Americans were interned. How-
ever, there has been considerable controversy regarding this term and its
application to the internment. When people hear the words concentra-
tion camp, they envision the horrors experienced by the Jews during
World War II. "Concentration camp" is equated with "death camp."
America's camps were not death camps, and some individuals caution
against lumping the Holocaust and the internment together under a
single category. Others, however, deliberately use the term concentration
camp to describe America's incarceration of the Japanese Americans.
They note that the use of the term relocation camp, favored by the
official agencies who oversaw the imprisonment process, was a euphe-
mism that minimized the significance of what took place. Roger Daniels
(1986a), a noted scholar of Asian American history, points out that
technically the Japanese American camps do fit the definition of con-
centration camps: That is, they were indeed "places to which persons
were sent, not for crimes or legal status but because of race or ethnicity"
(p. 6). In fact, even President Franklin D. Roosevelt referred to the camps
as concentration camps.
Confusion also exists as to whether the treatment of Japanese Amer-
icans should be termed relocation, internment, or incarceration. For
example, Daniels has noted that the term internment camps is techni-
cally incorrect. "Internment," states Daniels, "is a well-defined legal
process by which enemy nationals are placed in confinement in time of
war" (Daniels, 1986a, p. 6). He points out that while the noncitizen male
immigrant (first-generation, or Issei) Japanese American leaders rounded
up after Pearl Harbor were "interned," the vast majority of Japanese
Americans were "incarcerated" rather than interned. In discussing the
problems with terminology, Daniels wrote:
The problem with the ward "relocation" is that it also has been used to
describe the process by which some Japanese Americans "voluntarily"
moved out of the forbidden zone, and to the process by which, during and
just after the war, thousands of Japanese Americans moved out of the camps
to new hornes and businesses in the interior of the United States. To further
the semantic confusion, it has become common in recent years to speak of the
"internment" of Japanese Americans as describing all the procedures affect-
ing aliens and citizens, a practice that has been given official sanction by
Congress (Daniels, 1986a, p. 72)

The terms concentration camp and internment camp are both used
in this book to describe the Japanese American camps, while internment
xiv Preface

is used to refer to the process of uprooting and incarcerating the ]apanese

Americans. The use of the term concentration camp here is not meant to
equate the ]apanese American and ]ewish experiences during World War
H. Important differences clearly existed between the Nazi death camps
and America's concentration camps. There were ]apanese Americans
who died in the camps: Some deaths were due to inadequate medical
facilities; other deaths were a result of the emotional stresses they
encountered; and some were killed by the military guards posted around
the camps. However, more ]apanese Americans were born in the camps
than died (Daniels, 1986a). The American camps also affected thousands
rather than millions of individuals, and their physical conditions were
far less harsh than the Nazi camps. Direct comparisons between the
Holocaust and the internment run the risk of diminishing the signifi-
cance of the ]apanese American trauma. When compared with the
Holocaust, the ]apanese American internment can seem inconsequen-
tiaI. However, while the treatment of the ]apanese Americans was less
dramatic than that of the lews, it was far from humane. The legacy of the
Holocaust continues to have an impact on survivors and their children,
and the internment continues to affect the ]apanese Americans and their
children. In both cases, the injustices suffered have implications for all
humanity.
 Acknowledgments

Many people have helped make this book a reality. First, I would like to
thank all the Sansei who volunteered to participate in the Project and
share their life stories. I would also like to thank Fletcher Blanchard for
encouraging me early on to pursue this research. I am grateful to Faye
Crosby both for constantly encouraging me and giving me feedback
throughout the many stages of the Project and for urging me to write this
book. Her guidance and mentoring have been invaluable. This research
would not have been possible without the assistance of the Japanese
American Citizens League and its members, administrators, and chapter
presidents. I also wish to acknowledge Franklin Odo for his efforts in
locating interviewees; Jane Okubo for providing names of survey respon-
dents in Hawaii, and the Young Buddhist Association for providing a
directory of their organization.
Computer and statistical consultations were provided by Steven
Trierweiler and Mary Ann Coughlin. Abby Levinson assisted with data
entry. I am also grateful to my research assistants at Smith College who
carefully transcribed the many interviews recorded for the Project.
Thanks to Kathy Bartus for her outstanding clerical assistance in prepar-
ing both the Project survey and the book.
I would like to thank Riel Vermunt, Mel Lerner, Faye Crosby, Steven
Trierweiler, Vivian Leskas, and an anonymous reviewer for their com-
ments on drafts of this manuscript, and Roger Daniels for reviewing the
chapter on historical background and granting permission for the use of
his maps. In addition, I wish to express my appreciation to Eliot Werner
at Plenum for supporting and facilitating the publication of this book.
The majority of work for this book and the Sansei Research Project
was conducted at Smith College. The project was funded by the Picker
Fellowship of Smith College and by the college's Committee on Faculty
Compensation and Development.

xv
xvi Acknowledgments

A special thank you to my husband, Steve, who has been a consul-

tant and colleague from the beginning of this work to its very end. He
was a constant source of creative ideas, support, and encouragement.
Thanks also to my children, Danielle, Marissa, and Aaron, for their
patience throughout.
Finally, I am thankful to my mother and father, whose own experi-
ences led me to begin this work. It is often hard for me to believe that the
internment happened. It is even harder to believe that it happened to
them. If this research contributes to illuminating the effects of injustice,
it is due in no small part to the inspiration they have given me. Their
lives are areminder that on the one hand, freedom is not as secure as it
may appear-yet, on the other, even inconceivable disruptions of life
can be faced with strength of spirit and love of family.
 Contents

1. Historical Background. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
The Decision to Evacuate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
The Evacuation Process ................................ 6
Dissension and Resistance ............................. 13
Resettlement .......................................... 14

2. The Consequences of Injustice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Economic Lass ........................................ 17
Judicial Significance ................................... 20
Japanese American Responses to the Injustice . . . . . . . . . . 20
The Response of the Justice Department ............... 22
Social and Psychological Effects on Internees ............ 26
Impact on the Community ........................... 27
Impact on the Issei .................................. 29
Impact on the Nisei . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

3. Using a Cross-Generational Approach .................. 37

Studying the Cross-Generational Effects of Historical
Events .............................................. 37
The Importance of a Developmental Perspective .......... 40
Studying the Transgenerational Impact of the Internment:
Lessons from Research on the Holocaust .............. 42
Methodological Issues in Evaluating the Cross-
Generational Effects of Trauma ....................... 49

4. The Sansei Research Project: Description and

Methodology .... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Focusing on the Sansei Generation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
xvii
xviii Contents

The Sansei Research Project Survey ..................... 55

Sample ............................................. 55
Measures ........................................... 65
Demographics and Background Information . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Communication Patterns ............................. 66
Interest in the Internment ............................ 66
Level of Knowledge about the Internment ............. 66
Impact on Attitudes ................................. 67
Behavioral Indices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Perceptions of Coping and Suffering .................. 67
Redress Attitudes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
The Sansei Research Project Interviews .................. 68
Interview Procedure ................................. 69
Rationale for Analyses and Presentation of Findings ...... 69
Some Methodological Notes ............................ 71

5. Patterns of Communication 75
Age of First Memory. . . . . .. . . . .... . . . .. .... . . . . . ... . . . . 75
Source of Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Frequency and Length of Conversations with Parents ..... 80
Style of Communication ............................... 85
Barriers to Communication ............................. 91
Degree of Comfort Discussing the Internment ............ 93
Reactions to Communication Patterns ................... 95
Assessing the Impact of Communication Level ........... 96
Summary............................................. 99

6. Interest in and Knowledge of the Internment ............ 103

Interest in the Internment .............................. 103
Level of Knowledge and Number of Asian American
Courses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Summary. . . . .... .. . . . . . . ... . . . . . .. . . . . . . .... . . . . .. . . . 113

7. Ethnic Preference, Confidence in üne's Rights, and the

Possibility of a Future Internment ...................... 115
Assessing General Attitudes ............................ 115
Ethnic Preference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Sense of Confidence ................................. 125
Resistance to Future Internment ...................... 131
Summary............................................. 134
Contents xix

8. Perceptions of Personal and Family Impact.. . .... . . . . ... 137

Assimilation .......................................... 137
Achievement .... . . ...... . . . .... . . . ... .. . . . .... . . . . ... . 138
Self-EsteemlSelf-Identity ............................... 139
Parental Insecurity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
Health Problems in Parents ............................. 141
"What UT' Questions .................................. 143
Family Impact Factars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Familial Distance .................................... 144
Negative Affect ...................................... 148
Positive Impacts ..................................... 149
Additional Family Impact Items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Summary ............................................. 151

9. Perceptions of Suffering and Coping .................... 155

Suffering and Coping among Japanese Americans ........ 157
Parental Suffering and Coping .......................... 161
Summary ............................................. 163

10. Impact on Behaviors .................................. 167

Dating History ........................................ 167
Outmarriage and Intermarriage Rates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Parental Preferences for Marriage ....................... 174
Current Socialization Patterns .......................... 175
Lass of the Japanese Language and Culture .............. 176
Membership in Japanese American Organizations ........ 179
Education and Career Choices .......................... 182
Summary ............................................. 183

11. Redressing Injustice ................................... 185

The Development of the Redress Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
Barriers to Overcome ................................ 186
Moving toward Redress .............................. 189
Perceptions of Sansei Respondents .. , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Summary ............................................. 203

12. Overview and Implications of Findings ................. 207

Overview ............................................. 207
Implications for Understanding Traumatic Stress and
Injustice ............................................ 211
xx Contents

Traumatic Stress, Culture, and Ethnicity ............... 211

Implications for the Study of Injustice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
A Comprehensive Look at the Sansei . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216

13. Questions for the Future ............................... 219

Appendix A: Sansei Research Project Survey ................ 223

Appendix B: Sansei Research Project Interview Questions 243

Appendix C: Summary of Results by Sansei and Parent

Characteristics .......................................... 245

References ... . . .......... . . . ......... . ....... . . .. . ..... . . . 255

Index .................................................... 267

 CHAPTER 1

Historical Background

Whereas the successful prosecution of the war requires every possible protec-
ti on against espionage and against sabotage to national-defense materials,
national-defense premises, and national-defense utilities .... by virtue of
the authority vested in me as President of the United States, and Commander
in Chief of the Army and Navy, I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of
War, and the Military Commanders whom he may from time to time designate,
whenever he or any designated Commander deerns such action necessary or
desirable, to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he
or the appropriate Military Commander may determine, from which any or
a11 persons may be exc1uded, and with respect to which, the right of any
person to enter, remain in, or leave sha11 be subject to whatever restrictions
the Secretary of War or the said Military Commander may impose in his
discretion.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Executive
Order 9066, cited from Commager,
1973,pp.464-465

The Decision to Evacuate

Japanese Americans recognize February 19 as the official Day of Re-

membrance for the Internment. On that date in 1942, President Franklin
D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, ten weeks after the Japanese
attacked Pearl Harbor. The order provided the secretary of war and his
designated officers with the authority to exclude all persons, both
citizens and aliens, from designated areas in order to provide security
against sabotage or espionage. The army took charge of implementing
Executive Order 9066 by removing all Japanese Americans from the
West Coast of the United States, placing them first into temporary
"assembly centers" and later into concentration camps located in deso-
late areas of the country. No formal charges were brought against the

1
2 Chapter 1

]apanese Americans, and there was no opportunity for an individual

review of their loyalty.
The stated rationale for Executive Order 9066 concerned national
security; removal of ]apanese Americans from the West Coast was neces-
sary to provide safeguards against espionage or sabotage. The order was
signed at a time when the military activities of Japan generated increased
concern in the United States (CWRIC, 1982). The ]apanese struck the
Malay Peninsula, Hong Kong, Wake and Midway islands, and the Philip-
pines on the same day they attacked Pearl Harbor. By the time Executive
Order 9066 was signed, they had successfully taken Guam, Wake Island,
most of the Philippines, and Hong Kong. Rumors that the Pearl Harbor
attack had been aided by ethnic ]apanese in Hawaii ran rampant in
newspapers and on radio, fueled by a December 12, 1941, press report
from Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox. Although Knox falsely stated
that ]apanese spiel> operated in Hawaii prior to the Pearl Harbor attack,
his press statements "carried considerable weight and gave credence to
the view that ethnic ]apanese on the mainland were a palpable threat
and danger" (CWRIC, 1982, p. 56). In an atmosphere of paranoia and
general panic, ]apanese American fishing boats were accused of signal-
ing ]apanese submarines with their lights, and ]apanese American
farmers were suspected of planting their fields in rows pointing to
nearby airports (Johnson, 1988).
The fears for American security were not founded on fact. Intel-
ligence reports, including those from the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) and Naval Intelligence, concluded that mass incarceration was
not a military necessity (CWRIC, 1982). Indeed, many of the fears were
founded in racial prejudice evident both in the public and within the
military itself. The views of Lieutenant General lohn L. DeWitt, who
recommended the exclusion of ]apanese from the West Coast, illustrate
the extremity of this prejudice. DeWitt was in charge of West Coast
security under Secretary of War Henry L. Stirnson. Encouraged by both
Major General Allen W. Gullion, the provost mars haI for the army, and
Colonel Karl R. Bendetsen, chief of Gullion's Aliens Division, he pres-
sured the Department of lustiGe to adopt stricter enemy alien controls
(Miyamoto, 1984) and informed Secretary of War Stimson that there were
"indications that ethnic ]apanese were organized and ready for con-
certed action within the United States" (CWRIC, 1982, p. 66). DeWitt saw
the evacuation as a military necessity because he saw no distinction
between the ]apanese and ]apanese Americans. Ethnic heritage alone
determined one's loyalty. Transcripts of a conference between DeWitt
and newspaper reporters on April 14, 1943, recorded hirn stating bluntly
to reporters that "a ]ap is a ]ap" and on February 14, 1942, five days before
the signing of Executive Order 9066, he stated to Secretary Stirnson:
 Historical Background 3

In the war in which we are now engaged racial affinities are not severed by
migration. The Japanese race is an enemy race and while many second and
third generation Japanese born on United States soil, possessed of the United
States citizenship, have become "Americanized," the racial strains are un-
diluted. That Japan is allied with Germany and Italy in this struggle is no
ground for assuming that any Japanese, barred from assimilation by conven-
tion as he is, though born and raised in the United States, will not turn
against this nation when the final test of loyalty comes. It follows that along
the Pacific Coast over 112,000 potential enemies, of Japanese extraction, are at
large today. (Excerpted from CWRIC, 1982, p. 82)

In an incredible "catch-22," DeWitt also noted that "the very fact that no
sabotage has taken place to date is a disturbing and confirming indica-
tion that such action will be taken" (CWRIC, 1982, p. 82).
Research suggests that U.S. intelligence had monitored Japanese
immigrants and their activities befare the war, and as early as August
1941, Army Intelligence inquired ab out the possibility of arresting and
Los prejuicios a
los japoneses detaining those civilians who were American citizens. Prior to Pearl
empezaron antes
del ataque a
Harbar there were also government officials who considered the use of
Pearl Harbor Japanese in America as "barter" and "reprisai" reserves in case the
United States needed to trade "prisoners of war" ar wanted to ensure the
humane treatment of American soldiers who were held as prisoners
(Weglyn, 1976, as cited in Hirabayashi & Hirabayashi, 1984).
Individuals did oppose DeWitt's recommendations, but such oppo-
sition was neither unified nor focused. Both the Justice Department and
J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI proposed that restrained actions would be
preferable to a mass evacuation. Secretary of War Stimson, Assistant
Secretary of War John J. McCloy, and Attorney General Francis Biddle
also disagreed with DeWitt's plans but did not protest them vigorously.
However, stronger political fore es pressed for mass internment along
with DeWitt. Justificación

That the motivations behind the internment could not be justified

simply on the basis of military necessity was evident when contrasting
the sequence of events in Hawaii with those on the mainland. The La mayoría de
military interned only 1% of the Japanese population in Hawaii, which los campos
estaban en el
was significantly doser to Japan, compared with more than 90% of the continente

Japanese Americans on the mainland (Ogawa & Fox, 1986). Several

factars contributed to the differential treatment of the Hawaiian Japanese
(CWRIC, 1982). Japanese Americans composed a significant portion,
more than one-third, of Hawaii's population, and the territory's popula- Los japoneses
eran una porción
tion was more pluralistic and ethnically tolerant than the mainland. importante en
Hawaii, donde
Anti-Asian sentiment, although present, did not occur at the levels vivían más que
en el continente
evident along the West Coast. Because they were so numerous, an
internment of all Japanese Americans would severely hamper day-to-
day functioning on the island~. In addition, General Delos Emmons of
 4 Chapterl

the War Department, the commanding general of Hawaii, urged a re-

strained response to the presence of ethnic ]apanese, recommended that
the size of the areas prohibited to Japanese Americans be reduced, and
objected to the exclusion of persons not actually or potentially dan-
gerous. The difference in treatment between the Hawaiian and mainland
]apanese Americans is striking.
Some have suggested that even if there were no military necessity to
evacuate the ]apanese Americans from the West Coast, the exclusion was
"Forma de
justified on grounds of protecting ethnic ]apanese from vigilantes.
proteger a los
japoneses". Se
Grodzins (1949) reported that between the December 7 attack on Pearl
reportaron Harbor and February 15, 1942, five ethnic ]apanese were murdered. In
asesinatos,
violaciones, robos addition, 25 serious crimes including rape, shootings, and robbery were
y disparos contra
estos entre reported. More violence against ethnic ]apanese continued after the
diciembre y
febrero
signing of Executive Order 9066. These figures almost certainly repre-
sent a fraction of actual anti-]apanese acts because many instances went
unreported. Yet, the CWRIC final report (1982) notes that protection from
vigilantes would not be a sufficient reason for mass evacuation, since
keeping the peace is a civil, not a military, matter. In addition, such
"protection" would not necessitate ordering the public from their hornes
and incarcerating them for such a lengthy period of time.
The racism underlying the internment did not emerge suddenly, for
although Executive Order 9066 may serve as an official "beginning" to
the internment, decades of anti-Asian prejudice prior to World War 11 set
the context for its inception. As Daniels (1988) notes, the ]apanese were
initially welcomed in the mid-1800s in Hawaii as a source of cheap labor
on sugar plantations. The Chinese, who had been brought earlier to
Hawaii as a source of inexpensive labor, came to be seen as problematic
when their numbers increased. By the 1800s, ]apanese labor groups were
recruited in large numbers from Hawaii to come to the mainland and
work in agriculture (Daniels, 1988).
As the numbers of ]apanese increased on the mainland, so did the Entre más
eran más
levels of prejudice and hostility around them. The media portrayed the hostilidad
había
Japanese as a "yellow peril," and by 1908, the Gentleman's Agreement
(an executive agreement between the United States and Japan) restricted
immigration from Japan. The Gentleman's Agreement prevented the
immigration of ]apanese men but did allow for a significant number of
Japanese women to immigrate as picture brides and begin families in
this country. However, in 1924 the Immigration Act effectively stopped
all ]apanese immigration until1965. These immigration restrictions had
important long-term consequences in defining the demographics of the
]apanese American community, isolating ]apanese couples in the United
States and creating a population with "unique age distributions" and
 Historical Background 5

distinct age peaks for each generation (Fujimoto, Bergstrom, Newell-

Morris, & Leonetti, 1989). For example, by 1940 the Issei (first-generation
]apanese immigrant) men were generally between the ages of 50 and 64,
whereas the Issei warnen tended to be approximately 10 years younger.
Most of their U.S.-born children (the Nisei) were born between 1918 and
1922.
Pre-World War 11 discrimination against the ]apanese was also evi-
Los matrimonios
dent in other forms of anti-]apanese legislation. Antimiscegenation laws
interraciales entre prohibited ]apanese Americans from intermarrying with whites. In
americanos y
japoneses estaba addition, ]apanese were considered "aliens ineligible for citizenship,"
prohibido. No podían
aplicar a la and the 1913 Alien Land Law in California (where the vast majority of
ciudadanía y no
podían tener
mainland ]apanese lived) barred such aliens from purchasing land and
propiedades owning property (CWRIC, 1982). In fact, ]apanese immigrants could not
(California)
become citizens until1952 (Knall, 1982).
Economic competition fueled anti-]apanese sentiment along the
West Coast prior to the war. More than 50% of all ]apanese men along the
West Coast made their living through agriculture, forestry, and fishing
(Daniels, 1988). In 1940, ]apanese American farms in California, Wash-
ington, and Oregon numbered over 6,000 and comprised a total of
250,000 acres. Most were small family businesses that specialized in "a
labor-intensive, high-yield agricultural technique as opposed to the
resource-intensive, low-yield agriculture characteristic of American
farming" (Daniels, 1988, p. 163). Altogether, these farms were valued at
$72.6 million, and the productivity of the ]apanese American farmers
benefitted the West Coast (Daniels, 1988). Nonetheless, their success
threatened many white American groups. Fears that the ]apanese
farmers were driving whites out of business heightened negative feel-
ings, as did the erroneous perception that the ]apanese population was
exploding and creating a "yellow peril." Records show that, in reality,
the ]apanese farmers in California were not displacing existing farmers
(Daniels, 1988).
Years of the anti-]apanese sentiment prior to World War 11 set the
emotional and economic stage for the removal of ]apanese Americans.
Then came the shock of Pearl Harbor, which crystallized these views
into a panic. Not surprisingly, the majority of citizens favored harsh
treatment of ]apanese Americans. In March 1942, the National Opinion
Research Center found that a vast majority of the public supported
internment. Ninety-three percent of those questioned approved of the
relocation of ]apanese aliens, and 60% favored the evacuation of U.S.
citizens as well. Two-thirds thought that once the ]apanese Americans
were incarcerated, they should not be allowed to move freely within the
camps, but rather they ought to be kept "under strict guard like prisoners
6 Chapter 1

of war" (Coombs, 1986). Additional polIs revealed that more than half of
those sampled wanted to send all ]apanese Americans to Japan after the
war (Kitano & Daniels, 1988).
Those who had typically advocated for civil rights also remained
silent or endorsed the internment orders. A majority of members of the
Northern California Civil Liberties Union actually favored the evacua-
tion orders in the spring of 1942 (CWRIC, 1982). ]apanese Americans
clearly were excluded from the moral community of most other Ameri-
cans at that time. Moral exclusion occurs when "individuals or groups
are perceived as outside the boundary in which moral values, rules, and
considerations of fairness apply. Those who are mo rally excluded are
perceived as nonentities, expendable, or undeserving; consequently,
harming them appears acceptable, appropriate, or just" (Opotow, 1990a,
p. 1). ]apanese Americans, viewed as treacherous, racially inferior, and
unassimilable, were easily excluded. On the other hand, German and
Italian Americans, who were racially similar to the dominant group,
much more numerous, and politically powerful, did not suffer the
extreme pressures toward mass incarceration; they remained within the
boundaries of inclusion.

The Evacuation Process

Pearl Harbor affected ]apanese Americans immediately. On the

night of December 7, 1941, the FBI arrested approximately 1,500 Issei
aliens who were considered to be potentially disloyal. Virtually all
the leaders of ]apanese American communities were removed, often
with no explanation or indication of their fate. The void in leadership
within the communities left ]apanese Americans with few options.
]ustice literature has documented four major types of behavioral re-
sponse to an unjust event (Mikula, 1986). These include attempts to
restore justice, either by one's own intervention or by seeking support 4 tipos de
respuesta a los
from others; punishment of the perpetrator; leaving the field; and resig- tratos injustos

nation. ]apanese Americans were in no position to restore justice, to

actively resist the internment orders, or to punish the government. Most
couldnot leave the area because of family ties and fears of relocating to
unknown areas. And, as noted previously, there was no political group
in the larger community to support a resistance of the internment orders.
As a result, the vast majority of ]apanese Americans "played a passive
role-waiting to see what their government would do with them"
(Daniels, 1988, p. 213).
Initially, General DeWitt attempted to implement a plan of "volun-
Historical Background 7

tary" resettlement. According to the plan, Japanese Americans would be

restricted from military zones of the West Coast (see Figure 1.1) but free
to move outside of those zones. Data from the D.S. army indicated that
approximately 5,000 individuals chose this option and "voluntarily" Fail

migrated east between March and October of 1942, in addition to an

uncounted number who fled the West Coast between December 7, 1941,
and March 1942 (Daniels, 1986b). The plan, however, was destined to
fail. It was impossible for Issei and Nisei to seIl their businesses and
hornes quickly. Many had no funds with which to move because their
monies had been fra zen by the government. They feared the hostility of
an unknown destination. Japanese Americans could easily be recog-
nized wherever they went, and interior states such as Idaho and Wyo-
ming were no more welcoming than West Coast states. Recognizing the
inadequacy of the voluntary relocation program, the government took
contral over the evacuation process and implemented a plan for com-
pulsory removal of Japanese Americans.
Because it was impossible to evacuate and relocate such a large
group of people at the same time, the Japanese Americans first had to be
transported to temporary "assembly centers." Later, when the more
permanent camps were built, the internees would be moved again. The
evacuation to assembly centers was carried out under military super-
vision of the army between March and August of 1942. Although there
were Japanese Americans who were aware of the potential for same kind
of evacuation, the army typically withheld details about the impending
move, leaving little time or information for preparations (Daniels, 1988).
Many were given but a few days' notice that they would be leaving their Se informó
con poco
hornes. They took what they could carry. The economic lasses stemming tiempo de
anticipación
from the enforced evacuation were tremendous. Real estate, cars, ap-
pliances, farm equipment, craps ready for harvest, and personal posses-
sions were sold for a fraction of their worth or simply left behind in
haste. The fact that the military would not inform the Japanese Ameri-
cans of their destination made the decision of what to bring more
difficult. Families did not know whether to pack for cold or warm
dimates.
Throughout the evacuation families ware impersonal numbered
tags. Travel by train or bus to the assembly centers was stressful and
dehumanizing. Same trains had inadequate food supplies. Window
shades blocked out the scenery, and passengers could not tell their
whereabouts. As armed guards patrolled the trains, gossip arose that the
military planned to take the Japanese Americans to an isolated area and
shoot them.
After traveling hours without dear information about their destina-
8 Chapterl

z
: MILITARY AREA LEGENO
- _.. .{
oe ')~ P'ohlbil.d Zone

,( ~ R•• lrleled Zone

Q 0 N

_..•.._.. _
o SCALE
20 40 100
.. ....! 40J 0 ! 110 I
(IN MILU)

,
r " -"- " - " - ' ~
,", : I
c ,
, r-~ 11 I Z 0 ....

Figure 1.1. Original evacuation zones, March 1942 (Reprinted by permission from Daniels
[1988, p. 215)).
 Historical Background 9

tion or what fate lay in store for them, the internees arrived at the
assembly centers. Sixteen of the hastily converted assembly centers
were located in California, and an additional three were in Washington,
Oregon, and Arizona. Many were located at race tracks and fairgrounds,
where the ]apanese Americans lived in hürse stalls and animal quarters.
Although whitewashed, they still smelled of manure. A family of eight
was squeezed into a 20- by 24-foot space, four persons into an 8- by 20- Assembly
centers
foot space. Married couples often shared one large space, living in
sections partitioned by a hanging sheet. Inadequate food, sanitation, and
medical facilities proved equally problematic. Military police with
machine guns guarded the perimeter of the centers, while internal
police instituted curfews, roll calls, and searches within the camps
(CWRIC, 1982).
Although most interne es lived with their families at the assembly
center, others arrived without their complete family. Often, the father or
Separación de
familias
husband had been taken by the FBI prior to the evacuation, but in other
circumstances families were separated from loved ones who were insti-
tutionalized or incapacitated. Non-]apanese spouses of interracial cou-
pIes also faced internment if they wanted to remain with their husband
or wife.
Although assembly centers were labeled "temporary," the ]apanese
Americans remained in the centers for an average of 3 months (CWRIC,
1982). Then, at the end of May 1942, the process of uprooting began
again. This time the long, tiresome train rides ended at the more
permanent concentration camps. These 10 camps, as shown in Figure
1.2, were located in barren areas outside the exclusion area.
Many ]apanese Americans hoped that the concentration camps
(euphemistically called "relocation centers") would provide better liv-
ing conditions than the assembly centers. Unfortunately, the conditions
were not significantly better. Barbed wire and armed guards persisted, as
did the harsh living conditions. No camp housed less than 7,000 inter-
nees, and the largest held over 18,000 (CWRIC, 1982). Barrack-style
housing was constructed specifically for the purpose of containing the
]apanese Americans. Each "block" consisted of 12 to 14 barracks, a
communal mess hall, toilet and bath facilities, alaundry, and a recre-
ation hall. A barrack measured approximately 20 by 100 feet and was
divided into four to six rooms (CWRIC, 1982). At Topaz, a camp that was
typical of the others, rooms ranged in size from 20 feet by 8 feet, to 20 feet
by 24 feet (Daniels, 1988). Each room contained one family. Sparse
furnishings included a cot, a coal-burning stove with no coal, and a light
bulb hanging from the ceiling. There was no running water. Internees
braved extreme temperatures throughout the year. In the deserts, where
10 Chapter1

Figure 1.2. The WRA camps, 1942-1946 (Reprinted by permission from Daniels [1988,
p. 216]).

many of the camps were located, winter temperatures could reach as low
as 35 below zero and summers could be as high as 115 degrees. Dust
storms arose frequently.
The War Relocation Authority (WRA), a newly formed civilian
agency, was responsible for the camps.1t planned to act as a facilitator of
the re settlement rather than a warden for prisoners and proposed a
policy that would entitle the Japanese Americans to the same treatment
as other American citizens. As noted in the CWRIC final report, however,
the actual experience of the Japanese Americans fell far short of this
initial goal. The institutional mess-hall meals were minimally adequate.
Dairy items were in continual shortage, and some centers had no meat
for several days each week. Facilities for the siek, elderly, and mothers
with infants were particularly poor. The WRA did prepare special meals
for those with health problems, but the elderly and siek who needed the
special meals might have to walk a mile three times a day to get them
because the meals were prepared in a building separate from the mess
halls. The shortage of medical care, evident in the assembly centers, also
continued. At one point, the camp in Jerome, Arkansas, had only seven
Historical Background 11

doctors to provide care to 10,000 people. Epidemics of dysentery, ty-

phoid, and tuberculosis were reported in several camps (CWRIC, 1982).
The Japanese Americans had meager opportunities for work while
interned and performed a variety of jobs: Many worked in agriculture or
food preparation, while others constructed camouflage nets or operated
sawmills. According to the 1982 Commission on Wartime Relocation
and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC), the WRA encouraged their partici-
pation because they hoped that outsiders would view such work as a
sign of Japanese American loyalty. However, a strict limit on earnings
was set. Camp internees could earn no more than $19.00 a month,
regardless of whether they worked as nurses or field workers. In con-
trast, a white WRA librarian might earn $167.00 a month in camp
(CWRIC, 1982).
Some 30,000 Japanese American children attended public school at
the time of the internment (James, 1987). Although inadequate numbers
of textbooks, equipment, and trained teachers severely limited what
could be accomplished, both the Issei and older Nisei remained commit-
ted to providing an education for the young internees. Within weeks, the
Japanese American residents themselves set up kindergarten and En-
glish classes, even in the temporary assembly centers (James, 1987).
However, once the interne es were transferred to the more permanent
concentration camps, the WRA made little effort to retain the educa-
tional initiatives from the assembly centers and instead instituted inade-
quate and paternalistic educational policies that paralleled those devel-
oped by the government for the Navajos during the 1930s. These policies
emphasized the indoctrination of mainstream American values. School-
ing was to be integrated with a planned, isolated community life that
could "speed up the assimilation of Japanese Americans into the domi-
nant pattern of American life, in much the same way that social pro-
grams in the 1930's had helped to relocate needy groups in the social
order" (James, 1987, p. 38). Approximately 600 Caucasian American
teachers, 50 certified Japanese American teachers, and 400 Japanese
American assistant teachers eventually taught in the camps.
The WRA's system of governance gave it veto power over alllegisla-
tive activities. It also barred the Issei from holding elected office and
created conflicts between the Issei and Nisei generations by placing
greater official authority in the hands of the children and disenfranchis-
ing their parents. Such a structure directly opposed Japanese cultural
values of filial piety and deference to one's elders.
Other government policies produced friction among internees. In
early 1943, all Japanese Americans over age 16 in the camps were
required to answer loyalty questions. These questions were to serve two
12 Chapter 1

purposes. First, they would be used to help camp authorities pracess

interne es requesting work furloughs and resettlement outside the
camps. Second, because the government had decided to open enlist-
ment into the armed forces to ]apanese Americans in 1944, a system was
needed by which "loyal" and "disloyal" ]apanese could be distin-
guished. To accomplish this latter task, army officers and WRA staff
distributed questionnaires to all draft-age males that contained two
critical questions about loyalty. Question 27 asked, ''Are you willing to
serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat duty, wherever Preguntas de
carácter
ordered?" Question 28 asked, "Will you swear unqualified allegiance to militar para

the Uni ted States of America and faithfully defend the United States probar la
lealtad de la
from any or all attack by foreign or domestic forces, and forswear any persona

form of allegiance or obedience to the ]apanese emperor, or any other

government, power or organization?" The answers to the required ques-
tions were then used in registering Nisei men for the draft (Takaki, 1989).
The Issei and women internees were required to answer loyalty ques-
tions as weIl, although Question 27 was rephrased to ask wh ether they
were willing to serve in the WACS or Army Nurse Corps.
The loyalty questionnaire raised significant and painful conflicts
for Issei and Nisei alike and again demonstrated the government's
blatant insensitivity to the circumstances of the ]apanese Americans.
The Issei struggled over Question 28. To answer "yes" would require
them to renounce their ]apanese nationality. Yet, because they were
legally prevented fram becoming American citizens, this would leave
them without a country of citizenship at aIl! On the other hand, an
answer of "no" would be seen as disloyal and could lead to being
transferred to another camp and separated fram one's children who were
citizens of the United States. The loyalty oath essentially asked the
Issei to "voluntarily assurne a stateless status," arequest that was "a clear
violation of the Geneva convention" (Daniels, 1986a, p. 6).
Loyalty questions concerned the Nisei as weIl. Some wondered if
Question 28 were a trick question, since forswearing allegiance to the
emperor might also be construed as admitting that allegiance had once
existed. Question 27 asked them to fight for the country that had so
unjustly imprisoned them. Tensions and debates over how to res pond to
the loyalty questions arose between family members and friends. In the
end, the majority of internees (87%) answered the questions with an
unqualified "yes." Qualified answers and unanswered questions were
interpreted as "no's." The approximately 8,000 who answered "no" to
both Question 27 and 28 were considered "disloyals" and eventually
shipped to a special high-security camp at Tule Lake. There the so-called
"no-no's" joined individuals who wished to expatriate or repatriate to
Japan (CWRIC, 1982).
Historical Background 13

By January 1944, following the loyalty questionnaire, the govern-

ment reinstituted the draft for Japanese Americans. According to the
selective service, approximately 23,000 Nisei served during World War
11. About half came from the continental United States, and among these
were 2,800 Nisei inductees from the camps. Some of the young Nisei
males willingly joined the armed forces. The all-Japanese American
lOoth Battalion and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, composed of
volunteers from Hawaii and the camps, became famous for their bravery
and loyalty (Daniels, 1988). Other Nisei contributed to the war effort
through their service in the intelligence or by acting as interrogators of
Japanese war prisoners in combat. Ironically, the Japanese heritage that
made them targets for suspected disloyalty had become an asset.

Dissension and Resistance

The outstanding service record of Japanese Americans who served

in the military might lead one to believe that all internees supported the
recruitment effort. Other statistics, however, indicate that there were
Nisei who did not accept military service as a positive alternative.
Twenty-two percent of the total Nisei males eligible for the draft refused
to answer "yes" to both of the loyalty questions. In addition, the army
eventually recruited only 1,208 volunteers from the camps (Takaki,
1989). The proportion of volunteers from the noninterned Hawaiian
Japanese was significantly higher. Daniels (1988) also points out that
many Japanese American soldiers who fought in Europe were farmers.
White farmers of draft age would have received deferments as "essential
agricultural workers," but no such occupational deferments were avail-
able to Japanese Americans. And while the 442nd Regiment and 100th
Battalion were exemplary combat units, Company K, another all-Ni sei
unit, was plagued by low morale and insubordination (Shibutani, 1978).
Not all Nisei welcomed the draft as a sign of reinstated rights. For them,
the loyalty questionnaire and the draft represented additional insults to
their citizenship and rights. At the Heart Mountain camp, some 85 men
were indicted and convicted for draft resistance (Daniels, 1988).
Draft resistance represented only one example of the Japanese
American disillusionment. Renunciation of citizenship represented yet
another. By January 1945, over 5,000 Nisei had renounced their Ameri-
can citizenship (CWRlC, 1982). Some regretted their decision several
months later when an end to the war appeared near and the Justice
Department announced that Nisei renunciants would be deported to
Japan while their Issei parents would be relocated in the United States.
Eventually, after negotiating considerable legal and bureaucratic com-
 14 Chapterl

plexities, all who wished to invalidate their renunciations were able to

da so. Other Japanese Americans filed for repatriation (in the case of
aliens) or expatriation (in the case of citizens) to Japan.
In the assembly and relocation centers, applications to go to Japan had been
one of the few nonviolent ways to protest degrading treatment. During three
years of rising humiliation, 20,000 people chose this means to express their
pain, outrage and alienation, in one of the saddest testaments to the injustice
of exclusion and detection .... 111e cold statistics fai! ... to convey the scars
of mind and soul that many carried with them from the camps. (CWRIC,
1982, p. 252)

As was the case with renunciants, most repatriation and expatriation

applicants eventually remained in the United States. It is nonetheless
sobering that 4,724 Japanese Americans actually left the camps for Japan
(CWRIC, 1982).

Los Nisei salieron de los

campos y tomaron los
trabajos manuales que
Resettlement
encontraban en sus
nuevas ciudades, pero
Beginning in 1943, Nisei who answered "yes" to the loyalty oath but
los Issei generalmente se
rehusaban a salir.
did not enlist in the service began receiving clearance to leave the camps
for areas outside the restricted zones of the West Coast. Resettlement was
a slow process. Those who left the camps were given one-way transpor-
tation costs and $25 to begin a new life. Young Nisei between the ages of
15 and 35 relocated in cities such as Chicago, Denver, and New York and
took whatever form of work they could find (CWRIC, 1982). Many
became domestics or performed other forms of manual labor. Between
2,300 and 2,700 ended up working at Seabrook Farms in New Jersey.
These individuals were influenced by farm recruiters who went to the
camps to solicÜ: resettlers by feedback from trial groups sent from the
camps and letters from those already resettled in Seabrook (Sawada,
1986-1987).
Although resettlement had been a goal of the WRA from early on in
the internment, there were many reasons why the Japanese Americans
were reluctant to leave the camps (Sawada, 1986-1987). In addition to
experiencing the physical and emotional stress of imprisonment, many
were fearful to leave the camps and distrustful of resettlement offers.
This was especially true of the older Issei. Government records showed
that by January 1945, only one of six Issei had left the camps, and it was
not until June 1946 that all camps (with the exception of Tule Lake,
where hearings on detainees were held) closed. The cumbersome proce-
dures required to establish leave clearance from the camps also delayed
resettlement. These procedures often took so lang that job offers that
Historical Background 15

were initially available were no longer in effect on ce the paperwork was

completed. In addition, the army's Eastern and Southern Defense Com-
mands would not permit Japanese American resettlers as residents in
their areas during the early phases of the resettlement efforts.
In May 1944, Secretary Stimson informed President Roosevelt and
his cabinet that the incarceration of Japanese Americans was no longer a
military necessity, and by December of that year the West Coast was
reopened for resettlement (CWRIC, 1982; Kashima, 1980). Greater than
two-thirds of those who left the camps eventually returned to their
previous region of residence (Daniels, 1988). Both those who resettled in
cities away from the West Coast and those who returned to their home-
towns faced many adjustments. Kashima (1980), in fact, refers to the
resettlement years between 1945 and 1955 as a crisis period for Japanese
Americans, a time when they were forced to readjust to a normallife
after the camps, find jobs and a place to live, and confront an often
hostile environment. Most found their original neighborhoods greatly
changed. Areas that had once been the "Japantowns" and centers of
Japanese American community life had, over the war years, become
occupied by other ethnic minority groups. In addition, anti-Japanese
sentiments remained high, and 31 major attacks on California relocatees
were reported between January and June of 1945 (Fisher, 1965, as cited in
Kashima, 1980).
We have seen that by spring of 1943, following the loyalty review of
interne es , there was evidence that the incarceration of the Japanese
Americans was not a military necessity. Yet, many Japanese Americans
remained in the camps through 1945. Why was this so? The following
quote taken from the CWRIC report provides the sobering ans wer to this
question:
... the President was unwilling to act to end the exclusion until the first
Cabinet meeting following the Presidential election of November, 1944. The
inescapable conclusion fram this ... pattern is that the delay was motivated
by political considerations. By the participants' own accounts, there is no
rational explanation for maintaining the exclusion of loyal ethnic Japanese
fram the West Coast for eighteen months after May, 1943-except political
pressure and fear. (CWRIC, 1982, pp. 15-16)

From the beginnings of the decision to evacuate, to the closing of the

camps, the Japanese Americans were the victims of racial, economic,
and political injustices. By the end of the internment, with their commu-
nity dispersed across the country, their lives would never be the same.
 CHAPTER 2

The Consequences of Injustice

Although the closing of the camps officially ended the internment, the
repercussions of the incarceration extended far beyond that date. Indi-
viduals, families, and whole communities feIt the economic, social, and
psychological ramifications for years to come.

Economic Loss

The internment uprooted the Japanese Americans, robbing them of

their hornes, their personal belongings, and their livelihoods. Economic
losses began almost immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Many
families burned all items remotely related to Japan, including books,
photographs, letters, and family heirlooms, fearful that these would be
seen as evidence of disloyalty to the United States. Once Executive
Order 9066 was issued, individuals grew increasingly fearful and sacri-
ficed even more of their pos sessions in haste. Personal belongings and
entire business es were sold within days for a fraction of their worth. For
example, 26-room hotels sold for $500 (CWRIC, 1982). Whereas some
Japanese Americans who entrusted belongings in the custody of non-
Japanese remaining on the West Coast returned after the war to find
items intact, others found their buildings destroyed or vandalized and
personal possessions broken or stolen. Professionals and salaried
workers feIt other forms of economic loss, as they were forced to leave
for camp with thousands of dollars of uncollected bills (CWRIC, 1982).
Many of the Nisei were just approaching working age when they were
incarcerated and suddenly found themselves without a future (Taylor,
1986).
Although the government recognized the need to develop a plan for
safeguarding the property of Japanese Americans at the very beginning
of the internment process, the responsibility for the task was tossed from
17
18 Chapter 2
Protección de las pertenencias de los japoneses

one bureaucratic agency to another. Hundreds of property leases were

lost, and equities in land and buildings, built up over a lifetime for many
]apanese Americans, disappeared without record (Myer, 1971). By the
time the WRA was organized and took charge, the military had already
removed the ]apanese Americans from their hornes and the losses had
been incurred.
The majority of ]apanese Americans at the time of Pearl Harbor
worked in agricultural-related businesses. In 1940, approximately 45%
of the employed ]apanese Americans grew crops, and another Cosecha
18% were
involved in the wholesale, retail, or transportation of crops (CWRIC,
1982). It is not surprising, then, that the greatest economic impact of the
internment was feIt in agriculture. The 1982 CWRIC report notes that
although ]apanese Americans farms composed only 2.2% of the total
number of farms and 1.5% of the crops harvested on the West Coast,
]apanese American farms were extremely valuable. The average value
per acre in 1940 was $279.96 per acre for ]apanese American farms,
versus $37.94 per acre for all farms. ]apanese Americans raised labor-
intensive fruit, truck, and specialty crops and dominated the fruit and
vegetable market in California. They also produced more than half of the
flowers grown in Los Angeles County.
The success of the ]apanese American farms came after many years
of hard work under adverse conditions. Alien Land Laws in California
and similar restrictions in other western states prevented the Issei from
owning land because they were aliens ineligible for citizenship (Kitano
& Daniels, 1988). This forced most ]apanese Americans to rent, and they
were forced to pay higher rents per acre relative to the value of the land
than white Americans. In 1920, the average California cash rent per acre
for whites was $10.91, compared with $24.75 for ]apanese Americans
(Okihiro & Drummond, 1986).
The combination of profitable farms and anti-Asian sentiment have
led to the observation that the internment was motivated as much by
economic greed as by military security (Okihiro & Drummond, 1986). A
number of agricultural groups stood to gain substantial profits through
the mass removal of the ]apanese Americans. Some even openly admiUed
their self-interested motivations. For example, the managing secretary
of the Grower-Shipper Vegetable Association at the time was recorded as
stating:

We're charged with wanting to get rid of the Japs for selfish reasons. We
might as weIl be honest. We do. Jt's a question of whether the white man lives
on the Pacific or the brown man .... If aIl the Japs were removed tomoITow,
we'd never miss them in two weeks, because the white farmers can take over
and produce everything the Jap grows. And we don't want them back when
the war ends either. (Grodzins, 1949, pp. 27-28)
The Consequences of Injustice 19

When the orders to evacuate arrived, ]apanese American farmers

were about to harvest many of their crops. One can easily imagine the
sense of discouragement they feIt, knowing they would not collect the
profits of their investment. The government, however, needed the crops
and announced that continued ]apanese American crop production
would be seen as a measure of 10yaIty. Three days layer, the military
stated that crop neglect or damage would be considered an act of
sabotage. The ]apanese Americans were placed in an incredible double
bind. Not only did they recognize that they would lose the economic
benefits of months of hard work, but they were forced to continue
working until the final moment of evacuation to support the very
government that was removing them from their farms (CWRIC, 1982).
Economic problems continued to plague internees once they en-
tered the camps. Property that had not been lost or sold at the time of
evacuation was lost during incarceration through nonpayment of taxes
(Taylor, 1986). With an earning potential of only $12.00 to $19.00 per
month, many ]apanese Americans were unable to meet their tax obliga-
tions.
Putting a price tag on the dollar amounts lost by the ]apanese
Americans is an impossible task for many reasons (Taylor, 1986). Tax
records would provide an important source of information, but by 1944,
the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) had destroyed most of the critical
1939-1942 tax records of internees. Congress did pass the ]apanese Evac-
uation Claims Act in 1948, which allowed internees to request compen- Podían pedir
una
sation from the government. However, many of the economic lasses compensación
por las
suffered by the ]apanese Americans occurred in the days prior to the pérdidas
económicas
evacuation when items were destroyed in the panic following Pearl
Harbor. The government indicated that such lasses stemmed from gen-
eral hysteria, not from the evacuation itself, and did not qualify for
compensation. Approximately $148 million in claims were filed und er
the act, but the government distributed only $37 million in compensa-
tion between the years of 1948 and 1956. Financial decisions made by
the U.S. attorney general were final and not open to appeal. The claim
and settlement procedure was, according to the CWRIC final report,
H ••• tilted in favor of the government . . . [since1the difficuIty of pro-
vi ding persuasive evidence of claimants' losses, the evidentiary stan-
dards followed by the ]ustice Department and a compromise authority
which encouraged the reduction of many claims, would tend to result in
settlements well below the actual value of losses" (pp. 120-121). The
CWRIC estimated that the total uncompensated lasses suffered by the
]apanese Americans were between $1.2 and $3.1 billion dollars. If
adjusted for inflation, the figures ranged between $2.5 and $6.2 billion
(Taylor, 1986).
20 Chapter 2

The Issei were particularly hard hit by the internment. Most never
regained their prewar economic status. Morishima (1982) reported that
when comparing the economic worth of a sampie of 100 Issei and their
white counterparts from the state of Washington in 1980, the average
Issei's worth was significantly less than that of a white person. Although
the data are based on a small sampie of individuals, Morishima hypothe-
sized that they are suggestive of a pattern for most Issei.

Judicial Significance

Beyond the issues of financialloss lay perhaps even more disturb-

ing questions. What had happened to the principles of democracy and
justice? How could the constitutional rights of an entire group of Ameri-
can citizens be suspended? Most Americans pride themselves on living
in a country where there is "freedom and justice for all." The internment
directly countered these notions of governance. üf the more than 110,000
individuals incarcerated, elose to 70,000 were American citizens. In his
statement before the CWRIC in 1981, Edward Ennis of the American
Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) referred to the internment as "the greatest
deprivation of civilliberties by government in this country since slav-
ery" (cited from Irons, 1982, p. 349).

Japanese American Responses to the Injusüce

Given the magnitude of this injustice, one might have expected
Japanese Americans to actively protest their treatment. Yet, most did not.
Perhaps they simply did not perceive the extent of their victimization.
Without the perception of injustice, there would be little need to chal-
lenge their treatment (Cohen, 1986). This explanation, however, is not
supported by the testimonies and oral histories gathered from former
internees; such evidence indicates that most Japanese Americans, and
particularly the Nisei, were aware of their unjust treatment.
Simply because a group recognizes injustice, however, does not
mean that they will protest their situation (Cohen, 1986). In fact, victims
of injustice frequently do not challenge their perpetrators. The social
context surrounding an unjust event plays a major role in moderating
both the experience of injustice and subsequent responses to it (Fine,
1983). Although in theory there were a variety of ways in which Japanese
Americans might have responded to their dilemma (see Mikula, 1980),
in reality few options existed. Power and access to resources determine
The Consequences of Injustice 21

such reactions (Cook & Hegtvedt, 1986; Kidder & Fine, 1986). Japanese
Americans in 1942 represented a small and powerless minority. The
Issei were barred from becoming citizens, and the Nisei were barely of
voting age (Kitano, 1976). Excluded from much of the dominant society,
they also had little support from others who might intervene on their
behalf to protest the internment (Nagata, 1990b).
Equally important in determining responses to perceived injustice
is the victim's assessment of the potential costs to challenging his or her
treatment (Cohen, 1986; Kidder & Fine, 1986) and the likelihood of
success for his or her efforts (Fine, 1983). The risk involved in such a
challenge is often obvious only to the victim (Fine, 1983). Japanese
Americans were already labeled as potentially dangeraus and disloyal.
From their perspective, efforts to actively resist government orders
could be interpreted by others as confirrnation of these fears. Having
witnessed the swift removal of Issei leaders from their communities,
they also feared being separated from family members if they disobeyed
government orders.
The internment also represented one of many instances of racism
and discrimination that Japanese Americans encountered. As Martin
(1986) points out, ethnic minority groups who have experienced such
injustices "time and time again" may be more expectant of unjust
treatment. Because experimental evidence suggests that expected injus-
tice causes less distress in victims than unexpected injustice (Aus tin &
Walster, 1974, as cited in Martin, 1986), the lack of Japanese American
protest mayaiso have stemmed from their status as second-class citizens
whose rights had routinely been violated.
There was also pressure to conform to the internment orders from
within the Japanese American community itself. The Japanese American
Citizens League (JACL) actually opposed test litigation and recom-
mended compliance with government and intelligence procedures,
even to the point where JACL leaders cooperated as informants before
the evacuation (Daniels, 1988). It was hoped that such cooperation
would demonstrate the patriotism of Japanese Americans.
It is also important to consider the role of culture in shaping the
Japanese American response to the internment (Kitano, 1976). A number
of differences exist between Japanese cultural values, which emphasize
interdependence, and American values, which emphasize indepen-
dence (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). The Japanese focus on interdepen-
dence stresses group harmony (Fugita & O'Brien, 1991), astrang avoid-
ance of public confrontation (Kawashima, 1963, as cited in Kidder, 1981;
Kiefer, 1974), and an aversion of anger (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Each
of these values would lead the Nisei to avoid direct confrontation with
22 Chapter 2

the government. Although younger generations of ]apanese Americans

have criticized the Nisei for conforming passively at the time of the
internment, conformity, within the ]apanese culture, is not viewed as a
negative behavior. Rather, "it can signify a willingness to be responsive
to others and to adjust one's own demands" (Markus & Kitayama, 1991,
p. 247).

The Response 0/ the Justice Department

We have seen that many factors made it unlikely the ]apanese

Americans would protest their internment. But what was the response of
the judicial branch? Weren't the constitutional rights of ]apanese Ameri-
cans being violated? Interestingly, despite the unprecedented nature of
the internment, the United States government has never reviewed the
fundamental question of whether the massive eviction and incarcera-
tion was justified. Instead, judicial evaluations of the event have been
limited to Supreme Court cases that reviewed Executive Order 9066 in
the context of specific individuals convicted of violating military orders
for curfew and geographic restrictions (Irons, 1983).
After Pearl Harbor, the ]ustice Department initially rejected the idea
that merely being an enemy alien should be seen as probable cause to
search and opposed mass raids (CWRIC, 1982). However, the army
pressured the lustiGe Department to endorse a plan allowing multiple
spot searches without a warrant. Being an enemy alien was sufficient
cause for implementing a search. In the end, the lustiGe Department's
endorsement represented a highly significant compromise in which
"under military pressure, lustiGe was gradually giving way to the Army's
fear of espionage and sabotage" (CWRIC, 1982, p. 62).
Five ]apanese Americans did challenge Executive Order 9066, and
the cases brought by Mary Ventura, Minoru Yasui, Gordon Hirabayashi,
Fred Korematsu, and Mitsuye Endo are noteworthy. Extensive coverage
of these cases can be found in Peter Irons's books Justice at War (1983)
and Justice Delayed (1989), and in the final report of the CWRIC (1982).
In April 1942, Mary Ventura, an American citizen married to a
Filipino, brought one of the first cases before the federal district court in
Washington State. Ventura filed a habeas corpus petition challenging the
curfew and restrictions placed on her by Executive Order 9066. As
discussed in Chapter 1, Executive Order 9066 gave the secretary of war
or his delegates the power to develop military orders to maintain
national security and made it a misdemeanor for civilians to refuse to
obey those orders. Military orders imposed a curfew, then excluded all
The Consequenees of Injustiee 23

Japanese Americans from designated "military zones" along the entire

West Coast and parts of Arizona (Ball, 1986). The court denied Ventura's
petition, stating that she had not violated the curfew order and was not
arrested; therefore she was not entitled to a habeas petition that would
provide for release from custody (CWRIC, 1982; Irons, 1983). The com-
ments of Judge Lloyd L. Black in this case are revealing:
The petitioners allege that the wife "has no dual citizenship," that she is in no
"manner a dtizen or subjeet of the Empire of Japan." But how many in this
eourtroom doubt that in Tokyo they eonsider all of Japanese aneestry though
born in the United States to be eitizens ar subjeets of the Japanese Imperial
Government? How many here believe that if our enemies should manage to
send a suicide squadron of paraehutes to Puget Sound that the Enemy High
Command would not hope far assistanee from many American-born Japanese?
... Aside from any right involved it seems to me that if petitioner is as
loyal and devoted as her petition avers she would be glad to conform to the
precautions which Congress, the President, and the armed forees deern
requisite to preserve the Constitution, laws and institutions far her and all
Americans born here ar naturalized. (Cited from CWRIC, 1982, p. 114)

These comments not only demonstrate Judge Black's conviction that

Japanese Americans posed a military threat to national security but also
demonstrate his belief that loyalty could only be demonstrated by
acquiescence to the Executive Order. To be considered a loyal American,
Japanese Americans had to conform to the evacuation and curfew
orders, suspending the very constitutional rights considered to be the
core of American democracy. Any assertion of individual rights, as in
the Ventura case, was labeled unpatriotic.
Whereas Ventura did not violate the curfew orders, another Nisei,
Minoru Yasui, deliberately violated the 6 P.M. curfew in March 1942.
Yasui was a lawyer and reserve officer in the army who also worked for
the consulate of Japan in Chicago at the time of Pearl Harbor. He asked to
be arrested for walking the streets of Portland, Oregon, after curfew and
brought his birth certificate to prove his Japanese ancestry. When the
policeman on duty would not take hirn into custody, Yasui went directly
to the police station, where he was finally arrested. Yasui wanted to
challenge the legal foundation of Executive Order 9066. In particular, he
believed that the application of military orders to all persons of Japanese
ancestry was unconstitutional, since they made a distinction between
American citizens on the basis of their ancestry (CWRIC, 1982).
Indicted by a grand jury, Yasui moved that the indictment be
dismissed on grounds that the Executive Order did not constitutionally
apply to American citizens. Ironically, although the district judge
agreed, he noted that Yasui had renounced his citizenship by working
for the Japanese consulate and convicted hirn as an alien in violation of
24 Chapter 2

the curfew order. Yasui eventually spent 9 months in solitary confine-

ment.
Gordon Hirabayashi was a senior at the University of Washington in
Seattle in 1942. He too challenged the military orders that year.
Hirabayashi, a Quaker, refused to register for the evacuation and pro-
duced a four-page statement listing his objections. He noted that the
order to evacuate denied all persons of Japanese ancestry the right to
live, and he considered it his duty to refuse the evacuation in order to
maintain his democratic and religious principles (Irons, 1983). Hiraba-
yashi spent 5 months in jail before being tried and was eventually
convicted of violating both curfew and evacuation orders. He was then
sentenced to an additional 90 days in a road camp. In an appeal of his
conviction, Hirabayashi argued that (1) the military orders themselves
resulted from the unconstitutional delegation of congressional legisla-
tive power, and (2) that the orders violated the Fifth Amendment by
discriminating between citizens of Japanese ancestry and those of other
ancestries (Ball, 1986). Nonetheless, the Supreme Court upheld his
conviction the following year in 1943.
Two weeks after the arrest of Hirabayashi, a fourth Japanese Ameri-
can was charged with the violation of military orders. Fred Korematsu, a
welder from northern California, had been planning to move to the
Midwest with his Caucasian girlfriend. In preparation for this, he
changed his name and underwent plastic surgery to conceal his Asian
facial characteristics. The plan failed, and Korematsu was arrested by
the police on the streets of San Leandro, California. The state court
found Korematsu guilty of remaining in a prohibited area (his home-
town), and the Supreme Court upheld his criminal conviction for failure
to report to an assembly center (Irons, 1983).
A fifth case was filed in July 1942 by Mitsuye Endo, a 22-year-old
Nisei clerical worker with the California Department of Motor Vehicles.
Endo's habeas corpus petition with the federal district court in San
Francisco questioned the legality of her detention in an assembly center.
All Nisei workers for the state had been dismissed 3 months prior to
Endo's petition. They were charged with, among other things, being
citizens of the Empire of Japan, having the ability to read and write the
Japanese language, and having attended a Japanese language school
conducted by officials of the Buddhist church. James Purcell, a lawyer,
viewed the filing of a habeas corpus petition by an interned state
employee as the best strategy for challenging the government's actions,
and he assisted the Nisei in presenting a petition that contended that
citizens such as Endo were being unlawfully detained by the army and
The Consequences of Injustice 25

deprived of the right to report to work. The Supreme Court did not
release its opinion on the Endo case until 1944, when it unanimously
ruled that an admittedly loyal American could not be held in camp
against his or her will. By then, however, Japanese Americans had
already been in the camps for several years.
Irons (1983) states that the outcomes of the Yasui, Hirabayashi, and
Korematsu cases were less important than the judicial processes that
underlay them. He noted, for example, that the chief justice of the
Supreme Court, Harlan Fiske Stone, "forged a unanimous opinion in the
Hirabayashi case" (p. 228). The dynamics underlying the Court's re-
sponse to the Hirabayashi case also affected the Court's responses to
Yasui and Korematsu. Irons recently uncovered evidence indicating that
government lawyers had recognized the falsity of Lieutenant General
John L. DeWitt's claims that Japanese Americans were dangerous and
disloyal. Although DeWitt's own intelligence staff disclaimed any dis-
loyal involvement by Japanese Americans or sabotage during the time
after Pearl Harbor, this information was suppressed (Minami, 1986).
The Court decisions in 1944 were not unanimous. Three of the nine
justices, and in particular Justice Frank Murphy, believed that the
relocation and internment of American citizens violated constitutional
law (Kitano & Daniels, 1988). Ultimately, however, a philosophy of
"judicial deference to military necessity" guided the Court's delibera-
tions, and although a number of justices did have concerns about the
necessity of the decisions, any justice who raised doubts about the
Japanese American exclusion was seen as not supporting the Court's
efforts to back up the military judgments that had been made (Ball,
1986). The current evidence indicates that the handling of the cases of
Yasui, Hirabayashi, and Korematsu "revealed a sordid pattern of ethical
violations, manipulation of the judicial process, and violation of peti-
tioners' rights to fair and impartial trials" (Minami, 1986, p. 200). Some
50 years later, the faHures of the judicial system are clear.

No one reading the Supreme Court opinion today with knowledge of the
exelusion, evacuation and detention can conelude that the majority opinion
displays any elose knowledge of the reasoning used by the government in the
momentous historical events under review. The only concrete item pointed
out to show disloyalty among evacuees was the fact that approximately 5,000
American citizens in the relocation camps had refused to swear unqualified
allegiance to the United States, a fact that is meaningless without under-
standing conditions within the camps .
. . . the Japanese American cases have never been followed and are
routinely cited as the only modern examples of invidious racial discrimina-
tion which the Supreme Court has not stricken down. (CWRIC, 1982, p. 239)
26 Chapter 2

Sodal and Psychologie al Effects on Internees

The social and psychological effects of the internment affected the

]apanese Americans in virtually every aspect of their lives as weIl .
. . . whatever significance the relocation, as it is usually called, might have
for American history in general, it remains the central event of Japanese
American history. "Before the war," "after camp" -these and similar phrases
punctuate the life his tory of almost every mainland Japanese American
family. (Daniels, 1988, p. 201)

The 1982 final report of the CWRIC stated that although the economic
losses at the time of the internment were severe, "the loss of liberty, and
the stigma of the accusation of disloyalty may leave more lasting scars"
(p. 133).
The trauma of unjust imprisonment, suspicions of disloyalty, and
relocation can be evaluated in the context of both societal and individual
factors. Although the specific effects of the internment clearly differed
for each individual depending on personal life circumstances before,
during, and after the years of imprisonment, all ]apanese Americans, as a
group, shared a social history of racism in the United States prior to the
war. An assessment of the social significance of the internment, there-
fore, requires a recognition of the fundamental social and psychological
processes of systematic discrimination and prejudice.
To illustrate the societal context of the internment, Kitano (1986)
notes that the functioning of any ethnic group is dictated by a "model of
governance." He defines a model of governance as a system by which
"the more powerful dominant society sets the parameters of ethnic
group life thraugh its ability to erect boundaries and to contral the
interaction between groups" (pp. 151-152). ]apanese Americans, sug-
gests Kitano, have lived under differing models of governance before,
during, and after the internment. Kitano describes aperiod of Domina-
tion prior to World War II (from 1920 to 1941), when white society
maintained clear boundaries between ]apanese Americans and whites
through segregation and discrimination. ]apanese Americans, for example,
could not use many of the same public facilities as whites. Under these
conditions, they learned to internalize a "second-class citizen" sense of
self. Conditions worsened at the time of the internment when the model
of governance moved to one of Domestic Colonization between 1942 and
1945. Kitano states that under these conditions, ]apanese Americans
were colonized, administered, and controlled by the dominant group in
a manner similar to the apartheid system of South Africa. (Ironically,
many Americans today who abhor South Africa's treatment of the blacks
The Consequences of Injustice 27

know little about the models of governance applied to the Japanese

Americans within their own country during World War 11.)
According to Kitano, the shift in governance in 1942 resulted in
some positive sodal effects. Japanese Americans became "equals" in
camp; they competed freely and could, for the first time, become football
stars or attain other positions of sodal status normally reserved for
whites. Nonetheless, the negatives of the colonization in camps far
outweighed the benefits. The incarceration robbed Japanese Americans
of all power and highlighted the inequities and racist practices from
earlier years.
Kitano calls the years immediately following the internment a
Transition Period (from 1945 to 1959), when American sodety reex-
amined its discriminatory practices and Japanese Americans found
greater job mobility. This has been followed by aperiod of Liberal
Pluralism between 1960 and 1980, in which many of the previous
boundaries between the Japanese Americans and whites were made
illegal. Civil rights and affirmative action opened up opportunities,
espedally for the younger third and fourth generations.
When people now speak of the "model minority," Japanese Ameri-
cans are held up as a prime example of an ethnic group who rose from
the adversity of the camps to the success of middle-class living. The
country that so distrusted and mistreated the Japanese Americans now
regards them as "super Americans." Such sodal stereotypes are prob-
lematic for many reasons. Using Asian Americans as a model minority
serves the purpose of making other ethnic minority groups, such as
African Americans and Latino Americans, appear unmotivated to
change their sodal status (Daniels, 1988). These stereotypes also serve to
minimize the psychological effects that accompanied the internment
and its aftermath (Nakanishi, 1988). In reality, the emotional impact of
the internment was profound.

Impact on the Community

Psychological shock waves from the attack on Pearl Harbor imme-

diately hit all Japanese Americans. Fear, anxiety, and frustration colored
the days and weeks to follow. Family members and community residents
witnessed the sudden arrest of Issei leaders soon after the attack, and
paranoia fueled by increasing anti-Japanese sentiments became an every-
day reality. The time between Pearl Harbor and the announcement of the
government's evacuation plans was characterized by uncertainty and
fear.
28 Chapter 2

As noted earlier, the immediate removal of the Issei left a significant

void in community leadership. The ]apanese American Citizens League
(JACL), consisting primarily of young Nisei, emerged as the one organi-
zation positioned to replace the Issei. However, disagreement arose
among ]apanese Americans concerning the response of the ]ACL to the
government's evacuation and internment orders. The ]ACL advocated
full compliance with the government's orders, hoping the war would
provide them with an opportunity to prove their patriotism (Spickard,
1983). Those in opposition to this position argued for more resistance
and saw the ]ACL as "selling out" their own people.
Tensions between "pro-]ACL" and "anti-]ACL" factions within the
community, which arose as the internment process began, continued to
exist inside of the camps, leading to beatings of ]ACL members sus-
pected of being "informers" and riots between the pro- and anti-]ACL
internees. Such conflicts among the ]apanese Americans mirrored a
norm frequently observed in concentration camps: that of searching for
informers, collaborators, and scapegoats (Kitano, 1986). The effects of
the "pro-" and "anti-]ACL" split remained long after the camps closed,
and strong feelings between the groups continue to this day.
Other intragroup conflicts emerged in the camps and continue to
affect the ]apanese American community. As already noted, some family
members and friends disagreed on how to ans wer the loyalty questions
required of every internee. Those who answered "no" to both questions
(the "no-no's") became ostracized by other ]apanese Americans. Many of
these individuals continue to feel bitterness about this, even within
their families. Similarly, those who resisted the draft from within the
camps were ostracized and continue to experience anger and frustration
over how others in the community perceive them. Each of these exam-
pIes points to the enduring impact of divisions that arose from the
internment process.
The internment also directly weakened the ]apanese American
community by geographically relocating former interne es on their re-
lease from camp. Daniels (1982) reported that 88.5% of ]apanese Ameri-
cans lived along the West Coast during 1940. By 1950, the figure fell to
58.2%. Although more recent estimates show a rise to approximately
66%, it is obvious that the concentrations of ]apanese Americans in the
V.S. mainland have drastically changed, and ]apanese Americans are
more widely dispersed than before. The transition of younger Nisei
families into the suburbs created new conflicts.
One of the many tensions within the postwar ethnic community would come
from the unwillingness of many prosperous suburban Nisei to spend more of
their time and energy in reestablishing such [Japanese American commu-
The Consequences of Injustice 29

nity] centers, often many miles from where they lived, and the resentment of
Issei and more traditional Nisei who feit that the suburb an Nisei were not
showing proper solidarity with the community. (Daniels, 1988, pp. 294-295)

Although many aspects of camp life weakened the influences of

]apanese culture within the ]apanese American family, some factors
contributed to strengthening ties with ]apanese culture. For example,
those who had previously interacted primarily with non-]apanese found
themselves suddenly surrounded by massive numbers of ]apanese
Americans and experienced pressure to become more "]apanese" while
interned (Hansen, 1986).

Impact on the Issei

Most Issei left Japan around the turn of the 20th century, with the
heaviest immigration occurring during 1907. Issei fathers in the typical
first-generation pre-World War 11 ]apanese American families were ap-
proximately 35 years old, whereas Issei mothers were frequently 10 years
younger. As noted in Chapter 1, the difference in the ages of Issei men
and women resulted from immigration policies that restricted the arrival
of ]apanese American women for several years after the initial arrival of
male laborers (Daniels, 1988).
The Issei encouraged acculturation among ]apanese Americans and
especially among the Nisei, while simultaneously maintaining their
]apanese culture (e.g., through the institution of ]apanese language
schools for their children) (Daniels, 1988). Nonetheless, Daniels (1985)
notes that both the "statutes" and "customs" of mainstream society kept
the Issei from "Americanizing," and the barriers they faced entering that
society were more severe than those faced by other contemporary immi-
grant groups. This did not deter them from trying. Through years of hard
work they eventually established themselves as members of the lower
middle dass (Daniels, 1988). Immediately after Pearl Harbor, the Issei
were shunned as enemy aliens and became the targets of the abrupt FBI
sweeps that separated Issei men from their families (Nakano, 1990).
Their position was an impossible one: They were considered dis loyal
because they were aliens, yet they remained aliens because they were
barred from becoming citizens. In the words of one Issei, "We Issei's were
not ever granted the right to apply for citizenship although we had lived
here some 30 years. We were like the 'man without a country' " (Uchida,
1986, p. 31).
To deal with the disruption of internment, many Issei turned to
each other for support. Group solidarity and mutual aid increased. They
30 Chapter 2

also turned to religion, primarily Buddhism and informal Shintoism

(Okihiro, 1984). And, while the WRA's Americanization policy was to
increase the assimilation of Japanese Americans into the majority soci-
ety, in some cases the policy had the opposite effect on the Issei who
resented the government's intrusion into family life.
Financially and psychologically, most Issei never recovered from
the losses stemming from the internment. In their 50s and 60s by the
time the camps closed, they lost the ambition to restart their lives, and
many remained dependent on their Nisei children for the rest of their
lives.

Impact on the Nisei

Most Nisei were adolescents or young adults when they were

interned. Before the war, the Nisei were influenced by two worlds, one
Japanese and one American (Fugita & O'Brien, 1991). They attended
Japanese language schools after their American schools and lived within
Japanese American communities (Hosokawa, B., 1969), developing their
own social clubs, church groups, and athletic leagues, which were often
modeled after American organizations such as the Boy and Girl Scouts
and the YMCA and YWCA (Kitano & Daniels, 1988). Still, the 1930s and
1940s reflected a segregated society; "even if the Nisei desired to enter
mainstream groups, opportunities were limited" (Kitano & Daniels,
1988, p. 59). Nisei perspectives on race relations varied at that time.
Although most identified with the JACL and its allegiance to adopting a
mainstream American life-style, there were also Nisei progressives who
advocated more confrontational and leftist approaches to community
leadership (Takahashi, 1982).
Adolescence is often considered a critical time for identity develop-
ment (Erickson, 1963). The Nisei's developmental stage, coupled with
their ethnic minority status, created particular stresses that were high-
lighted by the internment. Not all effects were negative. As noted before,
the segregated camp conditions allowed some Nisei, for the first time, to
feel themselves in the majority and able to become student body presi-
dents or athletic heroes (Kitano, 1986). In the larger society, these were
roles normally reserved for Caucasian Americans. Resettlement after the
internment to areas outside the West Coast also forced the Nisei to live
outside the Japantowns of their childhood and presented them with new
opportunities within the dominant society (Kitano & Daniels, 1988).
However, to many Nisei the internment represented a direct assault
on their self-esteem, their expectations, and their identity as Americans.
The Consequences of Injustice 31

Although they grew up in an environment laden with discrimination

and learned to, in many cases, realistically "lower expectations, hoping
that somehow things would get better" (Kitano, 1986, p. 153), most also
incorporated a belief in the American principles of democracy. They
were hardworking, law-abiding citizens. The orders to evacuate caused
the Nisei to experience a dissociation between reality and their percep-
tions that they were Americans just like everyone else (Ishiyama, 1981).
One Nisei woman recalled the shock of the events following Pearl
Harbor:
Right after December 7 wherever I went I feIt so self-conscious and embar-
rassed. I went to the library once and this handsome woman-about fifty, in a
pretty dress, gray-haired, tall-Iooked at me and stuck her tongue out. I
couldn't believe it! Then on the bus in Los Angeles, I heard two women in
front of me-they knew I could hear-they were saying: "One thing is
certain, we should get all the Japs, line them up along the Pacific Ocean and
shoot them." (Sasaki, cited from Gesensway & Roseman, 1987, p. 139)

Another recounted:
We were suddenly uprooted-Iost everything and treated like a prisoner with
soldier guard, dumped behind barbed wire fence. We were in shock. You'd be
in shock. You'd be bewildered. You'd be humiliated. You can't believe this is
happening to you. To think this could happen in the United States. We were
citizens. We did nothing. It was onIy because of our race. (Okubo, cited from
Gesensway & Roseman, 1987, p. 66)

Testimony before the CWRIC revealed that one of the greatest

sources of trauma for the Nisei was their sense of abandonment by their
own country. Despite citizenship and patriotism, America suspected
them of disloyalty, based only on their ethnic heritage.
The truth was that the government had betrayed uso Acknowledging such a
reality was so difficult that our natural feelings of rage, fear, and helplessness
were turned inward and buried .... (leading to) a deep depression, a sense of
shame, a sense of "there must be something wrong with me." We were
ashamed and humiliated. (Mass, 1986, p. 160)

Research indicates that disadvantaged groups and even accident

victims tend to internalize feelings of self-blame for their victimization
(Bulman & Wortman, 1977; Martin, 1986). By turning to their own
behavior to explain misfortune, they avoid seeing the world as menac-
ing. Nisei who attributed their situation to not being "American enough"
before the war can be seen as displaying this reaction. Other Nisei, like
the victims of rape, feIt guilt, shame, or a sense of unworthiness follow-
ing their internment (Hansen & Mitson, 1974). The Japanese term hazu-
kashi has been used to describe the sense of shame that characterized
former internees (Kashima, 1980) and stemmed from "a psychic damage
32 Chapter 2

which the Nisei described as a 'castration': a deep consciousness of

personal inferiority" (Weglyn, 1976, p. 273, as cited in Kashima, 1980).
Social psychologist Philip Zimbardo's testimony before the CWRIC
illustrated how Japanese Americans could feel guilty about their intern-
ment even though they had done nothing wrang. Zimbardo described
his weIl-known 1971 Stanford prison experiment in which volunteers
were randomly assigned to role play either prisoners or guards for an
extended period of time. Despite the contrived prison situation and the
fact that the mock prisoners knew they had done nothing to deserve
imprisonment, "they reported feeling ashamed by the surrender of their
autonomy to the guards and humbled by a sense of being outcasts,
misfits, and transgressors" (Zimbardo, cited from CWRIC, 1982, p. 298).
The reality of the Nisei's imprisonment during the internment years as
weIl as their prewar experiences as second-class citizens acted as a
severe blow to their self-esteem (Zimbardo, 1981). As one Nisei testified
before the CWRIC hearings, "Society has stripped a whole group of
people of confidence" (CWRIC, 1982, p. 299).
The Nisei's Japanese heritage mayaiso have contributed to the
intensity of their dilemma.
The Japanese people are a proud people, and their concern for honor is a
significant influence in guiding their personal behavior. Dur Issei ancestors
carried with them a concern that we Japanese Americans behave in a way that
would bring honor and esteem to the race. Individual wrongdoing brought
shame not just to the individual and his family but to the Japanese commu-
nity, the Japanese nation, and all Japanese people. Perhaps that is why we had
such mixed feelings of guilt and shame. as weIl as horror and anger. when
Japan attacked Pear! Harbor. As Americans. we were angry and horrified that
any country would attack America; as Japanese Americans. we were dis-
mayed. guilty. and ashamed because of our Japanese heritage. (Mass, 1986.
p.159)

Ta cape with the dissonance created by the injustice and disrup-

tion, the Nisei employed psychological defense mechanisms similar to
those elicited in victims of crime, accidents, and natural disasters (Mass,
1986). Traumatic experiences threaten the basic assumptions we hold
about our personal invulnerability, our self-worth, and our world
Uanoff-Bulman & Timko, 1987; Perloff, 1983). The internment harshly
challenged the assumptive world of the Nisei who believed their citizen-
ship would protect them from an internment. As a result, it has been
suggested that they developed a variety of cognitive-emotional strategies
to reduce their dissonance. Many Nisei responded by pledging their
complete loyalty to the United States, hoping that a display of cooper-
ativeness with the government would demonstrate their patriotism. This
reaction is analogaus to the reaction observed by mental health profes-
The Consequences of Injustice 33

sionals in children abused by their parents. Such children may dili-

gently comply with their parents' every request, hopeful that their good
behavior will lead their parents to treat them well. In this framework, the
Nisei pledges of loyalty can be seen as efforts to elicit greater respect
from the government and majority society (Mass, 1986). Other Nisei were
seen as displacing their hostility toward the government on fellow
Japanese Americans. One man, for example, described his anger at
Japanese Americans who "stooped" to move back to California after the
war (Mass, 1986).
Identification with the aggressor has also been identified in writ-
ings as a defense mechanism in cases where individuals deliberately
denied and avoided associations with other Japanese Americans after
leaving the camps (CWRIC, 1982; Mass, 1986). Feelings of fear, guilt, and/
or shame contributed to many Nisei's postwar minimization of their
cultural heritage and increased desire to assimilate. As stated by Take-
zawa (1989a), "The self-contempt and feeling of being second dass
citizens, the desire to prove themselves good Americans, and the aspira-
tions 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 American ideology of
'Melting Pot,' or more precisely 'Anglo-Conformity,' making them strive
for Americanization" (pp. 18-19). For some Nisei, this press toward
assimilation took an extreme form, resulting not only in adesire to
"blend" into the mainstream but also in efforts to be 120% "super-
Americans" (Maykovitch, 1972, as cited in Takezawa, 1989a).
Others have perceived the Nisei responses in terms of denial.
Denial, as discussed by Janoff-Bulman and Timko (1987), can refer to a
negation of a threatening event that has occurred or is about to occur,
negation that one has negative feelings about the event, or both. Denial
can be conscious or unconscious. Horowitz (1987, as cited in Gibbs,
1989), for example, states that cydes of denial and the intrusion of
memories of negative events are common in response to traumatic stress.
Denial in the Nisei took various forms. Some individuals minimized the
significance of their los ses 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 (CWRIC, 1982). The subse-
quent economic success of many Nisei, although a testament to their
courage and perseverance, also led some to minimize their previous
suffering and hardship.
Of course the Nisei varied in the degree to which they employed
defense mechanisms in response to the internment. For example, some
Nisei openly expressed their anger and disillusionment. Although psy-
chologists might interpret Nisei behaviors as reflecting deeper psycho-
34 Chapter 2

logical processes, the Nisei themselves might weIl disagree with such
interpretations. Two seemingly different reactions, for example, might
actuaIly reflect similar viewpoints regarding perceived injustice. Thomas
Kinaga's testimony before the CWRIC illustrates this point. Kinaga, a
Nisei interned at Heart Mountain, stated:
... as one who believed in America enough to volunteer for its combat forces,
I wish to state most emphatically that I also considered the evacuation
decision to be absolutely wrong. My feelings on this matter were just as
strong and in full agreement with those who chose to renounce their citizen-
ship, even though the renunciants and I took paths that were poles apart.
Just because some of us went so far as to volunteer for the army from the
relocation centers, this Commission should not conclude that there were
mixed feelings among internees about the wrongness of the evacuation itself.
Let me assure you that the evacuation was universally condemned by all of its
victims, even those of us who were willing to lay our lives on the line for this
nation. (Kinaga, 1981, p. 68)

It is also important to interpret the response of ]apanese Americans

in a context that extends beyond psychological interpretations of their
behaviors.
What can be seen as assimilation and integration from one point of view (that
is, the WRA's point of view) can also be seen as cultural destruction from
another, although there were cases of protest and rebellion, many Japanese
Americans decided, consciously or unconsciously, to reject any association
with the Japanese American culture and community. These decisions were
made for reasons of survival, given the war and the realities of racism in the
larger society. (Hirabayashi, 1986, p. 48)

A glance at the postwar Nisei reveals a generaIly successful picture.

]apanese Americans have progressed educationaIly, economicaIly, and
politicaIly. Yet it is clear that the internment that destroyed much of the
]apanese American culture as it had existed before the war forever
changed the identity of ]apanese Americans, leaving in its wake a
silence about what had happened. The emotional CWRIC testimonies by
former interne es in 1981, however, sparked a recognition both within
and outside of the ]apanese American community that outward appear-
ances of success can be deceiving. The silence, for many, had only
suppressed feelings of pain and anger about camp.
In city after city, the Commission heard testimony from former evacuees who
for the first time openly expressed pain and anger about evacuation and its
aftermath. Many had never articulated their feelings even to their children, or
within the ethnic community which shared their experience. It became
obvious that a forty-year silence did not mean that bitter memories had
dissipated; they had only been buried in a shallow grave. (CWRIC, 1982,
p.297)
The Consequences of Injustice 35

And, although Japanese Americans had coped with the aftermath of

the internment for over four decades, it was only recently that they began
the psychological task of "mastering" their past trauma through a closer
examination of their own losses and suffering. Together with the eco-
nomic and judicial impacts covered in this chapter, the present descrip-
tion of the social and psychological sequelae of the internment reempha-
sizes the enormity of injustice suffered. The magnitude of these
combined effects suggests that they have had long-term consequences
for Japanese Americans. The following chapter discusses how such
consequences might be investigated through a cross-generational re-
search approach.
 CHAPTER 3

Using a Cross-Generational
Approach

Academics from multiple disciplines including history, sociology, law,

and psychology have studied the Warld War 11 experiences of the
Japanese Americans. Psychologists, interested in furthering our under-
standing of traumatic stress and coping, have focused primarily on those
who directly experienced the internment. However, it is only through an
analysis of trauma over an extended period of time across generations
that we can truly understand the internment's full impact. The findings
from the Sansei Research Project presented in this book represent a first
step toward such an analysis. In examining the impact of the Warld War
11 incarceration on the Sansei children of Japanese Americans who were
interned, the project uses a cross-generational research approach. Mare
specifically, the research attempts to define how the Sansei's attitudes
and experiences have been shaped by their parents' incarceration, taking
a nonpathological approach to describe the internment's broadest ef-
fects.

Studying the Cross-Generational Effects

of Historical Events

Psychologists and sociologists frequently look to a multigenera-

tional model of research in conducting their investigations. Researchers
have examined intergenerational processes related to the transmission
of characteristics such as political beliefs, political party preferences,
sex-role preferences, life-styles, and religious identification through
family lineage (Troll, Bengtson, & McFarland, 1979). Others have investi-
gated the impact of particular events on the generational continuity of
ideologies and values (e.g., Mitchell & Block, 1983). One of the most
37
38 Chapter 3

interesting works studying the cross-generational effects of a historical

event was conducted by sociologist Glenn EIder. In 1974, EIder pub-
lished a book entitled Children of the Great Depression. The book and
Elder's subsequent research richly document the differential impact of
the Great Depression on children whose families were greatly affected by
that event versus those whose families were less affected. In addition,
his work helps to identify the factors and dynamics that contributed to
the relationship between a child's subsequent well-being and the fam-
ily's response to the deprivation of the depression (EIder, Caspi, & van
Nguyen, 1986).
Particularly relevant to the Sansei Research Project is Elder's finding
that the impact of stressful events such as the Great Depression need not
be exercised directly. Rather, such effects may be produced indirectly by
creating disorganization in family relations in generations to come. In
discussing their findings, EIder, Caspi, and van Nguyen (1986) reported
that the causal role of unstable family relationships His intergenera-
tional, from family of origin to the behavioral style of children and then
to the latter's family behavior in adulthood. The thread of continuity
extends across four generations, although its strength varies greatly
according to specific conditions" (EIder et al. , 1986, p. 169). Documenta-
tion of the potential for indirect as weH as directly observable inter-
generational consequences of disruption has important implications for
the study of the internment's long-term impact. It suggests that the
Sansei, for example, may experience subtle but important effects of their
parents' experienced injustice that have shaped their own subsequent
behaviors.
Family therapists have also been interested in studying cross-
generational communications and emphasize the importance of exam-
ining how current family dynamics are influenced by the patterns of
interaction and information transmitted by preceding generations
(Bowen, 1978; Hoopes, 1987). Balancing these multiple trans genera-
tional issues with current life commitments represents a major develop-
mental task that we all face as we mature (Kramer, 1985). The family
plays a central role not only in creating the issues carried from one
generation to another but also in facilitating or hindering each individ-
ual's ability to deal with the issues.
What gets transmitted from one generation to another foHowing a
life-encompassing trauma can be as complex as the processes that
underlie that transmission. Hoopes (1987) suggests that beyond specific
issues related to religious ideology and political attitudes, intergenera-
tional communications include Ha variety of transmissions, such as
myths, rituals, loyalties, expectations, secrets, and obligations (overt and
Using a Cross-Generational Approach 39

covert) that are traceable and evident in at least three generations, and
probably more" (p. 201). The family myths mentioned by Hoopes are
often a central focus in the work of family therapists. Such myths, which
frequently emerge out of traumatic or life-threatening experiences, lead
to recurring patterns of interactions within families (Kramer, 1985).
These multigenerational issues may not be openly expressed; in many
cases, they remain at hidden and unconscious levels (Hoopes, 1987).
Hence, the lack of communication about the internment in Japanese
American families does not preclude the communication of myths and
indirect messages about the trauma of the camps.
Applying the work of intergenerational family therapists Boszor-
menyi-Nagy and Sparks (1973), N. Miyoshi (1980) was among the first to
explore the intergenerational transmission of the internment experi-
ence. Boszormenyi-Nagy and Sparks see family relationships as being
accountable to the standards of loyalty and justice from previous genera-
tions. Family rules, credits for merits in fulfilling obligations, and debits
for unfulfilled obligations are passed on intergenerationally (Miyoshi,
1980). Therefore, the uncompleted actions of past generations may
impinge on relationships within the new generation (Kramer, 1985).
Miyoshi applied these concepts to families of Japanese American inter-
nees, noting the importance of family obligation and loyalty in the
Japanese culture:
From this perspective, the Sansei are heir to ethnic values that have been
passed down to them from their Nisei parents. Implicit within the highly
developed concepts of loyalty that exist in the Japanese culture is the
obligation that falls upon those carriers of culturallegacies to somehow deal
with them. Family therapists have found that the manner in which obligatory
responsibilities are handled by the family system affects the identities of the
members within that system. (Miyoshi, 1980, p. 19)

Miyoshi hypothesized that the lack of communication between the

Sansei and their Nisei parents around the topic of the internment
represented the "symbol of an intergenerational ethnic and personal
gap," a gap that obstructed the Sansei's ability to develop a clear sense of
identity. Ta bridge this gap, she proposed that family therapy be con-
ducted to encourage dialogues among family members and to "un-
burden" the relationships between them. Three families met with Miyo-
shi for 10 multigenerational sessions, while a fourth family met for seven
sessions. Her report on this approach suggested that such multigenera-
tional sessions were quite effective in eliciting previously hidden issues
around the internment.
Miyoshi's work provides an important and creative link between
intergenerational clinical theory and psychotherapy with Japanese
40 Chapter 3

Americans on the issue of internment. However, in the absence of larger-

scale quantitative research on the cross-generational effects of the intern-
ment, it is impossible to evaluate the larger implications of her case
study observations. There are important differences between Miyoshi's
work and the Sansei Research Project. The current Project evaluates
Sansei attitudes about themselves, their families, and the internment,
rather than on the family rituals that may have contributed to these
attitudes. It also combines extensive quantitative survey data and in-
depth interview data with only the Sansei, whereas Miyoshi's work
included case study interviews with both Nisei and Sansei. Addition-
ally, the Sansei Research Project was not designed to lead directly to
recommendations about clinical interventions with Japanese American
families, although its results may be useful to psychotherapists.

The Importance of
a Developmental Perspective

Multigenerational researchers are aware that there are important

developmental (or ontogenetic) effects on life across generations be-
cause "in any intergenerational relationship the actors in each genera-
tion are dynamically acting out their own developmental agenda" (Troll
et al., 1979, p. 147). Rather than ascribing a single role of parent or child
to members of each generation, researchers recognize that within each
generational system, individuals can move from their roles as children
to those of adolescent, adult, parent, and grandparent. For example, in
one multigenerational stage, labeled "multi-infancy" by Hoopes (1987),
the children are young with inexperienced parents and grandparents.
The coping strategies, skills, and transmission of family issues at this
stage are clearly different from those present in a generational constella-
tion where the same children are grown, the parents are retired, and the
grandparents are elderly (Hoopes, 1987). Recognition of developmental
differences is important in studying the internment, since the data
gathered from Sansei respondents in the present are shaped by the age
and consequently by the developmental stage of both those who partici-
pated and their parents at the time of the study. Had the same questions
been asked 10 years earlier or 10 years later, the data might have been
quite different.
Indeed, each generation's reaction to a sociohistorical event results
from the interaction between an individual's developmental stage and
the impact of the sociohistorical event itself. The work of Abigail Stewart
(Stewart & Healy, 1989) has explored this interaction in detail, highlight-
Using a Cross-Generational Approach 41

ing the role of individual differences within the same generational

cohort. Stewart's work suggests that the age at which an event occurs
determines in part its impact. In addition:
1) the same events will have different effects on different cohorts;
2) the same events will also have different effects within cohorts depending
on the particular experience of the individual;
3) the experience of psychologically significant social events at different
stages of adulthood will have different consequences not only for the indi-
vidual personally, but also for his or her children. (Stewart & Healy, 1989,
p. 33)

Arecent paper by Stewart and Healy (1989) expands on these points

by identifying four stages of development in life: childhood and young
adolescence, adolescence and young adulthood, mature adulthood, and
later adulthood. The occurrence of a social event during childhood and
early adolescence is most likely to influence that child's worldview,
fundamental values, and expectations (e.g., family values and assump-
tive frameworks). Individuals in late adolescence and young adulthood,
in contrast to younger children, have already formed worldviews and
values. Therefore, historical events that are not radically different from
previous experiences willlikely be assimilated into preexisting views at
this stage of development. However, if events occur that are radically
different from the adolescent's previous life experience, they can influ-
ence the personal identity of that individual. In addition, because the
adolescent/young adult is just beginning his or her career or family life, a
historical event at this time can affect work and life choices. According
to Stewart and Healy, mature adults who have already committed them-
selves to careers and/or family will be less likely to change their self-
identity in response to historical events. Social events may affect their
behavior but not the basic values that underlie their actions. Finally,
historical events in later adulthood are seen as leading to new oppor-
tunities and choices and a corresponding revision of identity.
Stewart's empirical research supports the validity of her theory (see
Stewart and Healy, 1989, for a review of this work). In a study on the
impact of an expanded work role for women during World War II and a
contracted work role during the postwar period, Stewart compared three
cohorts of women: those who were mature adults by World War II, those
who were entering adulthood at this time, and those who were children
or young adolescents during the war period. She found that the impact
of these historical events differed as a function of the age and life stage
of the woman at the time.
This work is useful in understanding the internment's long-term
effects. It suggests (1) that the age of the Nisei played an important role in
42 Chapter 3

influencing their reactions to the internment, and (2) that these reactions
may then have had differing consequences for their Sansei offspring.
Therefore, the current research attempts to explore these developmental
issues by evaluating the relationship between the age at which a parent
was interned and the responses of their Sansei children.

Studying the 'fransgenerational

Impact of the Internment:
Lessons from Research on the Holocaust

The specific focus of the Sansei Research Project is unique. How-

ever, the general question it poses regarding the cross-generational
effects of trauma has been explored previously in relation to other
historical events. The largest body of literature in this area includes
studies that evaluate the effects of the Holocaust on survivors and their
children. A review of these Holocaust studies is useful in understanding
the Sansei Research Project. Although there are many critical differ-
ences between the Holocaust and the internment (as noted in the
Preface), there are also paralleis between the two (Castelnuovo, 1986).
The lews in Nazi Germany and the ]apanese Americans in this country
were singled out for placement in concentration camps by their own
government on the basis of ethnicity alone. Neither citizenship nor legal
residency protected them from their fate, and in both situations their
countrymen offered little protest over the events that occurred. "In short,
both peoples experienced betrayal and abandonment by their govern-
ment and fellow citizens" (Castelnuovo, 1986, p. 206). The Holocaust
literature also provides the most extensive research identifying the areas
of functioning that may be most vulnerable to the transgenerational
impact of trauma and illustrates the methodological issues involved in
researching the second-generation effects of traumatic stress.
Investigations have typically focused on identifying the occurrence
of pathological symptoms in the children of Holocaust survivors. AI-
though the Sansei Research Project did not take a pathology-oriented
perspective, these studies are included in the following review to dem-
onstrate the range of variables studied in relation to the intergenera-
tional transmission of trauma.
Rose and Garske (1987), in a review of Holocaust research, noted that
the first studies to hypothesize an increased incidence of psychological
disturbance in survivor children appeared in the mid-1960s and contin-
ued to predominate the literature through the 1970s and early 1980s.
These primarily observational investigations used small sampies of
Using a Cross·Generational Approach 43

clinical subjects and were based on the general theory that the trauma
experienced by Holocaust survivor parents led to pathological family
interaction patterns, interaction patterns that then gave rise to patholog·
ical symptoms in their children (e.g., Axelrod, Schnipper, & Rau, 1980;
Bergman & ]ucovy, 1982; Kestenberg, 1980; Lipkowitz, 1973). Trossman
(1968), for example, noted that the children of Holocaust survivors
frequently became symbols invested with meaning and expectations to
compensate for los ses experienced during their parents' trauma during
the war. The unfulfilled dreams and goals of those relatives who per·
ished in the concentration camps were placed on the children. Many
survivor children were reported to experience feelings of anger, guilt, or
depression in response to the burden of these expectations (Barocas &
Barocas, 1973, 1979; Trossman, 1968; Wanderman, 1976).
Survivor parents were also observed to be excessively protective,
constantly warning their children of impending dangers in the world.
Freyberg (1980) described this relationship in the following way: "To the
extent that the child is regarded as a highly valued possession, his
individuation is a loss he cannot inflict upon his parents. Additionally,
he must protect his parents from his own anger and rage at having to
perform a mission for them at his own expense; at being overprotected
and overcontrolled; at being deprived of parents who could be more
emotionally gratifying" (p. 93). Separation often became a sign of be·
trayal and disloyalty (Wilson & Fromm, 1982). These interactions led, in
some cases, to children becoming phobie or rebellious. Barocas and
Barocas (1973) reported cases of uncontrolled aggression in children of
survivors and speculated that such outbursts stemmed from the sur·
vivors' own difficulty in dealing with repressed aggressive impulses.
These impulses led them unconsciously to encourage aggression in their
children. In aseparate study, Sigal and Rakoff (1971) found that survivor
families in a clinical sampie had significantly more difficulty control·
ling their children and greater tendencies to overvalue their offspring.
Still other researchers depict children of survivors as being unusually
driven to achieve as a result of their need to compensate for the trauma of
their parents (Rose & Garske, 1987).
Clinical studies were important in drawing initial attention to the
transgenerational effects of the Holocaust but suffered from important
limitations as weIl. Solkoff (1981) conducted a review of the literature on
children of Holocaust survivors and described in detail the methodo·
logical and theoretical shortcomings of clinical studies such as those
just described. Early studies, which were primarily psychoanalytically
based, tended to assurne that children must be adversely affected by
their parents' Holocaust experience. In addition, broad generalizations
44 Chapter3

about children of survivors were made based on small sampies of

individuals recruited from clinical populations.
More recently the search to identify pathological aftereffects of
trauma in the children of Holocaust survivors has extended to include
nonclinical subject populations. These studies are of particular rele-
vance when exploring the potential effects of the internment because
Japanese Americans, like other Asian American groups, rarely use
mental health services (Sue & McKinney, 1975). As such, clinical studies
on the cross-generational effects of the internment would be extremely
difficult.
Some nonclinical studies support the presence of greater distress
within children of survivors. Klein-Parker (1988), for example, con-
ducted a study of 39 adult children of Holocaust survivors and identified
dominant attitudes that characterized respondents' perceptions of their
relationships with parents. Although the children of survivors in her
research expressed deep attachment with their parents, their relation-
ships were also characterized by a "paradox of intensity coupled with
superficiality" (p. 198). The children sensed the parents' traumatic past
and attempted to shield their parents from expressing further pain.
"Failure to broach the critical topic of the Holocaust kept the relation-
ship safe but on superficial grounds" (p. 198). Other researchers have
noted that family interactions in nonclinical sampies were characterized
by secrets, a reluctance to share negative experiences, and a pervasive
dictum of "don't rock the boat." Adult children saw the Holocaust as
creating emotional distance within the family. Some had even experi-
enced Holocaust nightmares, and many carried attitudes of fear and
dread, distrusting the world around them.
Rose and Garske's (1987) review of survivor research described one
nonclinical study by Karr (1973), which reported that children of sur-
vivors displayed more difficulties in impulse control, social relatedness,
and overall adjustment than a comparison group of individuals whose
parents immigrated to the United States to escape Nazi persecution. An
additional study found that projective test results from the children of
survivors were less likely to demonstrate externalization of aggression
than those taken from individuals who were not survivor children
(Nadler, Kav-Venaki, & Gleitman, 1985). Although Keinan, Mikulincer,
and Rybnicki (1988) reported no significant differences on measures of
emotional stability or self-perception between a nonclinical sampie of
survivor children and a comparison group, they did find that survivor
children perceived their parents as being both more tense and more
attractive than did their nonsurvivor peers. More recent studies also
report that children of survivors perceive themselves to be less individu-
Using a Cross-Generational Approach 45

ated from their parents (Halik, Rosenthai, & Pattison, 1990); more identi-
fied with their ]ewish heritage and involved in the ]ewish community
(Halik et al., 1990); and more self-critical (Felsen & Erlich, 1990).
Rose & Garske (1987) point out that the majority of better controlled
studies investigating personality dimensions and family communica-
tion patterns have failed to identify significant levels of pathology in the
children of survivors. Sigal and Weinfeld (1985), for example, compared
a nonclinical sampie of young adult survivors' children with a similar
group of other immigrants and their children, and the children of native-
born parents. They then evaluated the differences between the responses
of these three groups on measures of psychological disturbance. The
researchers were especially interested in assessing the inhibition of
aggression in children of survivors, relative to the other groups. On
analyzing respondents' ratings on scales of active expression of hostility,
passive-aggressive behavior, rigidity, guilt, sadness, and low self-esteem,
Sigal and Weinfeld reported "almost no evidence that COS (children of
survivors) are at increased risk for problems in the control of aggression"
(p. 562).
In a similar empirical study, Leon, Butcher, Kleinman, Goldberg,
and Almagor (1981) obtained the responses of nonclinical sampies of
survivors' children and a control group on the MMPI and on measures
assessing their perceptions of parental attitudes and behaviors. Con-
trasted with the Keinan et al. (1988) study cited previously, Leon et al.
(1981) found no significant group differences in the children's attitudes
toward their parents. In addition, they found no indication of greater
pathology in the children of survivor families and concluded, "It is
therefore erroneous to assurne that all children of survivors bear the
indelible scars of their parents' experience . . . and therefore exhibit
significant psychological disturbance because of the trauma undergone
by their parents" (p. 514). Zlotogorski (1983) also found no support for
the hypothesis that Holocaust survivor families demonstrate greater
pathological family dynamics than non-Holocaust families. Finally,
even studies that have revealed differences between children of sur-
vivors and comparison groups in nonclinical sampies note that these
differences do not justify a diagnosis of psychopathology (Felsen &
Erlich, 1990; Halik et al., 1990).
Amid the conflicting results, Rose and Garske (1987) report one
consistent finding: Children of survivors te nd to display stronger ]ewish
identification and more sensitivity to Jewish culture and ancestry than
Jewish controls whose parents did not experience the Holocaust. The
findings on ethnic identity reported by Heller (1981) are of particular
interest. Heller hypothesized that the challenge and massive trauma of
46 Chapter 3

the parents' Holocaust experience has led to a heightened degree of

sensitivity to culture and ancestry in survivor children. Although they
had been touched by the Holocaust through their associations with their
parents, the children of survivors did not directly experience the
trauma. Heller believed that the focus on identity is derived from a
reduced, moderated form of traumatie threat, combined with the rieh
historie al legacy of Jewish culture and religious ideology that stress
family, sense of community, and remembrance of the past.
To evaluate this conceptualization empirically, Heller investigated
the degree to whieh a nonclinical group of children of Holocaust sur-
vivors differed from their peers whose parents had not undergone the
concentration camp trauma. Differences were evaluated in relation to
degree of cultural sensitivity, attitudes toward outmarriage, age of Holo-
caust awareness, and degree of knowledge about Holocaust-related his-
torieal events.
Overall, Heller's results supported his hypothesis. He concluded
that even in his nonclinical sampIe "the stressful events of concentration
camp survivors greatly influence the lives of their children (evidenced
by) a heightened sensitivity to culture and ancestry and to the primacy
of ethnic survival" (p. 259). Heller also speculated that in other cultural
groups that emphasize traditional ideals, the offspring of trauma victims
might respond in a mann er similar to the Jewish survivor children. He
specifically discusses the internment of Japanese Amerieans and sug-
gests that "the responses of the Japanese to internment resemble quite
closely the responses of survivor children to the Jewish Holocaust"
(p. 259).
Findings supporting the increased level of ethnic identity in chil-
dren of survivors demonstrate that the transgenerational impact of
trauma need not be pathological. Indeed, recent Holocaust researchers
have suggested the need to look at the adaptive behavioral patterns in
nonclinical sampIes of survivors' children that are growth promoting
rather than dysfunctional and to identify factors that contribute to a
child's invulnerability to stress (e.g., Russell, Plotkin, & Heapy, 1985;
Weinfeld, Sigal, & Eaton, 1981).
Work by Holocaust researchers also reveals the existence of a wide
variety of family structures in Holocaust survivor families (Zlotogorski,
1983). Given the diversity of family structures, there may be critieal
differences within the sampIe of survivor families that account for the
degree to whieh the children of survivors do or do not suffer patholog-
ical consequences. One major dimension along which families differ is
that of communication style. How and to what extent survivors dis-
cussed their Holocaust trauma within the family can influence the
Using a Cross-Generational Approach 47

degree of cross-generational trauma experienced by their sons and

daughters. Davidson (1980) reported that two patterns in particular
seemed to characterize those families of Holocaust survivors in which
the children experienced distress: excessive talking about the Holocaust
experience or the avoidance or denial of the topic during family conver-
sations. Additionally, researchers have found that when comparing case
studies of families who demonstrated either incessant or avoidant pat-
terns of communication, greater levels of intensity in communication
led to greater levels of disturbance in the psychological development of
the children (Robinson & Winnik, 1981).
At the same time, there is ample literature suggesting that the
pervasive avoidance of Holocaust-related discussions can also have
negative consequences. Danieli (1982) refers to a "conspiracy of silence"
that occurred in many Holocaust families. According to Danieli, several
factors contributed to this silence. Some survivors found others unable
to listen to or believe the horrors they had experienced. Others feIt
anxious that outsiders would blame them for their fate. Still others
avoided discussions in an effort to forget the past or used the silence to
"shield" their children from the pain of their trauma. External factors
also contributed to the conspiracy, since Holocaust survivors often met
social indifference and denial by others in response to their traumatic
experiences. Research conducted by Danieli and others, however, indi-
cates that despite such efforts the children of survivors sensed their
parents' trauma. These children inevitably picked up information and
cues about their parents' Holocaust experiences through indirect or
fragmentary transmissions (Davidson, 1980; Krell, 1979; Prince, 1985;
Trachtenberg & Davis, 1978) and the repression of communication about
these experiences was often damaging.
In families where survivor parents have done everything to avoid and deny
and have remained silent about their Holocaust experiences, these experi-
ences may acquire an aura of secretiveness and shame. The children develop
fearful and embarrassed attitudes to these "family secrets" and often weave
horrifying fantasies about what was done to their parents and how they
survived. Indirect communications and nonverbal cues from the parents as
weH as material derived from the media feed these fantasies with associated
feelings of shame, guilt, and fear. (Davidson, 1980, p. 19)

The very pattern of silence, according to these studies, can create a risk
for psychological disturbance in the children of survivors (Barocas &
Barocas, 1979).
Not all survivor families were characterized by overly restrictive or
overly obsessive communication patterns. In fact, Trachtenberg and
Davis (1978) state that children whose parents "shared openly and
48 Chapter 3

appropriately" about their wartime experiences had relatively healthier

relationships with their parents. Similarly, Wilson and Fromm (1982)
note the value of the parents' willingness to discuss their wartime
experiences with their children. Numerous factors influence the likeli-
hood that a given parent will or will not communicate about the Holo-
caust. Whether a parent was an ex-prisoner or an ex-partisan (Kav-
Venaki, Nadler, & Gershoni, 1985) and whether a parent experienced the
war in the role of a victim or a fighter (Danieli, 1982) are characteristics
that have been found to affect the manner in which a parent communi-
cated. For example, ex-partisans and parents who saw themselves as
fighters were more likely to engage in discussions with their children
than were parents who were victims.
The gender of a parent mayaiso affect family communications about
trauma. Kav-Venaki and Nadler (1981), for example, found that offspring
in their research reported that their mothers transmitted information
related to victimization, while their fathers communicated information
related to the adoption of a "fighting" stance regarding the past. Mothers'
communications appeared to playa critical role in other studies as weIl.
Lichtman (1984) reported that greater levels of communication by
mothers appeared to have a negative rather than a positive impact on
their offspring. In her study, the frequency and willingness of a mother
to discuss her wartime experiences were significantly related to scores of
low ego strength and empathy in the children of survivors. Aseparate
study by Aleksandrowicz (1973) noted that mothers who refrained from
speaking about their past Holocaust experiences were more likely to
have offspring who found it difficult to express or verbalize anger. These
studies do not in themselves indicate that mothers' communications are
to blame for the negative consequences of the Holocaust. However, they
do point to the need to examine the differential roles that mothers and
fathers may take in the process of family communication.
The gen der of the child can also affect the impact of trauma within a
family. Lichtman (1984) found that males and females may be differen-
tially affected by family patterns of communication regarding the Holo-
caust. In her study, males were less adversely affected (Le., on measures
of depression, anxiety, paranoia, hypochondriasis, and ego strength) by
hearing about the Holocaust from their parents than were females. A
separate study conducted by Hammerman (1980, as cited in Lichtman,
1984) reported that although there were no significant differences be-
tween female children of survivors and a control group of females in
terms of their levels of self-identity or knowledge about their parents'
prewar experiences, such differences did occur for males. Sons of
survivors with greater knowledge of their parents were found to have
"more fully developed identities" than males with little such information.
Using a Cross-Generational Approach 49

Birth order, although less widely researched, has been found in at

least one study to influence the degree to which children are affected by
their parents' communication styles. Robinson and Winnik's (1981) case
studies revealed that firstborn children appeared to be most negatively
affected by intensive and incessant communications about the Holo-
caust.
Given the general silence that has characterized the Japanese Amer-
ican response to the internment, the studies on survivor families are
extremely interesting. Not only do they document the importance of
examining patterns of communication between the parent and the child,
but they also raise questions regarding the degree to which silence is a
universal or a culture-specific response to an experienced trauma.

Methodological Issues in Evaluating

the Cross-Generalional Effects of Trauma

The preceding review presents a variety of results regarding the

hypothesized long-term effects of trauma. What are the methodological
issues raised by these studies, and how are they relevant to the current
investigation of the Japanese American internment?
Differences in research findings on the Holocaust can be attributed
to methodological inconsistencies in the studies that have been con-
ducted (Rose & Garske, 1987; Solkoff, 1981). Many use poorly validated
or unreliable measures and inadequate or nonexistent statistical analy-
ses. Others lack generalizability because of their overreliance on clinical
case studies. To further complicate matters, most studies on children of
survivors are based on the investigator's personal hunches about the
anticipated results of the study rather than an objective evaluation of
data (Solkoff, 1981). Studies have also used differing comparison groups.
Whereas some compare children of survivors with a sampie of respon-
dents matched only on general demographic characteristics, others have
used more stringently defined comparisdn groups. For example, the
differences observed in the children of survivors may be attributable to
their additional identities as American Jews or as the children of post-
World War II immigrants. Selection of a comparison group and an
awareness of the limitations in generalizing from comparisons made
between that group and children of individuals who experienced a
traumatic experience are clearly important. As will be discussed in
Chapter 4, similar limitations affect the selection of a comparison group
for the present study on the adult children of internees.
The review of Holocaust studies also indicates that researchers now
recognize the importance of identifying both Holocaust dimensions
50 Chapter 3

(e.g., age at time of imprisonment, severity of trauma) and non-

Holocaust dimensions (e.g., soeioeconomic status, educational back-
ground, and urban versus rural residence prior to the war) in the
survivor parent groups included in comparative studies (Harel, 1983;
Nadler & Ben-Sushan, 1989; Silverman, 1987). Neither Holocaust sur-
vivors nor their children should be assumed to be a homogeneous group
(Danieli, 1982; Sigal, 1973). Because each survivor came to the concen-
tration camps with a unique personality and at a particular stage of
development, there will be many factors interacting with the Holocaust
experience that, when ignored, can mitigate against the discovery of
significant differences in subsequent generations (Furman, 1973). These
points highlight again the importance of evaluating the degree to which
parent variables such as age and length of incarceration may be related to
the experiences of the postwar Sansei generation.
The Holocaust literature also shows us that there may be discrepan-
eies between clinical studies and studies based on empirical measures
and self-report ratings of nonclinical populations. Whereas numerous
clinical observation studies have documented the existence of greater
pathology among children of survivors, most nonclinical studies have
not. Some researchers who failed to find support for the presence of
greater pathology in children of survivors suggest that earlier reports of
higher degrees of disturbance were premature and based on small,
nonrepresentative sampies. However, Aleksandrowicz (1973) argues that
the lack of findings may stern from the fact that, because we cannot
describe the experience in quantitative terms, we cannot statistically
measure the impact of a concentration camp experience. Sigal and
Weinfeld (1985) also noted that "the clinicalliterature contains too many
examples of such effects for them to be neglected" (p. 562). Direct
measurement of trauma can be further complicated by the fact that
survivors of such experiences often repress and/or deny the pain of their
past. Such repression has been noted in both Holocaust survivors (Da-
nieli, 1982) and Japanese American interne es (Mass, 1986; Miyoshi,
1980).
The problem with these comparisons is that they do not take into
account the fact that clinical case studies and nonclinical survey and
personality research studies focus on two different levels of impact. Case
studies rely heavily on clinical narratives and provide information
regarding the less frequent, more pathological effects of the Holocaust.
Nonclinical studies, on the other hand, focus more on determining
broader, nonpathological effects. The question is not simply whether the
Holocaust affected children of survivors but how it affected them.
Framed in this way, these findings of pathology in clinical studies and
Using a Cross-Generational Approach 51

nonpathology in survey studies are complementary rather than mutu-

ally exclusive.
The Sansei Research Project adopts a nonpathological approach to
studying the Sansei generation's responses to their parents' internment.
Given that there is no literature that identifies actual cases of internment-
related psychopathology in the Sansei, it was not feasible to design a
study focusing on a clinical sample of Sansei.
Finally, Kahana, Kahana, Harel, and Rosner (1988) reported that
although there were Holocaust survivors who suffered observable men-
tal health effects from their experience, there were also those who
emerged remarkably intact despite their traumatic past. They caution
that "the overemphasis on psychiatrie literature can be dangeraus,
leading to a 'tendency to blame the victim' either blatantly or in subtle
ways" (p. 174) by labeling survivors and their children as permanently
impaired socially and emotionally. Therefore, the Holocaust research
suggests the need to investigate the presence of adaptive and growth-
promoting responses to trauma as weH as the negative intergenerational
consequences. Results indicating a heightened sense of cultural identity
in children of Holocaust survivors can be seen as one example of such a
response. The Nisei's response to their concentration camp experience
has in many ways been remarkable. Despite being the victims of the
government's lengthy incarceration, they have also been survivors in
terms of their resilience. Hence, the present study also explores the
existence of positive cross-generational impacts on the Sansei generation.
 CHAPTER 4

The Sansei Research Project

Description und Methodology

Focusing on the Sansei Generation

The Sansei represent the first large postinternment generation of Japa-

nese Americans. Relatively little literature describes the Sansei's reac-
tions to their parents' internment. Those that have been published are
based primarily on descriptive interview data (e.g., Hosokawa, F., 1978;
Makabe, 1980; Miyoshi, 1980; Takezawa, 1989a), on autobiographies
(Mura, 1991), or on testimonies before the Commission on Wartime
Relocation and Internment of Civilians (e.g., Furutani, 1981). These
ac counts emphasize the lack of family communication about the camp
experience and the Sansei's reactions of sadness, anger, and frustration
with the Nisei's lack of resistance to the internment. "The impact of the
camp experience on the Sansei and for future generations is indisput-
able," stated one individual before the commission. "Gur parents suf-
fered a humiliation which resulted in a denial of their very sense of
identity, a denial which was passed onto their offspring. "
Empirical research exploring the effects of the internment on the
Sansei did not exist prior to the current investigation. There were,
however, empirical studies that examined Sansei ethnic identity and
acculturation across generations of Japanese Americans (e.g., Connor,
1977; Levine & Rhodes, 1981; Maykovitch, 1972; Montero, 1980; Yanagi-
sako, 1985). The consensus of these works is that the Sansei are highly
acculturated to the mainstream "majority" culture with respect to edu-
cation, housing, and employment (Kitano & Daniels, 1988). Connor
(1977), for example, reported that the Sansei identified themselves as
being more "American" than their Nisei parents, were less likely than
their parents to observe Japanese holidays, were more likely to have non-

53
54 Chapter 4

]apanese American friends and outmarry, and were less likely to live
near ]apanese Americans than the Nisei generation. Levine and Rhodes
(1981) also noted that the Sansei have "wider and deeper associations
with the Caucasian world" (p. 109) than their parents. Eight out of 10
Sansei in their research thought that being ]apanese American had not
hindered their own advancement. Similarly, whereas over 30% of Nisei
males in aseparate study reported experiencing a "considerable
amount" or a "great deal" of discrimination as an adult, only 12.5% of
Sansei males reported similar levels of discrimination (O'Brien & Fugita,
1983).
Nonetheless, the Sansei have retained some ]apanese characteris-
tics in their attitudes and behavior (Yamamoto & Wagatsuma, 1980).
These indude a more deferent and affiliative behavioral style, doser
family ties, and a greater sense of obligation and duty (Connor, 1977). In
areas with the largest concentrations of ]apanese Americans, many
Sansei may prefer all-Asian fraternities and sororities over mainstream
ones (Kitano & Daniels, 1988). In addition, despite their high degree of
structural assimilation overall, Sansei demonstrate a "high level of
involvement in, and psychological identification with their ethnic com-
munity" (Fugita & O'Brien, 1991, p. 9). Fugita and O'Brien (1991), for
example, interviewed over 300 Nisei and 300 Sansei males from four
areas of California and found evidence for the persistence of the ]apa-
ne se American community in areas with both high and low densities of
]apanese Americans and among both the Nisei and the Sansei genera-
tions.
Fugita and O'Brien attributed this persistence to key cultural values
brought over by the Issei from Japan. These values prescribed guidelines
for structuring social relationships among group members "in such a
way that (Japanese Americans were) able to adapt to changing exigencies
without losing group cohesiveness" (p. 5). For example, the ]apanese
emphasis on collectivism encouraged a "quasi-kin" social system in
which "family" induded all members of the ethnic group, not just blood
relatives. Through this expanded definition of kin, ]apanese Americans
developed extensive networks of voluntary organizations (Oguri-Kendis,
1979, as cited in Fugita & O'Brien, 1991).
The Sansei, then, may be viewed as possessing two social identities:
a mainstream American identity and a ]apanese American identity.
Each, according to social identity theory, "confers a shared/collective
representation of who one is and how one should behave" (Hogg &
Abrams, 1988, p. 3). These dual identities made a study of the Sansei's
reactions to the internment particularly interesting by providing the
opportunity to explore how acculturation has mediated the cross-
The Sansei Research Project 55

generational impact of trauma. In addition, assessing the transmission of

effects between the Nisei and Sansei generations was valuable. Both
generations share the status of being U.S. citizens, but the significance of
their "citizenship" has had a very different meaning for the interned and
their offspring.
The focus on the Sansei generation is in no way meant to detract
from the experiences of the thousands of Issei and Nisei who experi-
enced the most drastic effects of the internment. Their lives before,
during, and after camp merit significant research in themselves. Rather,
an emphasis on the Sansei will hopefully add to a fuller understanding
of the enduring effects of the uprooting suffered by the internees.
The Sansei Research Project employed two methods of data collec-
tion: a large-scale mail-back survey and aseries of in-depth interviews
with individual Sansei. This combination of survey and interview re-
sults provided a more comprehensive picture of the internment's cross-
generational effects than would be possible using either technique
alone. With the quantitative survey data, direct statistical comparisons
could be made between large subgroupings of Sansei on a range of
dependent variables. Based on such data, general patterns of impact
could be measured. The interview data, on the other hand, served as a
way to obtain more detailed qualitative descriptions of issues raised by
the survey and as a way of exploring additional issues not tapped by the
questionnaire. Such data provided more personalized information on
the ways in which the internment has affected Sansei lives.

The Sansei Research Project Survey

Questions in the survey examined a wide range of areas in which

the parents' internment may have affected their Sansei offspring. The
questions were included in a ZO-page survey mailed in February 1987,
with a cover letter explaining the purpose of the research project (see
Appendix A). A prestamped envelope was included in each survey to
facilitate its return.

SampIe

A total of 1,250 surveys were mailed to Sansei across the continental

United States and Hawaii. Although the term Sansei here refers to a
third-generation Japanese American, it is important to note that there is a
wide age range within the Sansei generation. In addition, some Nisei
56 Chapter 4

married a spouse from a different generational cohort than themselves

(e.g., an Issei or a Sansei). The children from these marriages are,
technically, "part Sansei" but were included in the current research,
since they were of the same age range as Sansei with two Nisei parents
and they composed a small proportion of the sampie. For example, the
vast majority of fathers (94%) and mothers (89%) were Nisei or Kibei
(someone who was born in the United States but who was educated or
lived in Japan for aperiod of time while young).
Potential respondents were identified through one of three methods.
The primary method included individuals identified as Sansei by a
chapter of the ]apanese American Citizens League (JACL). The ]ACL
originated in 1930 when a group of Nisei feit the need for a new
organization that could educate society about their community and
provide support and solidarity for ]apanese Americans (Takaki, 1989, p.
222). In 1987, at the time of the survey, the ]ACL had 26,614 official
members (personal communication with ]ACL National Headquarters,
]uly 1, 1990). The ]ACL did not have statistics on the percentage of Sansei
in its membership at that time. Therefore, the 114 local ]ACL chapters
were each asked to send a list of identified Sansei to participate in the
study. üf the 114 chapters contacted, 41 responded, yielding a total of
1,093 names.
Additional surveys were sent to 26 youth directors from the Young
Buddhist Association, another national organization consisting primar-
ily of ]apanese Americans. Packets of three surveys each were sent to
each youth director, who was then asked to distribute the surveys to
members in his or her group. Respondents from the Young Buddhist
Association were included as a way of contacting Sansei who were not
affiliated with the ]ACL. Fifteen surveys were sent to Sansei in Hawaii
whose names were referred through a personal contact with the author.
Finally, 79 surveys were sent to individuals who requested to participate
in the study. These individuals heard about the research either through
reading a ]apanese American newspaper that ran a story on the project,
or through friends or relatives who had mentioned the study.
It is apparent from this description that the current research sampie
recruited primarily Sansei affiliated with the ]ACL and is limited in this
respect. ]ACL membership includes only a fraction of the total ]apanese
American population. For example, the number of ]ACL members in
1987 would constitute less than 4% of the 1980 U.S. Census Bureau's
figure for the total number of ]apanese Americans (approximately
716,000). Nonetheless, the ]ACL provided the single most accessible
means of identifying a large group of respondents. In addition, tele-
phone directories were of limited utility because many Sansei have
The Sansei Research Project 57

outmarried and would not be identified by Japanese American sur-

names.
The initial sampie included four groups of Sansei respondents:
those who had both parents in camp (which will be referred to as the
Two-Parent Sansei), those who had only one parent in camp (One-Parent
Sansei), those who had neither parent in camp (No-Camp Sansei), and
Sansei who were themselves interned as children (Self-Camp Sansei).
Within the One-Parent group were respondents who had only a father
interned (referred to as the "Father-Only" group) and those who had
only a mother interned (the "Mother-Only" group). Most Nisei were
interned during the war, and the majority of Sansei fell into the Two-
Parent, One-Parent, or SeH-Camp groups. However, not all Japanese
Americans were interned. Those who lived outside of the zones targeted
for evacuation were not required to go to the camps. This included
individuals living in the Midwest and the East, as weIl as the majority
of those living in Hawaii. The fact that not all Nisei were interned
made it possible to include Sansei in the sampie who had neither parent
in camp. These No-Camp Sansei formed a group against which the
reactions of the Sansei whose parents had experienced the internment
could be evaluated.
Those in the SeH-Camp group were young children or infants during
the war. Daniels (1988) points out that in 1940 some 4% of Japanese
Americans were already third-generation Japanese Americans. Because
some 5,981 babies were born in the camps (Daniels, 1986b), it is not
surprising that SeH-Camp Sansei would be present in the sampie of
respondents. The Self-Camp Sansei were excluded from the present
analyses, however, because the main purpose of the research was to
examine the indirect cross-generational impact of the camps. Additional
analyses will explore the responses of the SeH-Camp group, who offer a
unique perspective on the impact of incarceration in infancy and early
childhood.
Seven hundred and forty Sansei returned questionnaires. This rep-
resented a return rate of approximately 60%. Of these, 13 were returned
too late for inclusion, had incomplete data, or were inappropriate for
inclusion (e.g., the respondent was Nisei instead of Sansei). One hun-
dred and thirty-four SeH-Camp Sansei were omitted for reasons cited
previously. This left a remaining sampie of 596 respondents for the
present investigation. Of these, 51% were male and 49% were female.
The average age of the total sampie of respondents was approximately 32
years, with ages ranging from 16 to 59 years. (Note that it was possible to
have individuals who were born before the war in the No-Camp group.)
Forty-two percent were married, 48% single, 3% remarried, and 7%
58 Chapter 4

divorced, separated, or widowed. üf those who were married, 52% had

spouses who were also ]apanese American, 36% Caucasian American,
6% Chinese American, 3% part Asian American, 1.5% Hispanic, 0.7%
African American, and 2% of other ethnicities.
The majority of subjects came from California (44%), followed by
the Midwest (18%), Northwest (17%), East (13%), Hawaii (4%), and
Intermountain (3%) regions. Table 4.1lists the numbers of respondents
from specific states. According to the 1980 U.S. Census, the percentage

Table 4.1. Sansei Respondents

by Current Area of Residence
Sansei Group
Area Two-Parent One-Parent No-Camp Total

Arizona 1 0 1 2
California 146 75 42 263
Colorado 2 0 1 3
Connecticut 0 2 1 3
Florida 0 1 0 1
Hawaii 1 5 19 25
Idaho 4 2 6 12
Illinois 24 14 2 40
Iowa 0 1 0 1
Maryland 4 2 2 8
Massachusetts 6 2 2 10
Michigan 1 3 1 5
Minnesota 8 4 2 14
Missouri 3 0 1 4
Montana 0 1 0 1
Nebraska 3 6 0 9
New Jersey 5 2 0 7
New York 9 4 5 18
Ohio 21 2 2 25
Oregon 16 7 5 28
Pennsylvania 5 2 0 7
Tennessee 1 0 0 1
Virginia 7 5 4 16
Washington 45 23 6 74
Wisconsin 7 1 0 8
Japan 0 0 1 1
Washington. D.C. 3 3 2 8
Other 1 1 0 2
323 168 105 596
The Sansei Research Project 59

of California respondents in the Sansei Project survey approximates the

overall proportion of Japanese Americans from that state, while the
percentage of Hawaiian respondents greatly underrepresents the actual
proportion of Japanese Americans who live in that state. Close to 37%
of the total Japanese American population lived in California, 33% in
Hawaii, 3.8% in Washington, 3.5% in New York, and 2.6% in Illinois
(O.S. Department of Commerce, 1988). The low percentage of Hawaiian
respondents and the absence of respondents from other mainland states
with relatively higher percentages of Japanese Americans (such as Texas
and Colorado) were due in large part to the reliance on JACL lists of
potential respondents. Chapters from these states did not submit lists
to be included in the mailing.
There were 323 respondents in the Two-Parent group, 168 in the
One-Parent group, and 105 in the No-Camp group. Within the One-Parent
group, 54% (N = 91) had only a father interned and made up the Father-
Only sample, while 46% (N = 77) had only a mother interned and made
up the Mother-Only sampie. Although the majority of respondent names
were obtained through the JACL, only 55% of the 596 Sansei were JACL
members at the time of the survey. The proportion of JACL members
within each of the separate Sansei subgroups was as follows: Two-Parent
= 59%, Father-Only and Mother-Only = 49%, and No-Camp = 54%.
Survey data also requested information on the age, location, and
length of a parent's internment. Fathers tended to be in their early 20s
and mothers in their late teens during their internment. Average length
of time in the camps for fathers was approximately 2 years. The length of
internment for mothers was typically longer, between 2 and 3 years.
Tables 4.2 and 4.3 list the names of the camps where fathers and mothers
were interned as weIl as the number of respondents whose parents were
in each camp.
Chi-square analyses revealed no significant differences between the
Two-Parent, One-Parent, and No-Camp groups in terms of their religious
background. Approximately 46% of the sampie were Protestant, 29%
Buddhist, 17% "other," 5% Catholic, and 2% agnostic. Analyses of
variance for group differences in educationallevel were also nonsignifi-
cant. Three percent had attained a high school diploma or less, 18% had
entered but not completed college, 31% had completed college, 15% had
some graduate/professional school training, and 32% had completed
graduate/professional training. It was not possible to compare these
percentages with those of the more general Sansei population, since
census data do not provide a breakdown of demographie characteristics
by generation. However, the 1980 o.S. Census reported that 26.4% of all
Japanese Americans at that time had obtained four or more years of
60 Chapter 4

Table 4.2. Percentage of Fathers Interned by Camp

Group
'I\vo-Parent Father-Only All
Camp Location N Fathers Fathers Fathers
Thle Lake California 73 17 20 18
Manzanar California 27 7 7 7
Minidoka Idaho 48 11 15 12
Topaz Utah 26 6 7 6
Poston Arizona 60 17 8 15
Gila River Arizona 27 7 4 7
Heart Mountain Idaho 35 9 7 9
(Amache) Granada Colorado 32 8 8 8
Rohwer Arkansas 14 4 2 3
Jerome Arkansas 14 3 3 3
Other"
Crystal City Texas 3 1 0 1
Santa Fe New Mexico 1 <1 0 <1
Canada
aThere were 10 official "relocation" camps on the mainland, but a parent might also have been
incarcerated in a federal internment camp for immigrant aliens, or a camp in Canada.

Table 4.3. Percentage of Mothers Interned by Camp

Group
Two-Parent Mother-Only All
Camp Location N Mothers Mothers Mothers

Thle Lake California 74 17 24 19

Manzanar California 19 4 7 5
Minidoka Idaho 42 11 9 11
Topaz Utah 34 8 9 8
Poston Arizona 52 14 9 13
Gila River Arizona 18 6 0 5
(Amache) Granada Colorado 29 7 8 7
Rohwer Arkansas 28 7 8 7
Jerome Arkansas 18 5 4 5
Other"
Crystal City Texas 3 <1 3 1
Santa Fe New Mexico 1 <1 0 <1
Canada 1 <1 0 <1
aThere were 10 official "relocation" camps on the mainland, but a parent might also have been
incarcerated in a federal internment camp for immigrant aliens, or a camp in Canada.
The Sansei Research Project 61

college (U.S. Department of Commerce, 1988), and recent data gathered

from a sample of Sansei males from California indicated that two-thirds
of the group were college graduates. Finally, 30% of the respondents
reported being the youngest in their family, 30% were middle children,
34% were the oldest, and 5% were only children.
Relatively high levels of personal income were reported, with the
average personal income ranging between $25,000 and $35,000. The
median income for Japanese Americans over 15 years of age in the 1980
U.S. Census was $15,026 (U.S. Department of Commerce, 1988), consid-
erably less than the reported average ineome for the eurrent study's
Sansei sample. However, it is difficult to compare the current incomes
with census figures because inflation has undoubtedly increased wages
in the period of time since the 1980 figures were published. In addition,
the census records personal incomes for persans as young as 15 years,
while the present Sansei sample includes primarily wage earners in
their late 20s to early 40s. Older Sansei would be expected to earn more
than younger Sansei.
A significant ineome difference emerged between the Two-Parent,
One-Parent, and No-Camp groups (F (2,586) = 2.93, P = .05). Two-Parent
and No-Camp Sansei reported relatively equallevels of personal income
(approximately $30,000 per year). One-Parent Sansei reported earning
significantly less (closer to $25,000 per year) than either the Two-Parent
(t (480.46) = 2.74, P < .01) or No-Camp Sansei (t (215.56) = -2.39,
p< .05).
Significant ineome differenees also oeeurred when comparing the
Two-Parent, Father-Only, and Mother-Only groups (F (2,480) = 4.79, P <
.01). Father-Only Sansei earned the lowest average income (approx-
imately $20,000 per year), significantly less than either the Two-Parent (t
(300.90) = 4.16, P < .001) or Mother-Only Sansei (t (154.14) = -3.45,
P = .001), each of whom reported annual incomes closer to $27,000.
Because the lower income level of the Father-Only group may have been
due to the fact that Father-Only Sansei were significantly younger than
members of the other groups (and henee had less time to develop their
income levels), additional analyses partialed out the effects of age. When
this was done, the differences in ineome were no langer significant.
Analyses of variance also revealed signifieant group differences for
Sansei age (F (2,593) = 39.37, P < .001) (see Table 4.4). One-Parent
Sansei were significantly younger than either the Two-Parent (f (306.28)
= 4.32, P < .001) or No-Camp Sansei (f (174.46) = -7.33, p < .001), and
Sansei in the No-Camp group were the oldest. One possible explanation
for this finding is that there was a relatively high percentage of respon-
dents from Hawaii in the No-Camp group. Because Japanese Americans
62 Chapter 4

Table 4.4. Mean Ages for Sansei Respondents and Their Parents
Sansei Group
Two-Parent One-Parent Father-Only Mother-Only No-Camp

Sansei Age 31.79 29.31 27.55 31.36 36.48

Father's Age 64.41 63.32 62.19 64.66 67.11
Mother's Age 60.83 57.92 56.22 59.88 63.63

immigrated to Hawaii several years before coming to the mainland

(Fugita & O'Brien, 1991; Takaki, 1989), this would result in an older
Sansei population. However, when respondents from Hawaii were re-
moved from analyses, the significant group differences remained.
A significant age effect was also found between the Two-Parent,
Father-Only, and Mother-Only groups (F (2,488) = 19.24, P < .001).
Father-Only Sansei were younger than both the Two Parent (t (128.81) =
5.60, P < .001) and Mother-Only groups (t (165.90) = -4.08, P < .001).
The ages of fathers also differed significantly between the Two-
Parent, One-Parent, and No-Camp samples (F (2,431) = 8.80, P < .001)
(see Table 4.4). No-Camp fathers were significantly older than both the
Two-Parent (t (97.68) = -2.76, P < .01) and One-Parentfathers (t (109.60)
= -3.73, P < .001). Significant age differences were also found for the
mothers of these Sansei groups (F (2,428) = 21.12, P < .001). No-Camp
mothers were significantly older than the Two-Parent (t (95.65) = -2.90,
P = .005) and One-Parent mothers (t (118.12) = -5.54, p < .001). In
addition, Two-Parent mothers were significantly older than the One-
Parent mothers (t (262.76) = 4.51, P < .001). When parental ages between
the Two-Parent, Father-Only, and Mother-Only groups were compared,
there were again significant differences for both fathers (F (2,361) = 4.44,
P = .01) and mothers (F (2,358) = 17.41, P < .001). Father-Only fathers
were significantly younger than both the Two-Parent (t (130.28) = 2.95, P
< .005) and Mother-Only fathers (t (127.58) = -2.61, P = .01). In
addition, mothers from the Father-Only group were significantly younger
than either the Two-Parent (t (108.19) = 5.48, P < .001) or Mother-Only
mothers (t (129.25) = -3.70, P < .001). These effects remained when
respondents from Hawaii were omitted.
There were no significant Sansei gender differences with respect to
age or education level. However, there were significant differences in
income (F (1,581) = 18.05, P < .001). Males reported incomes averaging
around $30,000 per year compared with females, who reported earning
approximately $25,000 per year.
The Sansei Research Project 63

Significant differences also occurred among the Two-Parent, One-

Parent, and No-Camp groups in terms of the ethnic composition of the
neighborhoods where they grew up (X 2 (4, N = 550) = 35.88, P < .001).
Whereas 40% of the No-Camp Sansei reported growing up primarily
with other ]apanese Americans and Asian Americans, only 17% of the
Two- and One-Parent groups reparted this. A greater proportion of these
laUer two groups, elose to 71%, reported having grown up in preciomi-
nantly non-Latino Caucasian American neighborhoods. In contrast,
only 44% of the No-Camp group reported having grown up primarily
with Caucasian Americans. The remaining percentages of the Two-
Parent, One-Parent, and No-Camp Sansei reported growing up in neigh-
borhoods with approximately equal representations of ]apanese/Asian
Americans and Caucasian Americans. Very few reported growing up in
predominantly African American or Latino neighborhoods.
It was also important to assess the possibility of geographical
differences within the sampie of respondents. As noted previously, the
distribution of ]apanese Americans varies widely across the United
States. In addition, states differ greatly in terms of the proportions of
]apanese Americans relative to their overall population. Hawaii, for
example, has the unique status of being the only state where whites have
historically been a minority and ]apanese Americans have represented
the single largest ethnic group (Daniels, 1988). The 1980 U.S. Census
indicated that Asian and Pacific Islanders combined made up 61% of
Hawaii's total population and that ]apanese Americans represented 40%
of that AsianlPacific Islander total. The next highest group, Filipinos,
represented only 22.4% of Hawaii's AsianIPacific Islander population
(U.S. Department of Commerce, 1988). Hence, there are important dis-
tinctions to be made between the Hawaiian respondents and those
respondents from the mainland.
Geographical differences, however, are also important to assess
within the mainland sampie of Sansei. Informal talks with Sansei often
reveal their identity as "California Sansei," "East Coast Sansei," or
"Chicago Sansei. " Gehrie (1976), for example, noted the unique charac-
teristics of Sansei from Chicago and their perceptions of how they
differed from Sansei from the West Coast. Ta investigate how geographi-
cal differences may affect Sansei perceptions of the internment, analy-
ses comparing four main regions of the U.S. mainland (California, the
Pacific Northwest, the Midwest, and the East Co ast) were conducted far
each of the dependent variables investigated. Hawaii was omitted be-
cause of the small number of respondents from that state and, more
important, because its geographical and cultural characteristics differ so
greatly from those of the mainland.
64 Chapter 4

More specifically, the four regions for the mainland sam pie in-
cluded the following: California (N = 263); the Northwest (Washington
and Oregon, N = 102); the Midwest (Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan,
Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, and Wisconsin, N = 106); and the
East (Connecticut, New Hampshire, Maryland, Massachusetts, New
Jersey, New York, Virginia, Washington, DC, Rhode Island, and Pennsyl-
vania, N = 77). A breakdown of regions represented within each of the
Two-Parent, One-Parent, and No-Camp groups is shown in Table 4.5.
Analyses were conducted to determine wh ether there were signifi-
cant differences among Sansei from the four geographical areas with
respect to age, education and income levels, religious background, the
ethnic composition of the neighborhood where they grew up, and
current ethnic socialization patterns. There were no significant regional
differences for age, education, or income level for the entire sampie.
Analyses including only those Sansei with an interned parent were also
nonsignificant for age and income, although there was a marginally
significant regional difference with respect to level of education (F
(3,466) = 2.42, p < .10). Although all regional groups indicated high
educationallevels (Le., the completion of college), the East Coast Sansei
were more likely to have obtained andJor completed graduate or profes-
sional school than either the California (t (96.21) = -2.02, P < .05), the
Northwest (t (125.25) = -2.84, P = .005), or the Midwestern Sansei
(t (138.05) = -1.67, P < .10). Because of this difference, educationallevel
was covaried out in subsequent analyses examining geographical differ-
ences.
Chi-square analyses assessing differences in religion were not pos-
sible because cell frequencies did not meet the minimal levels required.
However, the data did show that while approximately equal percentages
of Sansei from California reported having Buddhist and Christian up-
bringings, greater percentages of the Northwest (81%), Midwest (72%),

Table 4.5. Sansei Respondents by Geographical Region

Percentage of Respondents
N California Northwest Midwest East Coast

Two-Parent 313 47 19 21 13
One-Parent 158 47 19 20 14
Father-Only 86 51 19 16 14
Mother-Only 72 43 19 24 14
No-Camp 77 55 14 10 21
The Sansei Research Project 65

and East Coast Sansei (69%) reported a Christian background. A similar

pattern for religious background occurred when only Sansei who had a
parent interned were examined.
An evaluation of regional differences in the ethnic composition of
the neighborhood where a respondent grew up revealed that a much
larger percentage of Midwest Sansei (87%) grew up primarily in Cauca-
sian American neighborhoods than either the East Coast (69%), Califor-
nia (61%), or Northwest (66%) groups. This remained unchanged when
analyses included only those who had a parent in camp. Conversely,
Midwest Sansei were least likely to have come from primarily ]apanese
American/Asian American neighborhoods. Only 4% of Midwest Sansei
fell into this category, compared with 13% of the East Coast, 18% of the
Northwest, and 28% of the California Sansei groups.

Measures

Major areas included within the survey were selected as those that
seemed most prominent in the literature on children of Holocaust
survivors. The survey also included questions concerning redress; the
issue of whether to support arequest that the D.S. government pay
$20,000 monetary re dress to each internment survivor was foremost in
the ]apanese American community at the time of the survey mailing. An
assessment of Sansei attitudes toward redress also provided an avenue
for exploring reactions to the injustice of the past internment.
The major areas under investigation included:
1. the nature of communication that has occurred between the
Sansei and their parents about the internment experience,
2. the level of interest held by Sansei about the internment,
3. the level of knowledge Sansei have about the internment as a
historical event,
4. the Sansei's attitudes toward ethnicity, their sense of security in
this country, and their degree of preference for interacting with
Caucasian Americans,
5. Sansei rates of outmarriage, intermarriage, ability to understand
the ]apanese language, and membership in ]apanese American
organizations,
6. Sansei opinions about the movement to seek monetary redress
from the government for former internees.
Questions in these areas as weIl as those covering demographie
characteristics were answered by all respondents. The specific format
for each question is discussed in the following seetions.
66 Chapter 4

Demographics and Background Information

Information was gathered regarding the Sansei's age, birth order,

religion, marital status, spouse ethnicity, income, education, current
state of residence, and predominant ethnic composition of the neighbor-
hood where the respondent grew up. Additional questions focused on
each parent's generational status, age, and education and on whether
that parent was deceased. Respondents also answered questions indicat-
ing whether they or any of their parents or relatives had been interned.
For those who did have a parent in camp, questions examined the
parent's age during internment and the length of time the parent was
in camp.

Communication Patterns

Fixed choice questions under this section focused on the age at

which respondents first learned about the internment, their source of
information about the camps, and the frequency, length, and mann er of
communications they have had with their parents about the internment.
Respondents were also asked to assess their own level of comfort in
discussing the topic with their parents, other Japanese Arilericans, other
minority group individuals, and Caucasian Americans. Scales for these
laUer ratings ranged from 1, indicating "not at all comfortable," to 7,
indicating "extremely comfortable."

Interest in the Internment

Questions addressing the Sansei's level of interest in the internment

consisted of five 7 -point scales on which respondents were asked to rate
their level of interest in the internment at the elementary, junior high,
high school, young adulthood (ages 18-25 years), and present-day
levels. A rating of 1 indicated "not at all interested," and 7 indicated
"extremely interested."

Level of Knowledge about the Internment

Eleven objective questions assessed the respondents' level of knowl-

edge about the internment as a historical event. These questions in-
cluded the data of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941); the
The Sansei Research Project 67

number of ]apanese Americans interned during the war (approximately

110,000 if one counts D.S. mainland internees or approximately 120,000
if one counts all individuals held in the camps); the proportion of
internees who were D.S. citizens (approximately two-thirds); the num-
ber of camps that were established (10); the names and locations of these
camps (see Figure 1.2 in Chapter 1); the number of the executive order
that allowed for the internment (9066); the name of the president who
signed the executive order (Franklin D. Roosevelt); the average length of
time spent in the camps (2 to 4 years); the significance of the initials
"WRA" (War Relocation Authority, a civilian organization created to
administer the camps); and whether ]apanese Americans in Hawaii were
treated differently from those on the mainland (Japanese Americans in
Hawaii were not subjected to mass incarceration as were mainland
]apanese Americans along the West Coast. Whereas less than 1% of
Japanese in Hawaii were interned [Ogawa & Fox, 1986], over 90% ofthose
on the mainland were incarcerated).

Impact on AUitudes

All respondents were also asked to rate their level of agreement on

27 attitude statements using a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 indicated "strongly
disagree" and 7 indicated "strongly agree." The attitude statements focused
on three main areas: (1) ethnic preference, (2) attitudes toward the
Dnited States and the security of one's rights, and (3) the likelihood of
resisting a future internment. An additional set of 10 attitude statements,
completed only by those respondents who had a parent interned, focused
on more specific questions evaluating personal and familial impacts.

Behavioral Indices

Additional items assessed behavioral indices of ethnic identifica-

tion. These included questions related to dating and socialization pat-
terns, outmarriage, ability to understand the Japanese language, and past
and present membership in Japanese American community groups.

Perceptions 0/ Coping and Suffering

Four questions asked respondents who had a parent interned to
assess (1) the degree to which they thought Japanese Americans had
68 Chapter 4

suffered from the internment; (2) the degree to whieh their own parent(s)
had suffered, relative to most other ]apanese Amerieans; (3) the degree to
whieh they thought ]apanese Americans had eoped with the aftermath
of the internment; and (4) the degree to whieh their own parent(s) had
eoped, relative to most other ]apanese Amerieans.

Redress Attitudes

Sansei were also asked to indieate their views toward seeking

monetary redress from the government for previously interned ]apanese
Amerieans. On ascale ranging from 1 to 7, respondents indicated the
degree to which they feIt knowledgeable about the redress movement
(1 = very little to 7 = a great deal), and on aseparate seale, they indieated
the degree to whieh they had been aetive in the redress movement (1 =
not aetive to 7 = very aetive). A third seale assessed the degree to whieh
Sansei agree with the redress movement itself (1 = strongly disagree to 7
= strongly agree). Finally, respondents indicated whether their fathers
and mothers (eaeh rated separately) favored redress payments.
Survey respondents also provided additional qualitative data
through the eomments written at the end of their questionnaires. These
spontaneous eomments ranged in length from a few paragraphs to
several pages.

The Sansei Research Project Interviews

While the survey questions empirically evaluated the larger pat-

terns of impact on the Sansei, interviews were eondueted with an eye
toward uneovering more detailed personal narratives about the Sansei's
experienees.
Forty-two individuals (22 females and 20 males) participated in the
interviews with the author. Interviewees eame from aeross the eontinen-
tal United States and Hawaii. The breakdown of interviewees by geo-
graphical region was as follows: California (17), Washington (6), Illinois
(6), East Coast (Massaehusetts and New York) (7), Hawaii (6). The average
age for the entire sampie of interviewees was 39 years, with ages ranging
from 19 to 47 years. Interviewees from the mainland were seleeted with
the assistanee of the ]ACL, although only a portion (24) were ]ACL
members. Those from Hawaii were referred through the University of
Hawaii. Seventeen of the interviewees had eompleted the Sansei survey
prior to being interviewed. (Their responses on the survey, however,
The Sansei Research Project 69

were not examined prior to the interviews so as to avoid biasing the

interviewer's questioning.)
Thirty-six of the 42 interviewees-were the children of former inter-
nees. Their mean age was 34 years. Gf these, 26 had both parents
interned, and 2 were themselves born in a camp. Ten interviewees had
only one parent interned; four had only a father interned, and six had
only a mother who was in camp. The remaining six interviewees had
neither parent in camp. Their mean age was 34 years.

Interview Procedure

A semistructured interview was conducted with each individual.

Sansei were asked to discuss their perceptions in the following areas
(see Appendix B):
1. Demographics and background information
2. How interviewe es first learned about the internment and where
they obtained subsequent information about the topic
3. The nature of communication that had occurred between inter-
viewees and their parents, siblings, and other Sansei about the
internment
4. The impact that interviewees thought the internment had on
their own and their parents' lives
5. Perceptions of the possibility of future internments and how they
might react
6. Gpinions about redress
All interviews were tape recorded and transcribed.

Rationale for Analyses

and Presentation of Findings

To evaluate the impact of the internment on the lives of Sansei

whose parents experienced the trauma, the survey data were analyzed
by comparing the differences between Sansei who had a parent interned
and those whose parents were not incarcerated. In addition, the pres-
ence of Two-Parent and One-Parent Sansei allowed for an investigation
of the potential differences in impact experienced by those who had two
parents versus one parent interned.
Dramatic events can differentially affect mothers and fathers, and
these differences may lead to different consequences for their children.
70 Chapter 4

Therefore, additional comparisons evaluated the presence of parent

gender effects by contrasting the Sansei who had only a father in camp
(the Father-Only group), those who had only a mother in camp (the
Mother-Only group), and the Two-Parent group. Analyses were not
conducted with all four Sansei groups (Two-Parent, Father-Only, Mother-
Only, and No-Camp), since such comparisons would confound two
levels of discourse, parent gen der effects (having a father versus a mother
who was in camp) and camp effects (having a parent in camp versus no
parent in camp).
In summary, the dependent variables of interest included each of
the major areas of questions from the survey: communication patterns,
interest in and knowledge of the internment, attitude statements, behav-
ioral indices, perceptions of coping and suffering, and opinions ab out
redress. The major independent variable was Sansei camp group (Le.,
wh ether a respondent fell into the Two-Parent, One-Parent, or No-Camp
groups). In addition, analyses investigated the role of the following
control variables: Sansei age, gender, religion, birth order, income,
education, spouse ethnicity, past and present ethnic socialization pat-
terns, and geographicallocation of residence. For analyses examining
the role of religion, two major religions were used, Buddhist and Chris-
tian (including Protestant and Catholic respondents). These two groups
made up 75% of the total survey sampie. A third category of "other
religions" was omitted, since it was considered too heterogeneous to be
reliable.
The literature on cross-generational research from Chapter 3 also
suggested that the impact of a parent's trauma on their children can vary
depending on the degree of trauma experienced and the age and gen der
of the parent. To explore this possibility, control variables associated
with a parent's internment were also examined for those Sansei who had
a parent in camp. Specifically, the gen der of the parent interned, the
age at which a parent was in camp, and the length of their incarceration
were evaluated with respect to the dependent variables.
Finally, it should be noted that some variables are examined as
dependent as weIl as independent variables. Outmarriage, for example,
was used as an independent variable when determining whether Sansei
who married non-Japanese Americans differed significantly from Sansei
who married other Japanese Americans in their attitudes toward, for
example, redress. However, outmarriage was also used as adependent
variable when exploring the question of whether Sansei with an in-
terned parent were more or less likely than No-Camp Sansei to outmarry.
Interview data were evaluated using a thematic matrix method of
qualitative coding (Miles & Huberman, 1984). Each thematic category
The Sansei Research Project 71

identified by three or more interviewees was listed along the top of the
matrix, while interviewee names were listed vertically. Comments from
each individual could then be tallied according to each theme in the
appropriate grid box. Data were analyzed by counting the number of
times a theme was endorsed and by noting patterns of themes across
interviewees (Miles & Huberman, 1984).

Some Methodological Notes

Researching the internment is a complex undertaking, and there

were many important factors to consider in designing the current proj-
ect. This section highlights some relevant methodological issues. Rather
than representing limitations to the research, they are part and parcel of
studying the Japanese American experience and are included here as a
way of placing the goals of the study in an appropriate context. It is
hoped that in reviewing them the reader will develop a fuller apprecia-
tion for the task at hand.
Differences that emerged between Sansei who had a parent interned
and No-Camp Sansei are interpreted here as evidence supporting the
indirect impact of a parent's internment on the Sansei generation.
However, differences that occur between these groups cannot be causally
linked solely to the experience of having a parent who was interned. As
noted by Kitano (1986), a true experimental study of the impact of the
internment would have required the presence of some "mad" scientist
who administered a battery of assessment devices to all Japanese Ameri-
cans, randomly assigned a portion to each of the different camps and
another portion to be a control group who remained free, and then
readministered the assessment devices to everyone after the war. In
addition, "the problem of measuring the results of an event that occurred
over 40 years ago is complicated by intervening years, a lack of relevant
material, a complexity of the many interacting variables that affect
behavior, the vagaries of memory, and the near impossibility of recon-
structing an event not designed for evaluative purposes" (Kitano, 1986,
p. 151).
Kitano's comments appear to refer to the process of researching the
effects of the camps on those who were interned. However, his methodo-
logical concerns apply to the current project as weIl. Many questions in
the current survey require Sansei to provide retrospective information.
In addition, the No-Camp group for the Sansei Research Project does not
represent a true control group. Japanese Americans were not randomly
assigned to be interned or excluded from internment. Because geograph-
72 Chapter4

icallocation of residence was, in most cases, the reason for escaping the
internment orders, it is not surprising that there would be a greater
percentage of Hawaiian ]apanese Americans represented in the No-
Camp group. While 18% of the No-Camp group were from Hawaii, less
than 1% of the Two-Parent and Father-Only and 5% of the Mother-Only
groups came from that state. In addition, while 51% of the No-Camp
group were born in Hawaii, none of the Two-Parent, 2% of the Father-
Only, and 9% of the Mother-Only group were born there.
Differences between Hawaiian ]apanese Americans and mainland
]apanese Americans, aside from their experiences during the years of the
war, are important to consider. That Hawaiian ]apanese Americans have
lived in an environment where they represented a powerful majority
while mainland ]apanese Americans have lived in a Caucasian majority
environment has undoubtedly shaped the sense of ethnic identity, the
social experiences, and the outlook of the mainland and Hawaiian
]apanese Americans in ways that are impossible to separate from the
effects of the internment.
The age range for the No-Camp group in the present sampie was also
wider than that of the Sansei groups with an interned parent. Because
the Sansei Research Project was designed to look at the indirect effects of
the camps, only Sansei born after the internment were included in the
Two-Parent and One-Parent groups. The oldest individuals in these
groups were in their early 40s. In contrast, the No-Camp group included
older Sansei born before the war. (Nearly 20%of the No-Camp sampie
were over the age of 43.) Because the ]apanese immigrated to the
Hawaiian Islands before they immigrated to the mainland, Sansei from
Hawaii can be older than Sansei from the mainland. In addition, the No-
Camp group and the One-Parent groUP differ from the Two-Parent group
in that they potentially include Sansei whose parents deliberately
moved outside the areas subjected to the military exclusion orders to
es cape internment.
Recognizing the limitations presented by the No-Camp comparison
group, the present study attempted to evaluate the possibility of these
confounds when relevant. To assess the potential impact of living in
Hawaii, comparisons were made between results obtained with and
without Hawaiian respondents. It was also possible for a respondent to
have grown up in a predominantly Asian American environment such
as Hawaii but to have moved to a current location outside of Hawaii.
Therefore, additional analyses examined the relationship between the
ethnic composition of the neighborhood where the respondent grew up
and the dependent variables of interest. The possible contribution of age
effects was evaluated by calculating the correlations between Sansei age
The Sansei Research Project 73

and the dependent variables. In addition, the effects of age were covaried
out in analyses when the possibility existed that age would confound
the interpretation of the obtained results.
The results from the survey research provide the main framework
for presenting the results of the Project. Chapters 5 through 11 each takes
a major area of focus, discussing the findings relevant to that area.
Excerpts from the in-depth interviews as weH as from spontaneous
comments written at the end of the surveys are also included throughout
these chapters, highlighting the findings from survey data.
 CHAPTER 5

Patterns of Communication

When I first learned of the internment as a youth I found that it was a difficult
matter to discuss with my parents. My perception of them was that they did
not speak honestly about the camp experience. Positive aspects were men-
tioned, if anything at all, but there always seemed to be something that was
left out. My feeling was that there was much more to their experience than
they wanted to reveal. Their words said one thing, while their hearts were
holding something else deep inside. And for me, it was as if there was a void
in my personal his tory.

This Sansei describes what other ]apanese American scholars have

observed, a marked silence surrounding the topic of the internment
within the families of internees (Hosokowa, B., 1969; Kashima, 1980;
Miyoshi, 1980). Yet silence represents more than the absence of commu-
nication; silence itself may carry significant meaning (Saville-Troike,
1985). In what ways and to what extent have the Sansei experienced the
silence of their parents? How was the injustice of the camps conveyed
across the generations? To ans wer these questions, the Sansei Research
Project examined the communication patterns of Sansei respondents.

Age of First Memory

Virtuallyall Sansei are now aware of the internment and its signifi-
cance. However, it is not clear when they first became aware of its
existence. Survey respondents were asked to recall the age at which they
first learned of the event. Although memories for something early in
childhood are likely to be vague and inexact, it was nonetheless useful to
see whether there were systematic differences between Sansei groups in
their recollections. For example, did Sansei with two interned parents
become aware of the camps sooner than those in the No-Camp group
despite a general lack of communication about it? Survey respondents
75
76 Chapter 5

were presented with the question "Approximately how old were you
when you first recalled hearing/seeing any reference to camp?" and were
asked to check, on a scale of 1 to 5, one of the following intervals : 1 = less
than 5 years old, 2 = 5 to 10 years old, 3 = 10 to 15 years old, 4 = 15 to 20
years old, and 5 = over 20 years old. The mean responses for each group
are listed in Table 5.1.
Analyses revealed significant differences among the Two-Parent,
One-Parent, and No-Camp groups (F (2,590) = 34.87, p < .001). Sansei
with two parents who had been interned reported learning about the
internment at an earlier age than Sansei with only one (t (337.7) = 2.96,
p< .005) or no parent (t (148.1) = -7.41, p < .001) in camp, and Sansei
with one interned parent learned of the event earlier than Sansei with no
interned parent (t (184.3) = -4.90, P < .001). (Note: T-values are reported
in decimal numbers in cases where tests of homogeneity between the
different sampIes of subjects indicated the need to use separate rather
than pooled variance estimates.) While the Two-Parent and One-Parent
Sansei recalled first learning about camp between the ages of 5 and 10
years, those with no parent in camp reported first hearing about the
internment between the ages of 10 and 15 years. There were no signifi-
cant differences for males and females or for Sansei from different
regions of the country, and age did not correlate significantly with the
age of remembrance. In addition, Sansei who had only a father in camp
did not differ significantly from those with only a mother in camp in
terms of the age at which they learned about the internment. Neither the
age of a parent while in camp nor the length of his or her internment was
significantly related to the age at which Sansei learned about the camps.
Interview data were less clear-cut, although a greater percentage of
Sansei with an interned parent reported learning about the internment
before junior high school than those who had neither parent interned.
Half (N = 18) of the interviewees who had a parent interned reported
their age of first memory to be before junior high school. An additional
16 interviewees from this group first learned in high school, and two did

Table 5.1. Age of First Memory

Group N M s.d.
1\vo-Parent 323 2.20 .70
One-Parent 168 2.39 .70
Father-Only 91 2.36 .72
Mother-Only 77 2.43 .68
No-Camp 105 2.88 .86
Patterns of Communication 77

not learn until college or later. Of the six Sansei interviewees with no
interned parent, two learned about the event before junior high, three
during high school, and one after the age of 30.

Source of Information

Although the previous results indicated when Sansei recall first

learning about the internment, they did not indicate where they ob-
tained this information. Did they learn from their parents or from a
source outside the family? Ta evaluate this laUer question, Sansei were
asked to identify their first source of information about the internment.
The results showed that having had one or both parents who were in a
camp significantly increased the likelihood that they first learned about
the internment through direct interaction with their parents either by
asking questions or having their parents discuss the camps (X 2 (4,
N = 593) = 47.94, P < .001). As shown in Table 5.2, elose to half of both
the Two-Parent and One-Parent Sansei reported first learning of the
internment by talking with their parents. There were no differences in
the first source of information between the Father-Only and Mother-
Only respondents within the One-Parent group. In contrast, less than
one-third of the No-Camp group learned about the internment through
talks with parents, and the majority first learned this information from
books, films, or other media outside the family.
Interestingly, a sizable portion of Sansei in all the groups first
learned about the internment by overhearing conversations between
parents and or relatives, or through books, films, or other media, rather
than through direct contact with parents. This ineluded nearly half of
those whose parents were in camps.

Table 5.2. First Source of Information

about the Internment
Pereentage Who Learned from:
Group N Parents Overhearing Other Soure es

1Wo-Parent 323 48 39 13
One-Parent 168 48 30 22
Father-Only 91 48 29 23
Mother-Only 77 47 31 22
No-Camp 105 29 28 43
78 Chapter 5

The 36 Sansei interviewees whose parents were interned reported

mixed reactions to these first communications. Most Sansei vaguely
sensed that their parents had been in an unpleasant kind of camp.
However, three thought the word camp referred to a summer or YMCA
camp, as is exemplified in the following comment:
I guess my earliest memories were probably when I was about eight or nine
years old .... I thought it was like a summer camp, or something, which I
understand is a pretty typical impression .... I didn't get the impression ...
that there was a detention camp or like a concentration camp. I would've feH
a negative connotation. But I didn't.

Another interviewee also commented, HIt took a long long time (to find
out what the camps really were). As I was growing up they used the word
camp but as kids the only camp we know is summer camp."
The source of information where one first learned about the intern-
ment might differ from where one learned additional information.
Sansei, for example, may have first heard about the internment from
their parent but may not have gained information beyond that initial
exposure. To assess where Sansei continued to learn about the camps,
respondents were asked to identify their primary source of information
about the internment while growing up. Here, again, there were signifi-
cant differences among the Sansei groups (X 2 (4, N = 593) = 31.355,
p< .001). As shown in Table 5.3, over half of the Two-Parent and One-
Parent groups reported that direct conversations with their parents
served as their primary source of information over time. In contrast,
slightly less than a third of the No-Camp group reported direct commu-
nication with their parents as their main information source. Although
many of the Two- and One-Parent Sansei learned more about the intern-
ment by talking with their parents, a substantial number (38% and 47%,
respectively) cited outside sources or overheard conversations as their

Table 5.3. Primary Source of Information

about the Internment
Percentage Who Learned from:
Group N Parents Overhearing Other Sources

'l\vo-Parent 323 62 24 14
One-Parent 168 53 31 16
Father-Only 91 51 35 14
Mother-Only 77 56 27 17
No-Camp 105 17 0 83
Patterns of Communication 79

primary source of information. Neither the gender of the respondent nor

the gen der of their interned parent significantly affected these results.
Hence, a substantial number of Sansei with interned parents did not
view their parents as a primary source of information on the topic over
time. Communication, however, can occur on many levels, and Sansei
could have been exposed to information about the internment through
more indirect channels. Respondents used the following ratings to
indicate the number of books or journals about the internment that were
present in their horne while they were growing up: 0 = none, 1 = one
book,2 = two or three books, 3 = three to four books, and 4 = more than
four books (see Table 5.4). Analyses of variance showed that both Two-
and One-Parent Sansei reported having significantly more books about
the internment in their hornes than the No-Camp Sansei (F (1,571) =
40.91, P < .001). Sansei age was negatively correlated with the number of
books (r = -.27, P < .001). Analyses of covariance controlling for Sansei
age effects compared the Two-Parent, One-Parent, and No-Camp groups
and continued to indicate a significant group difference (F (2,589) =
12.20, P < .001). The gender of the interned parent did not significantly
affect these findings. Although regional differences were not significant
for the overall sampIe, the reported number of books in the horne did
differ by region for those Sansei who had a parent interned (F (3,467) =
3.07, P < .05). East Coast Sansei reported growing up with the greatest
number of books on the internment (M = 2.02), followed by the Mid-
western Sansei (M = 1.61) and the Northwest Sansei (M = 1.58). Califor-
nia Sansei reported the fewest number of books (M = 1.38) and were
significantly lower than the East Coast group (t (87.99) = -2.75, p < .01).
The lower number of books among the California group may be due
to the relatively greater percentage of ]apanese Americans in that state.
With respect to the concentration of ]apanese Americans in the four
regions evaluated, California had, according to the 1980 D.S. Census, the
highest percentage. Perhaps parents of Sansei outside of California had

Table 5.4. Number of Books

in Home on Internment
Group N M s.d.

Two-Parent 323 1.51 1.48

One-Parent 168 1.55 1.46
Father-Only 91 1.73 1.58
Mother-Only 77 1.35 1.28
No-Camp 105 .51 1.04
80 Chapter 5

less opportunity to contact other Japanese Americans and bought books

as a way of maintaining some contact with their cultural experience and/
or as a way to further explore the topic of the internment.

Frequency and Length

of Conversations with Parents

To assess the actual patterns of communication that have occurred,

respondents indicated the frequency and length of conversations that
have taken place on the topic of internment in their families. Sansei
identified how often they had talked about the internment with their
parents by answering the following question: "Approximately how
many times in your Hfe have you talked (even very briefly) about the
internment with your parents?" Choices for the question included (1) 1
time or less, (2) 2 to 5 times, (3) 5 to 10 times, (4) greater than 10 times.
Significant differences emerged among the Sansei groups (F (2,590) =
55.61, P < .001). As shown in Table 5.5, the Sansei with both parents in
camp reported having significantly more conversations with their par-
ents than did the One-Parent (t (299.0) = 2.272, P < .05) and No-Camp
Sansei (t (129.1) = 8.04, P <. 001). In addition, the One-Parent Sansei
reported having significantly more conversations with their parents
than did the No-Camp group (t (158.7) = 6.22, P < .001). On the average,
Sansei with either one or two interned parents indicated having had
approximately 10 conversations in their lifetime. The No-Camp Sansei
reported having approximately four to five such conversations.
Sansei males and females did not differ in their reported number of
conversations with parents. However, a significant interaction occurred
with evaluating the impact of parent gen der on the frequency of conver-
sations (F (2,484) = 2.99, P = .05). Father-Only Sansei reported the
fewest conversations. This number was significantly lower than that of

Table 5.5. Frequency of

Communication about Intemment
Group N M s.d.

Two-Parent 323 3.56 .74

One-Parent 168 3.38 .85
Father-Only 91 3.32 .89
Mother-Only 77 3.46 .80
No-Camp 105 2.51 1.25
Patterns of Communication 81

the Two-Parent Sansei (t = (126.73) = 2.33, P < .05) and less than that
of the Mother-Only group.
Marginally significant differences occurred in the total sampie
between the Sansei groups from different regions of the country (F
(3,541) = 2.35, P < .10). Sansei from the Midwest (M = 3.57) reported
significantly more frequent conversations than did the California Sansei
(M = 3.36, t (222.19) = -2.18, P < .05), Northwest Sansei (M = 3.27,
t (194.10) = -2.39, P < .05), and East Coast Sansei (M = 3.26, t (140.76)
= 2.27, P < .05). However, when only Sansei who had a parent interned
were included in a regional analysis, no significant differences emerged.
Data from the survey revealed that the length of discussion a Sansei
had with parents was also significantly affected by whether the respon-
dent had a parent who was interned (F (2,592) = 34.30, P < .001).
Respondents indicated how long, on the average, their conversations
with parents lasted and were provided with the following scale: 1 = less
than 5 minutes, 2 = 5 to 15 minutes, 3 = 15 to 30 minutes, 4 = 30 minutes
to 1 hour, and 5 = more than an hour. Mean responses for each group are
presented in Table 5.6. No-Camp Sansei had shorter conversations with
their parents than did either the Two-Parent (t (592) = 8.10, P < .001) or
One-Parent Sansei (t (592) = 6.790, P < .001). While both the One- and
Two-Parent groups indicated that the average conversation about camp
with their parents lasted approximately 15 minutes, conversations for
the No-Camp Sansei averaged closer to 5 minutes.
The gen der of the interned parent did not significantly affect the
length of conversations held with parents, although Sansei gender did (F
(1,484) = 18.96, P < .001). Males (M = 2.32) reported having fewer
conversations than did females (M = 2.68) overall. Although this finding
may reflect a difference in communication length specifically around
conversations about the internment, it is also likely that it reflects a more
general gen der difference in communicativeness. Among the Sansei
who had a parent interned, there were no significant differences be-

Table 5.6. Average Length of

Communication about Internment
Group N M s.d.

Two-Parent 323 2.51 .97

One-Parent 168 2.45 .98
Father-Only 91 2.41 .92
Mother-Only 77 2.49 1.05
No-Camp 105 1.63 .97
82 Chapter 5

tween those who married non-Japanese Americans and those who

married Japanese Americans with respect to either the frequency or the
length of parental communications.
Finally, small but significant negative correlations were found be-
tween Sansei age and both the frequency (r = - .11, P < .005) and length
of internment conversations (r = - .10, P < .01) for all Sansei groups
combined. Older Sansei were less likely to have had conversations with
parents, and when they did, these conversations were of shorter dura-
tion than those of younger Sansei. Age, however, did not correlate with
the frequency and length of discussion within the sample of Sansei with
an interned parent. There were no significant regional differences in the
length of reported conversations either for the entire sampie or for those
Sansei who had a parent interned.
It is striking to note that, although the One- and Two-Parent groups
had more frequent and longer conversations about the internment with
their parents, these conversations were still relatively rare and of short
duration given the magnitude of their parents' internment experience.
This corroborates Takezawa's (1989a) research findings with Nisei and
Sansei in the Washington area, which found that "even many of the Nisei
political activists in the redress movement had or still have little conver-
sation with their children about camp in their private lives" (p. 206).
The silence and cryptic comments emerged in various ways. For
example, one Sansei interviewee commented:
A lot of times you assurne that your parents do not have a past when you're
little and because you live in the present so much. The older I got, ... I would
ask more and more about their lives-how they got married and how they
met. Through those discussions ... discussions of camps were conspicu-
ously absent. . . . So I really didn't learn about the camps through my
parents. I got bits and pieces ... never a coherent full story or analysis.

Although the previous data reflected the frequency and length of

conversations about the internment, it did not reveal who initiated these
conversations. Did parents raise the topic or was it their Sansei children
who prodded the Nisei into discussions? Sansei used the following
scale to indicate what proportion of time their parents had initiated the
topic of the camps: 1 = never, 2 = less than half the time, 3 = about half
the time, 4 = more than half the time, and 5 = every time. Sansei
respondent groups differed significantly in their perceptions of the
frequency with which their parents initiated conversations about camp
(F (2,590) = 8.01, P < .001). As reflected in Table 5.7, the Two-Parent
(t (139.7) = 3.45, P < .001) and One-Parent Sansei (t (179.1) = 2.57,
P < .01) indicated that their parents were more likely to bring up the
topic of internment than were the No-Camp Sansei. Within the sampie of
Patterns of Communication 83

Table 5.7. Proportion of Time Parents

Initiated Discussion of Internment
Group N M s.d.

Two-Parent 323 2.85 1.03

One-Parent 168 2.75 1.09
Father-Only 91 2.73 1.10
Mother-Only 77 2.78 1.08
No-Camp 105 2.34 1.35

Sansei who had a parent interned, 43% reported that their parents
brought the topic up less than half the time, compared with 29% who
perceived their parents as initiating conversations half the time, and
28% who cited their parents as doing so more than half the time. One out
of 10 Sansei in this group with an interned parent reported that their
parent had never raised the topic first. As noted by one interviewee, "If it
was solely up to them, I don't think I would have known about the
existence (of the camps)."
While parents may not have raised the topic of internment, the
hesitancy of the Sansei to pursue such discussions also contributed to
the overall sense of silence within the families. Many Sansei thought the
topic of camps was taboo and feIt it was inappropriate to press for more
information. As one interviewee stated:
You used to hear it all the time and not really know what people meant. But I
think that when my aunt told me that it was sort of painful, Ialmost got the
sense that you really shouldn't ask for some reason beeause it was painful.
Just like you are taught to be polite and not say when someone is siek. You're
not supposed to say "What do they have?" Or (when) someone's dying, little
kids are not supposed to say things ... so you don't really say anything.

Sansei worried that their parents would break down or that they
might hear more traumatic stories than they wanted to know. Others
thought that their parents' silence served to protect them from the
burden of knowing about the past injustice they had experienced. Most
saw the silence as an indicator that camp was too traumatic to discuss.
These perceptions led the Sansei themselves to also avoid pursuing the
issue. Often their hesitancy to pursue further discussions stemmed from
a combination of both their own emotions and their perceptions of their
parents' emotional reactions.
I realize that if I wish to know their personal feelings on the experienee I must
ask direet, diffieult questions of them. I find it hard to bring mys elf to do so. I
84 Chapter 5

guess it's partly due to their reticence, but also because I have some deep
personal anger myself that surfaces when the subject arises. I've always
found that, far one who was not even interned myself, tears, frustration, and
pain exist.

Another interviewee stated:

On my part I think that the reason I haven't pushed it and sat down and talked
to them about it is probably just because I'm sort of avoiding it too .... I
think it's a combination of me trying to avoid it ... and I know it's hard to get
my father to really talk.... they would have to unearth alot of things that
would be real painful. ... It's just something I don't think we all want to
do .... I mean I don't think I want to sit down and cry with my mother and
my father.

Other Sansei avoided discussions so as not to intrude on their

parents' privacy; they thought they should wait until the parent indi-
cated a readiness to share their experience. "I guess the feeling is that
sametimes, you know, I'm kind of imposing. You don't really ask. 1 don't
want to get into it," revealed an interviewee. Another noted similar
feelings:
I don't want to intrude on it if he doesn't want (to discuss it), if that's apart
of his life that he doesn't want to share with me .... Because, in the same way
I wouldn't want my parents to keep bugging me about who I'm going out with
and things like that. You know, ... relationships between children and
parents are strange. There's just so much that you have to keep to yourself.
You really only show a limited side of yourself to someone who's apart of
you actually.

While the silences and awkwardness surrounding the internment

stood out in minds of Sansei respondents and interviewees, there was
also a recognition that family discussions about any emotional or trau-
matic subject would be difficult and that their families, in general, rarely
had focused discussions on a single topic. One interviewee whose
parents were interned stated, "You really don't get a chance to sit down
and have tao many one-to-one conversations with my mom or my dad.
Usually, when we see each other, it's just when the family gets tagether
and ... talks about casual stuff." Others pointed out that they were
simply tao busy to have such conversations.
Sansei in the survey sample reported that their parents initiated
conversations about camp less than half the time. Neither Sansei gender
nor parent gender significantly affected these findings. However, there
was a small significant negative correlation between Sansei age and the
likelihood that parents raised the topic first (r = - .11, P < .005). A
significant negative correlation was also found for the sample of Sansei
who had a parent interned (r = - .10, P < .05). As in the previous seetion,
Patterns of Communication 85

where older Sansei reported less frequent and shorter conversations

with their parents, here older Sansei reported their parents as less
willing to initiate conversations about camp. The relationship between
age and these findings, however, did not confound the reported results
among the Sansei groups. Analyses of covariance, controlling for age,
continued to show significant differences among the Two-Parent, One-
Parent, and No-Camp groups in terms of the frequency with which
parents initiated camp discussions (F (2,586) = 5.57, P < .005). In
addition, there were no significant regional differences in terms of the
likelihood that a parent raised the topic of the camps. This was true both
for the entire sampie and within the sampie of Sansei who had a parent
interned.
Additional survey items asked Sansei to rate the degree to which
they feIt it was their responsibility to discuss the internment. No signifi-
cant group differences occurred in response to the statement "It is my
responsibility to ask about the camps if I want to know about them."
On a scale of 1 to 7 (where 1 = strongly disagree and 7 = stronglyagree),
the me an response was 5.68, indicating a moderate level of agreement.
When asked to rate their reactions using the same scale to the statement
"It is my parents' responsibility to tell me about the camps, even if I don't
ask," a significant difference did emerge (F (2,588) = 4.52, P = .01). No
Camp Sansei (M = 3.55) were less likely to feel it was their parents'
responsibility than did either the Two-Parent (M = 4.07) or One-Parent
(M = 4.22) Sansei.
Taken together, the data suggest that an interactive "dance" has
emerged between most Sansei and their parents. The Sansei wish to
learn more from their fathers and mothers but worry that they may upset
their parents or that upsetting secrets may be revealed. As a result they,
like their parents, often avoid discussions about the camp experience.

Style of Communication

The above data suggested that there were quantitative differences

between Sansei with an interned parent and the No-Camp Sansei in
terms of the frequency and length of family communications about the
internment. Despite these differences, however, there were no signifi-
cant differences among the Two-Parent, One-Parent, and No-Camp
groups when they rated the manner in which parents discussed the
internment. Survey respondents were asked to identify the most likely
way in which their parents had discussed the internment with them.
Choices included (1) an incidental topic in passing (e.g., "We knew her
86 Chapter 5

from camp"); (2) a reference point in time (e.g., "That was 'before camp'
or 'after camp' "); or (3) a central topic in itself (e.g., a discussion about
camp). Table 5.8 shows the percentages of Sansei within each of the
respondent groups who endorsed each of these categories. Approx-
imately half of all the Sansei stated that the topic of internment was most
frequently mentioned by their parents as an incidental topic in passing.
An additional 19% indicated that the most frequent manner of commu-
nication specified the internment as a reference point in time, and only
29% reported that their parents discussed camp as a central topic in
itself.
Taken together with the data on the frequency and length of commu-
nication, the findings indicate that although Two- and One-Parent San-
sei had a greater number of conversations about the internment with
their parents than did the No-Camp Sansei, these conversations typ-
ically referred to camp in a superficial manner similar to the communi-
cations of the families where neither parent was interned. From the
vantage point of most Sansei who had a parent interned, discussions
about the camp were vague and cryptic. And although not all Sansei
found their parents hesitant to discuss the internment, 29 of 36 inter-
viewees did find this to be true. Interviewees as weIl as survey respon-
dents used terms and phrases such as evasive, superficial, left-handed,
oblique, and cryptic to describe their conversations. Some said that the
topic of the camps "drifted" into the conversation or occurred "by
osmosis." One interviewee noted that the ward camp took on a mystical
meaning known only to the older Issei and Nisei.
An emphasis on positive aspects rather than hardships encountered
during the internment was common in the communications with San-
sei. Sixteen of the 26 interviewees with a parent interned during the war
found this to be true of their conversations with parents.

Table 5.8. Primary Style of Communication about the Internment

Percentage of Respondents Who Discussed the Internment as:
A Reference
Group N An Incidental Topic Point in Time A Central Topic

Two-Parent 323 52 19 29
One-Parent 168 49 18 33
Father-Only 91 43 23 34
Mother-Only 77 55 16 29
No-Camp 105 52 19 29
Patterns of Communication 87

I think the only thing they really talked about was the better times. They
never really discussed any of the harder times. Mostly (they talked) about
how they organized the baseball league and ... the softball league.

One respondent remarked that "camp seemed like an adventure," since

her mother recalled mainly the social events, proms, and dances that
took place while she was interned. Another described her father's
emphasis on the positive experiences in the following way:
My father speaks "freely" about his two years in camp, but the thing is, he
always talks about funny incidents or general events. He never tells me about
any of the bad, frightening, or sad events .... When I've asked his feelings
about the whole internment experience he says he is not bitter.... The
memories will always be with them, and I don't think I will ever really know
the pain and degradation felt by my family. That part of the internment will
never be told to me by my father.

Most Sansei expressed surprise at their parents' lack of bitterness.

Seventeen of the 36 interviewees reported their parents as mentioning
few emotions when discussing the camps. In commenting on his par-
ents' communications, one interviewee said, "No anger really. No re-
grets. Just (a) kind of matter of fact kind of 'This is what happened and
off we went' kind of thing."
Although most parents did not discuss the negatives about the
internment, there were occasions when seeing old photographs, wateh-
ing a film or show about the internment, seeing certain foods, or visiting
certain locations triggered a parent's revelations about the harder side of
camp life. Food stories, for example, were mentioned by 10 of the
interviewees who had a parent interned. Sometimes it was the overabun-
dance of certain foods in camp that led to a parent's negative reaction to
that food later in life. One interviewee described just such a situation:
You know, the one thing that I remember is my father talking about food.
About how he had to eat hearts and organs .... We would always complain
about food ... and it was like ... the only time he ever said anything about
his personal experience. Just making this comment about the food, and it was
almost like an outburst.

Other foods mentioned by interviewees as triggering camp memories for

parents included corned beef and cabbage, apple butter, and Spam. In
other cases, the scarcity of certain foods was linked to the memories of
internment. One survey respondent described how a food as common-
place as catsup took on significance for his father and for himself,
stating, "In camp dad said they didn't get catsup very often. So, now he
puts catsup on all potatoes, eggs, and meats. I also use catsup on my
eggs, potatoes, and meats because of it."
88 Chapter 5

At times a parent's strang emotional response to a seemingly ordi-

nary food item was confusing for the Sansei. In one instance, for exam-
pIe, a Sansei woman reported making a gelatin mold as a child; When
she praudly served it to her father, he curtly stated, "I hate Jell-OIMl !
We had it in camp all the time," leaving her feeling hurt and perplexed
at his negative reaction. Other food-related stories shared by parents
referred to the long lines in the mess halls or the communal eating
conditions.
Interestingly, several individuals reported that their previously si-
lent parents suddenly were willing to volunteer information to assist
their children in researching a school term paper on the internment. For
many Sansei, the term paper presented the first real opportunity to ask
direct questions of their parents' experiences. As one respondent stated,
"I interviewed my mom for it, and that was practically the first time that
I heard her speak about it."
Not all Sansei, however, found their parent receptive to being
interviewed, even for a term paper, as is illustrated in the following quote
from an interviewee:
I have this assignment to do for my Asian American studies dass and ...
you're supposed to take someone's biography in the context of his tory. I
thought that it would be kind of neat to interview my father and to take his
experience in camp. you know. as part of history. But he told me to just
fabricate everything .... He gave me total artistic license because he would
rather have me do that than sit down and talk to me about it.

Some interviewees and respondents noted that their parents dis-

cussed "camp" only after passing by or visiting a significant location. In
several cases the parent deliberately drove to a site of a former camp to
help explain the internment.
My mother and father liked to travel a lot when we were kids so every summer
(we) would pack up and drive someplace .... One of our trips, I think it was
to Yellowstone, ... my parents did make it a special deal to make sure that
we drove through ... and stopped by the site of the camp. And that was one
thing that they did; they personally wanted us to see what it had looked like.
There was nothing left but a couple of guard towers and the river was still
there ... and some foundations.

For other Sansei, the communications remained silent even when the
family visited the site of a parent's former camp. One respondent recalled:
When I was about 12 years old, our family was enroute ... for summer
vacation. I remember my father stopped the car on the empty highway. He
stepped out of the car and stood viewing this vast desolate land. Only one
stone structure remained. I didn't realize it at the time, but my father was
looking at what remained of Manzanar.
Patterns of Communication 89

Locations other than the site of a former camp could also elicit stories
about the internment. One Sansei interviewee described how visiting a
race track triggered her mother's discussion:
I was always into horses. My mother used to take me to Hollywood Park to see
the morning workouts, and I would see all these beautiful horses running
around the track. ... I used to beg her to take me to Santa Anita because that
was the other race track in L.A., and I remember ... she finally did take
me .... I was so excited and you could talk to the jockey and watch the
beautiful horses. Then my mother said they were giving tours of the stable
area and my mother said "Let's go look at the stable area." We went ... and
my mother told me, "You see that stall over there, that's number 5 Seabiscuit
Lane. They aB have the avenues named after different horses." She said, "We
lived in that stall." I was so upset. I was so angry because on the one hand
there were all these beautiful horses and it was a beautiful facility ... but
for a family, it was just so awful. She told us that "when we got there, ...
there was horse manure on the floors."

Sansei identified other communications that seemed unusual to

them. Two interviewees indicated that their interned parents spoke more
to those outside the family, including Caucasian Americans, about their
personal camp experience than to their own children. In one case, a
parent agreed to speak publicly before a high school assembly about the
internment. It was not until then that his son, seated in the audience,
learned about his father's experience. Finally, in families where only a
father was interned, it was often the noninterned mother who spoke
most of the internment. Three of the four interviewe es who had only a
father in camp stated that this had been true in their families.
The difference in communications between fathers and mothers
was explored within the survey. Sansei respondents were asked whether
their father or mother was more likely to discuss the internment, or if
both parents were equally likely to do so. Significant differences oc-
curred among the Two-Parent, One-Parent, and No-Camp groups (X 2
(4, N = 593) = 40.71, P < .001). Mothers were reported as more likely to
discuss the internment than fathers for all three groups. However, this
difference was most pronounced for the Two-Parent Sansei. As shown in
Table 5.9, in families where both parents had been interned, almost half
of the Sansei reported that their mother discussed camp more frequently
than did their father. This percentage was more than twice that of those
in the group who reported that the father was more talkative. Thirty-one
percent of the Two-Parent Sansei reported that both parents spoke
equally often about camp. Data from interviewe es supported the survey
results, with mothers being cited as more communicative about the
internment than fathers.
In a family where only the father was interned, however, there was
90 Chapter 5

Table 5.9. Discussion of the Internment

with Fathers versus Mothers
Percentage Who Discussed with:
Group N Father More Mother More Both Equally
Two-Parent 323 21 48 31
One-Parent 168 39 52 9
Father-Only 91 70 18 12
Mother-Only 77 1 94 5
No-Camp 105 36 41 23

an increased likelihood that he, rather than the mother, initiated discus-
sions about the internment (X 2 (4, N = 491) = 160.48, P < .001). Table 5.9
reveals that Father-Only Sansei reported fathers as discussing the camps
significantly more often than mothers, and Mother-Only Sansei reported
mothers more often initiating discussion. These differences are not
surprising, since it is the interned parent who was identified as most
likely to engage in conversations about camp. What is interesting,
however, is that while 18% of Father-Only Sansei indicated they had
spoken more with their noninterned mother, only 1% of the Mother-Only
group reported talking more with their noninterned father.
These results suggest important differences in the degree to which
mothers and fathers discussed the internment. Sansei indicated that
their mothers were more likely than their fathers to initiate a conversa-
ti on about camp. One obvious interpretation of this finding is that
females (mothers) are more likely to communicate than males (fathers),
particularly regarding topics that are emotional or affect-laden. It is also
probable that mothers had more contact with their children while they
were growing up and therefore had increased opportunities for discus-
sions. The current data are interesting because noninterned mothers
often acted as a conduit to the children for information about an interned
father's experiences, whereas the fathers rarely served this function in
families where only the mother had been in camp. Nisei fathers seem to
have been particularly unlikely to discuss their experiences.
It is important to note that virtually all interviewees perceived their
Nisei fathers as being noncommunicative in general. Comments such as
"He doesn't talk much about anything" or "My father is a very quiet
person" were frequent. Sixteen of the total 36 interviewees, including
two who had neither parent interned, commented on their fathers in this
way. As such, it is difficult to determine the degree to which the father's
Patterns of Communication 91

noncommunicativeness represents a differential response to the intern-

ment trauma or a more general interactive style for Nisei males.

Barriers to Communication

Aseries of seven survey questions directly assessed the degree to

which Sansei perceived there to be barriers to open communication
about the internment within their families. These statements were found
to load on a single factor, termed here the Barriers to Communication
factor, based on a principal components analysis of 27 general attitude
statements. (A detailed description of this analysis can be found in
Chapter 7.) Items within the Barriers to Communication factor included
such statements as "At times my parents seemed ashamed to talk about
the internment" and "My mother was open to discussing the camps with
me." See Table 7.2 for a fulllisting of factor items.
Higher scores on the Barriers to Communication factor signified
greater barriers to communication, whereas lower scores represented
fewer barriers. Analyses of variance revealed no significant differences
among the Two-Parent, One-Parent, and No-Camp Sansei groups in the
degree to which they perceived there to be barriers to discussing the
internment with their parents (see Table 7.3). Although Sansei with a
previously interned parent had more frequent and longer conversations
with parents about camp, they did not perceive their parents to be
significantly more open about the topic than did the No-Camp group.
These results remained consistent when respondents from Hawaii were
omitted from the sampie and when the effects of age and education were
covaried out.
An examination of specific items within the Barriers factor (see
Table 7.1 for item means) indicated that Sansei tended to disagree that
their parents seemed ashamed to discuss the internment. In addition,
most agreed slightly that their mothers and fathers were open to discuss-
ing the internment with them. It is possible, however, that the similar
Barriers ratings between Sansei who had a parent in camp and those
who did not were based on different interpretations of the question.
Sansei who had a parent interned most likely responded by rating how
freely their parent(s) discussed information ab out the topic. In contrast,
No-Camp Sansei may have rated a parent as not open to discussing the
internment because that parent had no information to impart.
Neither Sansei gender, level of education, income, geographical
region of residence, gender of the interned parent, birth order, nor
religious background had a significant effect on the Barriers factor scores
92 Chapter 5

for the entire sampie or within the sampie of Sansei who had a parent
interned. For the Sansei group who did have a parent who was interned,
age was positively correlated with Barriers to Communication scores
(r = .15, P < .001). Older Sansei perceived greater barriers than did
younger Sansei.
The ethnic composition of the neighborhood where the respondent
grew up did lead to significant group differences on the Barriers to
Communication factor (F (2,503) = 4.27, P < .05). Sansei who grew up
primarily with Caucasian Americans reported the greatest barriers and
were significantly higher on this factor than those who grew up primar-
ily in Japanese or Asian American communities (t (207.48) = 2.84,
P = .005). (Japanese and Asian American groups were combined, since
there was an insufficient number of respondents who grew up primarily
with Japanese Americans.) Those growing up in areas with approx-
imately equal proportions of Japanese/Asian Americans and Caucasian
Americans received factor scores between these two groups. Similar
results occurred when examining only the Two-Parent, Father-Only, and
Mother-Only Sansei (F (2,502) = 4.53, P = .01). The gender of the
interned parent did not alter these findings.
The data had indicated that past associations with primarily Cauca-
sian Americans were associated with greater barriers. Would similar
results be associated with the Sansei's present-day patterns of inter-
action? When current patterns of ethnic socialization were evaluated,
significant differences on the Barriers to Communication factor oc-
curred among those Sansei who associated primarily with Caucasian
Americans, those who socialized primarily with Japanese/Asian Ameri-
cans, and those who associated with equal proportions of these groups
(F (2,505) = 4.29, P = .01). Respondents who currently socialized with
Caucasian Americans reported the greatest barriers to communication
ab out the internment. This difference varied significantly from Sansei
who socialized equally with Japanese/Asian Americans and Caucasian
Americans and who received the lowest scores on this factor (t (382.16)
= 2.67, P < .01). Scores for those associating primarily with Japanese/
Asian Americans fell in the middle. Analyses of covariance conducted
to partial out the effects of Sansei age and the omission of Hawaiian
respondents revealed the same pattern of significant results.
The results suggesting greater barriers to communication in Sansei
who have grown up with and currently socialize with Caucasian Ameri-
cans can be interpreted in terms of the social identity theory (Hogg &
Abrams, 1988). As noted previously, the Sansei's sense of social identity
reflects aspects of both a Japanese American identity and a Caucasian
American identity. Differences between these two influences can create
conflict. Those Sansei who have associated primarily with Caucasian
Patterns of Communication 93

Americans are also likely to have developed a strong social identifica-

tion with that group. Such identification may increase the distance they
feel from the internment and their parents' past, since each represents
the Japanese American side to their identity. It is also possible the
parents of these Sansei were less communicative because they did not
themselves identify strongly with the Japanese American side of their
social identity. These Nisei may have deliberately chosen to live in
Caucasian American neighborhoods to reduce the connections with the
past internment for themselves and for their children.
The age at which a father was interned showed a small positive
correlation with the Barriers to Communication factor for Sansei who
had a father in camp (r = .12, P = .01). The correlations between the age
of a mother's internment and this factor was also small (r = .07, P < .05).
The older a parent was while interned, the greater the degree to which
their Sansei offspring perceived there to be barriers to communicating
about the camps. The age of a parent in camp, however, was confounded
by Sansei age, since older Sansei are likely to have older parents.
Therefore, partial correlations controlling for Sansei age were also com-
puted. When this was done, both the correlations between both a father's
and mother's age in camp and the Barriers factor were nonsignificant.
The length of a mother's internment did not correlate with the
Barriers factor. However, a small negative correlation was found between
scores on this factor and the length of time a father was in camp (r =
-.12, P < .05). The longer a father spent in camp, the less likely Sansei
were to perceive the presence of barriers. This correlation remained
significant when partial correlation analyses controlled for Sansei age.
One explanation for this laUer result might be that fathers who were
interned the longest might have been the youngest, since older Nisei
often left the camps early on work release programs. The younger Nisei
might then, in turn, have been more willing to discuss the camps,
perhaps because they experienced less disruption than older Nisei.
However, the length of a father's internment was not correlated with his
age in the present data. Another possibility is that fathers who remained
in camp the longest were more open to discussion because they have a
greater number of experiences to share with their children. Unfor-
tunately there were no data available to evaluate these hypotheses.

Degree of Comfort
Discussing the Internment

Survey respondents from all groups reported brief and superficial

conversations about the internment with their parents. While questions
94 Chapter 5

from the Barriers to Communication factor explored the extent to which

Sansei perceived their parents as willing to discuss the internment, it is
also possible that the Sansei's own discomfort in pursuing the topic of
the camps played a role. Respondents were to assess their level of
comfort in discussing the internment with their parents on a 7-point
scale ranging from 1 = not at all comfortable, to 7 = extremely comfort-
able. They were then asked to use the same scale and rate their degree of
comfort in discussing the internment with other Japanese Americans,
other minority group individuals, and Caucasian Americans (see Table
5.10). There were no significant differences among the Two-Parent, One-
Parent, and No-Camp groups on any of these dimensions, nor was there a
significant gen der difference. There was, however, a consistent pattern of
responses for all Sansei that indicated that they were most comfortable
discussing the internment with parents. Discussions with Japanese
Americans were second in terms of level of comfort, followed by discus-
sions with minority individuals. Discussions with Caucasian Ameri-
cans were cited as least comfortable.
In addition, paired t-tests conducted within each Sansei group
indicated that while the level of comfort with parents and Japanese
Americans did not differ significantly from each other, they were both
significantly higher than the comfort level indicated for other minority
group members, and comfort with other minorities was significantly
higher than degree of comfort with Caucasian Americans.
Geographical differences occurred only with respect to comfort
discussing the internment with Caucasian Americans for the entire
sampIe (F (3,425) = 11.46, P < .01). This difference remained when
the effects of education were covaried out. Midwest Sansei reported the

Table 5.10. Degree of Comfort Discussing Internment

San sei Group
Father- Mother-
Discussion Two-Parent One-Parent Only Only No-Camp
with M (s.d.) M (s.d.) M (s.d.) M (s.d.) M (s.d.)

Parents 5.63 (1.55) 5.59 (1.62) 5.43 (1.70) 5.78 (1.51) 5.41 (1.61)
Japanese 5.56 (1.45) 5.44 (1.34) 5.39 (1.41) 5.51 (1.27) 5.36 (1.39)
Americans
Other Minority 4.93 (1.58) 4.76 (1.54) 4.81 (1.58) 4.70 (1.51) 4.77 (1.56)
Groups
Caucasian 4.58 (1.71) 4.35 (1.72) 4.29 (1.70) 4.43 (1.74) 4.42 (1.73)
Americans
Patterns of Communication 95

highest degree of comfort (M = 5.06), followed by California (M = 4.54),

East Coast (M = 4.35), and Northwest Sansei (M = 4.21). The Midwest
group was significantly higher than both the Northwest (t (201.32) =
-2.93, P < .005) and California groups (t (203.60 = -2.70, P < .01) and
marginally higher than the East Co ast Sansei (t (155.54) = 1.88, P < .10).
When responses from only Sansei who had a parent interned were
analyzed for regional differences, the only significant difference in
comfort ratings was again with respect to Caucasian Americans (F
(3,364) = 3.47, P < .05). Midwest Sansei expressed the greatest degree of
comfort (M = 5.05). California Sansei (M = 4.61) came second, and the
Northwest (M = 4.25) and East Coast (M = 4.28) groups were virtually
equivalent. The Midwest group was significantly higher in comfort than
the East Coast (t (120.26) = 2.17, P < .05), California (t (195.36) = -2.12,
p< .05), and Northwest groups (t (181.82) = -2.65, P < .01). The higher
comfort ratings for the Midwest Sansei may be due to the fact that out of
the four regional Sansei groupings, these respondents were most likely
to have grown up with primarily Caucasian Americans.
Sansei age showed no correlation with any of the comfort ratings for
the No-Camp group. For Sansei who had one or both parents in camp,
age was not correlated with comfort in discussing the internment with
parents but was positively correlated with comfort discussing the intern-
ment with Japanese Americans (r = .14, P = .005), with other minority
group members (r = .09, P < .05), and with Caucasian Americans
(r = .14, P < .005). That is, older Sansei who had a parent in camp
reported being generally more comfortable discussing the topic of the
internment outside the family. This may have been due to the possibility
that they were more familiar with the internment because they were born
closer to the event and were exposed to information about the camps for
a longer period of time. It is also possible that greater maturity leads to
increased confidence in interacting with others more generally.

Reactions to Communication Patterns

The lack of communication about the internment has affected the

Sansei in a variety of ways. Two interviewees expressed guilt and
sadness over not knowing more about their parents' experiences and
tended to blame themselves for this situation. Others found their curi-
osity spurred by the silence. "I realized," stated one respondent, "that
my parents, through their reticence to speak about their World War 11
experience, spurred my curiosity." In these cases the Sansei frequently
went on to read books in order to learn more on their own. For others, the
96 Chapter 5

silence led to a sense of uneasiness or incompleteness. One Sansei

interviewee described his reactions this way:
(There was a) void I feit when growing up and the pain I feit with my parents
... their faces whenever we talked about the subject. Like their silence and
how they really didn't seem to want to talk about it except for kind of light
memories. But you can always hear this ... deeper woundedness inside ....
I'd hear parents and other people saying: "Weil, we came back from discrimi-
nation and we're OK." But the message I feIt was that no, we're not OK.

Interviewees also noted that there has been a developmental change

in their responses over time. As high school students, some were ini-
tially frustrated or angry at their parents' lack of resistance during the
internment. However, these same Sansei later gained an increased
awareness of the social context in which the injustice took place and
developed an appreciation for their parents' hesitancy. This finding
suggests the importance of considering not only the developmentallevel
of Nisei at the time of their internment but also the developmentallevel
of the Sansei as they res pond to that event.

Assessing the Impact of Communication Level

Not every Sansei saw their parents as reluctant to discuss the

internment. A few stated that their parents were open to talking about
their experiences. Two interviewees and two survey respondents com-
mented that their parents made a deliberate effort to educate their
children about the camps and what had happened. As one respondent
described her perceptions:
My parents have always tried to tell their experiences to me so that I can
know what injustices were laid upon them and the rest of the Japanese
American community. They have always feit that by telling me of their camp
experience, I will see the terrible things which happen during a war and that
such things should never happen again.

The fact that some parents openly discussed their internment expe-
riences with their children raised the question of whether Sansei from
families with high levels of communication differed significantly in
their attitudes and perceptions from Sansei whose families did not
discuss the camps. Perhaps greater family communication fostered a
greater interest in the internment and redress movement. Or perhaps
greater communication increased a Sansei's sense of insecurity about his
or her rights. Aseries of stepwise multiple regression analyses were
conducted to explore these possibilities.
The first regression analysis evaluated the relationship between
Patterns of Communication 97

level of family communication about the internment and respondent

ratings for factors reflecting Ethnic Preference, Sense of Confidence in
Dne's Rights, and the Likelihood of Resisting a Future Internment. Level
of communication was calculated by averaging each respondent's rating
for frequency and length of communications within the family. Factor
scores were derived through a principal components analysis of 27
general attitude items. (See Chapter 7 for a description of these factors.)
When all survey respondents were included in the analysis, results
showed that only the Ethnic Preference factor was significantly predic-
tive of communication level (F (1,553) = 9.43, P < .005, ß = -.13).
Greater levels of communication were associated with less preference for
Japanese Americans over Caucasian Americans. This suggests that dis-
cussions with parents did not lead Sansei to develop negative attitudes
toward Caucasian Americans. However, the size of the multiple correla-
tion was small and accounted for less than 2% of the variance. Aseparate
stepwise regression analysis including only Sansei who had one or both
parents interned showed that the Ethnic Preference factor was the only
significant predictor of communication level (F (1,453) = 7.77, P < .01).
Because level of communication might also have influenced the
Sansei's interest and activity in internment-related issues, aseparate
stepwise multiple regression analysis assessed the relationship between
level of communication and past and current interest in the internment,
knowledge of the internment, knowledge and activity in the redress
movement, strength of support for the movement, and membership in
Japanese American community organizations. When all survey respon-
dents were included in the analysis, knowledge (as assessed through 11
factual questions about the internment) and current interest level in the
internment were the only significant predictors of communication level
(F (2,466) = 9.15, P < .001). Each contributed about equally to the
prediction ß = .12 for each). These findings suggest that a Sansei whose
family communicated more about the internment may possess a greater
level of knowledge and interest in the event but may not necessarily be
moved to greater levels of participation in redress activities or commu-
nity groups.
When only Sansei who had a parent interned were included in the
same stepwise multiple regression analysis, current level of interest
in the internment was the sole significant predictor of communication
levels (F (1,386) = 5.74, P < .05). Greater interest was predictive of more
communication, although the multiple correlation remained low (ß = .12).
Additional stepwise analyses evaluated the relationship between
level of communication and three factor scores that assessed Sansei
perceptions of the personal and familial impact of a parent's internment.
98 Chapter 5

These factors were derived from a principal components analysis of 11

questions administered to Sansei who had a parent who was in camp
(see Chapter 8). The Positive Impacts factor tapped the degree to which
Sansei thought there had been positive consequences from their parents'
internment. The Familial Distance factor reflected the degree to which
respondents thought the internment created distance between family
members, and the Negative Affect factor indicated the Sansei's level of
sadness and anger about their parents' incarceration. All three factors
contributed significantly to the prediction of communication level (F
(3,479) = 29.30, P < .001), although the Positive Impacts factor was the
strongest (ß = .37). Familial Distance (ß = -.11) and Negative Affect
(ß = .10) contributed about equally. Greater levels of communication
were predicted by more positive impacts, less familial distance, and
greater levels of anger and sadness. Together, the three factors accounted
for approximately 15% of the total variance.
Finally, four independent variables related to Sansei ratings of
coping and suffering were entered into aseparate stepwise regression
analysis to predict level of communication. These ratings indicated
perceived levels of suffering caused by the internment among Japanese
Americans in general, suffering of one's own parents caused by the
internment, coping displayed by Japanese Americans in general, and
coping displayed by one's parents. (See Chapter 9 for a detailed descrip-
tion ofthese scales.) OnlyParental Suffering (ß = .17) and FamilyCoping
(r = .11) significantly predicted communication level (F (2,481) = 8.68,
p< .001). Greater suffering and better coping were related to high levels
of family communication about camp. These predictors accounted for
only 3% of the total variance.
The family impact and coping and suffering results suggest that
greater levels of communication had both positive and negative effects.
On one hand, they appear to be related to a Sansei's increased knowledge
and awareness of a parent's suffering attributed to the internment and, as
a possible consequence, a greater sense of anger and sadness. However,
increased communication also was related to reduced feelings of dis-
tance within the family and an increased likelihood of identifying
positive effects of a parent's camp experience.
The lack of relationship between level of communication and the
majority of variables examined, along with the small percentage of
variance accounted for by those variables that were predictive, suggest
that the frequency and length of family communications about the
internment had little impact on Sansei's behaviors and general attitudes.
However, Olle shortcoming of these analyses is their reliance solelyon
frequency and length of discussions as indicators of family communica-
Patterns of Communication 99

tion. Clearly there is much more to communication than the quantity of

verbal exchange. Given the emotional nature of the internment, the
quality of communications likely played a critical role in affecting the
Sansei, a fact that is evident in the comments of Project interviewees.

Summary

The present results document the degree of silence and noncom-

munication that has surrounded the internment within most Japanese
American families. Although the accuracy of the Sansei's responses are
limited by the fact that they are retrospective, several interesting find-
ings emerged. It is striking that although those who had a parent
interned were more likely to have learned about the internment at an
earlier age and had more frequent and longer conversations about the
camps than did Sansei whose parents were not interned, communica-
tion still tended to be minimal. The "average" Sansei whose parents
were interned reported having only approximately 10 conversations
lasting an average of 15 to 30 minutes on the internment. Even when
these conversations did take place, camp was mentioned only as a
passing reference without elaboration and was rarely a central topic
of discussion. In addition, some 40% of the Sansei who had a parent
interned indicated that their primary source of information about the
internment came not directly from their parents but rather through
overhearing conversations or through books and films. The conversa-
tions that did take place omitted the emotional and traumatic aspects
of a parent's experience.
This general report of noncommunication is striking given that the
internment represents such a significant historical and personal event in
their Nisei parents' lives. How might we account for this limited com-
munication? In one sense it is possible to view the silence as mirroring a
more general response to trauma. Cross-generational research on fami-
lies of Holocaust survivors (e.g., Danieli, 1982) and the Great Depression
(EIder, 1974) report that individuals who experienced these extreme
situations were often unwilling to talk about them. Pennebaker, Barger,
and Tiebout (1989), for example, reported that within their sampie of
Holocaust survivors from Dallas, Texas, only 30% reported ever discuss-
ing their Holocaust experience with anyone in detail since immigrating
to the United States. Similarly, Miller and Miller (1991) reported that a
substantial number of individuals who witnessed the genocide of Arme-
nians by Turkey at the beginning of this century never spoke about their
experience with their children. When communications did occur, they
100 Chapter 5

remained indirect and cryptic, a pattern that was also reported by the
children of internees and Holocaust survivors.
Holocaust survivors have articulated several reasons for their si-
lence. These included attempting to forget the past, feeling that no one
else could understand their experiences, and trying to avoid upsetting
their children (Pennebaker et al., 1989). Similar reasons can explain the
silence of former internees. In addition, denial and the repression of
unpleasant memories can be seen as reflecting a form of posttraumatic
stress dis order in the Nisei, since efforts to avoid thoughts and feelings
associated with trauma and efforts to avoid activities or situations that
arouse recoIlections of trauma are listed as diagnostic criteria for this
syndrome (American Psychiatric Association, 1987).
Others have suggested that the Nisei did not dweIl on the camps
because they feIt too ashamed or guilty to discuss their experiences. As
noted by one survey respondent, "I think my parents' and grandparents'
reluctance to discuss 'camp' was based ... on their own confusion and
guilt about their feelings." Most survey respondents, however, tended to
disagree with this hypothesis. When given a scale ranging from 1 =
strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree and when presented with the
statement "At times my parent(s) seemed ashamed to talk about the
internment," Sansei groups did not differ significantly from each other.
The mean rating was 3.01.
The Nisei's reluctance to talk about the internment mayaiso have
stemmed from their conscious efforts to protect the Sansei from the
burden of what happened. We have already seen that protection of
offspring was one reason for the silence of Holocaust survivors. From
their perspective, the Nisei response reflects a deliberate adaptive action
as opposed to a passive reaction. Interestingly, Sansei in the present
research also tended to disagree with this interpretation; they did not
necessarily perceive their parents as limiting conversations about camp
to be protective. Given the statement "In order to protect me, my parents
did not discuss the internment as much as they might have," and the
same scale ranging from 1 to 7 mentioned previously, respondents
indicated no significant differences in their perceptions, and the mean
response was 2.94. In actuality the silence did not shield the Sansei from
the past. It instead served to make "the third generation conscious of an
undefined but very real cloud that is part of their inheritance" (Makabe,
1980, p. 125). When participants in a conversation feel that something
should be said and silence occurs, the silence becomes a negative and
uncomfortable omission (Tannen, 1985). In the case of the Sansei, lack of
communication about camp actually increased their perceptions of the
internment as an ominous event.
Patterns of Communication 101

The silence of the Nisei mayaiso stern from their perceptions that
the Sansei were not interested in learning more about the camps (Take-
zawa, 1989a). Perhaps more Nisei were willing to discuss their experi-
ences but did not sense the interest in their children.
It is also likely that ]apanese cultural values decreased the likeli-
hood that Nisei parents would discuss their experiences with their
children. Two influential ]apanese concepts are "shi-ka-ta-ga-nai" and
"gaman. " Shi-ka-ta-ga-nai is loosely translated into "It cannot be
helped" and reflects a sense of fatalism about forces that are beyond
one's control, and "gaman" refers to the internalization or suppression of
emotions (Kitano, 1969). Both of these values, combined with the realis-
tic need to resettle and focus on the future after the war, led many Nisei
to avoid dwelling on the past. Other important cultural values mayaiso
have affected communications about the internment. These include an
emphasis on indirect, nonverbal communication of emotional topics, an
avoidance of disruptive confrontations, and an avoidance of family
conflict and embarrassment (Caudill & Weinstein, 1969; Doi, 1973;
Fugita & O'Brien, 1991; Kiefer, 1974). Hence, a component of the silence
between the Sansei and their Nisei parents may be attributed to more
general intergenerational differences in communication style. Sansei in
other studies, for example, report their families as being frustratingly
noncommunicative on personal or emotionally loaded issues that are
unrelated to the internment (Kiefer, 1974; Kitano & Daniels, 1988).
One problem with focusing on the Nisei to explain the lack of family
communication is the fact that it presumes their responsibility for
transmitting information about the internment. Explanations for their
noncommunicativeness take on a "victim-blaming" tone. The Sansei
have also played a role in maintaining the silence. Said one respondent:
I think many Sansei fear that if they learn too much, then they will have to
face the uncomfortable knowledge that they are Japanese Americans, and
that there isn't much that's changed to keep it from happening again.

In this instance, the Sansei's avoidance may stern from their aware-
ness that the internment and their parents' experience of past injustice
are intimately linked with their own social identity. Because individuals
are motivated to positively value the self (Hogg & Abrams, 1988), it is not
surprising that some Sansei would avoid discussions about the intern-
ment.
Rather than seeking explanations for the silences solely within the
Nisei or Sansei generation, the findings suggest that the interactional
pattern between the generations best accounts for the lack of communi-
cation. Whether the Nisei purposefully refrained from tal king about the
102 Chapter 5

camps and for whatever reason, their perceived style of cryptic and/or
matter-of-fact communications led many Sansei to avoid asking further
questions. And, without further questioning, interactions remained
superficial and infrequent. Bar-On (1989), in describing the interactions
between Nazi perpetrators and their children, sees this type of inter-
action as a "double wall" whereby the parents maintain a wall around
their feelings about their past. In response, their children build their
own protective wall. "If those on one side try to find an opening, they
encounter the wall on the other side" (p. 328).
In many ways, the data from this chapter empirically document
silence as a major lang-term effect of the internment. Numerous factors
cited in Chapter 2 contributed to the Nisei's silence at the time of their
incarceration. What is particularly interesting here is the fact that such
silence continued to affect the Sansei generation as well. And, although
the Nisei may have wanted to shield their children from the burden of
their past, the Sansei have interpreted their silence as evidence of the
injustice. Rather than representing the absence of samething, the silence
highlighted the presence of feelings tao complex and painful to discuss.
The data also indicate, however, that Sansei reactions to the silence
about the internment have changed over time. While same Sansei were
initially frustrated and in same cases even angry with their parents, they
now express an appreciation of their parents' perspective and reasons for
silence.
 CHAPTER 6

Interest in and Knowledge

of the Internment

Despite the silence that surrounds it, most Sansei, including many
whose parents were not in camps, show a strong interest in the intern-
ment. In many ways, an awareness of the legacy of the camps is shared
by all Japanese Americans. Yet, we would expect the Sansei who had a
parent interned to show particularly high levels of interest and to pursue
this interest by learning more about the camps outside of the family. This
chapter examines this hypothesis. By evaluating the differences among
Sansei groups on these variables, we may better understand the degree to
which a personal connection with an injustice (i.e., having one's own
parent interned) affects levels of interest in and knowledge about that
victimization when compared with a connection that sterns from group
membership (Le., being Japanese American).

Interest in the Internment

Respondents were asked to rate, on a scale of 1 to 7, the level of

interest they have had in the internment over their lifetime: during
elementary school, junior high, high school, young adulthood (ages 18-
25), and now (ages 26 and above). A rating of 1 indicated "not at all
interested," and a rating of 7 indicated "extremely interested."
All Sansei groups indicated an increasing level of interest in the
internment over time. However, the results showed that there were
significant differences among the Two-Parent, One-Parent, and No-
Camp groups in their reported level of interest at each of the elementary
(F (2,581) = 5.70, P < .005), junior high (F (2,585) = 10.79, P < .001), high
school (F (2,588) = 12.72, P < .001), and young adulthood (F (2,585) =
12.11, P < .001) stages of their lives (see Table 6.1). These significant
103
104 Chapter 6

Table 6.1. Level of Interest in the Internment by Group

Time Period
Elementary Junior High Young
School High School Adult Now
Group M (s.d.) M (s.d.) M (s.d.) M (s.d.) M (s.d.)

Two-Parent 2.21 1.48 3.19 1.67 4.45 1.66 5.65 1.26 5.78 1.16
One-Parent 2.25 1.47 3.27 1.69 4.58 1.64 5.49 1.40 5.83 1.11
Father-Only 2.32 1.48 3.39 1.76 4.59 1.61 5.54 1.28 5.58 1.13
Mother-Only 2.17 1.46 3.15 1.61 4.57 1.69 5.43 1.53 5.81 1.10
No-Camp 1.69 1.23 2.39 1.50 3.59 1.76 4.91 1.50 5.52 1.32

differences remained when the effects of Sansei level of education and

age were covaried out, as weIl as when respondents from Hawaii were
omitted from analyses. Based on these self-reports, the Two- and One-
Parent Sansei had a significantly greater interest in the internment early
in life than those whose parents were not interned. This heightened level
of interest remained throughout young adulthood.
The gender of the interned parent did not significantly affect these
results, although Sansei gender effects did occur, with females reporting
greater levels of interest at the junior high (F (1,378) = 3.65, P < .10), high
school (F (1,378) = 7.96, P < .01), and young adulthood periods (F (1,378)
= 6.62, P = .01). The means for females at each of these stages were as
follows: (1) junior high (M = 3.22); (2) high school (M = 4.58); and
(3) young adulthood (M = 5.72). The corresponding means for males
were (1) junior high (M = 2.89); (2) high school (M = 4.09); and (3) young
adulthood (M = 5.40). Age was significantly correlated with current
level of interest only for Sansei who had a parent in camp (r = .16, P =
.001). Older Sansei tended to report a greater level of interest than
younger Sansei.
Interview data confirmed the finding that Sansei developed an
increased awareness of and interest in the internment over time. Ini-
tiaIly, the camps were not a concern for some. Stated one interviewee, "I
guess I was worried about more important things like my boyfriends ....
There were immediate things going on." Many noted that they did not
have a full understanding of what had happened until high school when
they wrote a term paper for a V.S. history dass on the camps or when
they participated in a camp pilgrimage or a Day of Remembrance
program.
Interestingly, there were no significant differences among the Two-
Interest and Knowledge 105

Parent, One-Parent, and No-Camp groups when they were asked to rate
their current level of interest in the internment. These nonsignificant
results remained when Hawaiian respondents were omitted. The aver-
age interest level for Sansei at the time of the survey was 5.74, suggest-
ing a relatively high degree of interest for all participants possibly due
to an overall increase in Sansei consciousness surrounding the intern-
ment from the recent redress movement.
The survey findings showed that Sansei who had a parent interned
reported having had a greater level of interest in the internment from
elementary school through young adulthood than Sansei who did not
have a parent interned. Because this is a retrospective account it is,
however, open to bias. For example, Two- and One-Parent Sansei may
have reported higher levels of interest in part because of social des ir-
ability factors. If their parent went through this trauma, they may feel
they should have had an interest in the event throughout their develop-
ment. In contrast, No-Parent Sansei may not have feIt pressed to express
such interest. Given that One- and Two-Parent Sansei received more
(albeit cryptic) communications at an earlier age about the internment,
it is also possible that their interest was piqued to a greater degree than
was that of the No-Camp Sansei who received almost no information
about the camps. Data suggesting some support for this possibility were
found in the fact that current level of interest showed a small significant
correlation with the number of times a parent had discussed the intern-
ment in a respondent's family (r = .18, P < .001).
Neither religious affiliation, birth order, nor outmarriage was signif-
icantly related to Sansei's current level of interest in the internment,
although current patterns of ethnic socialization were significantly re-
lated (F (2,577) = 5.31, P = .005). Sansei who currently associated with
Caucasian Americans had the lowest interest rating (M = 5.60) and were
significantly lower than Sansei who associated with equal proportions
of Japanese and Asian Americans and Caucasian Americans (M = 5.97, t
(411.55) = -3.31, P = .001). Sansei associating primarily with other
Japanese and Asian Americans had levels of current interest that fell
between the other two groups (M = 5.74). There were no significant
differences in current interest level among Sansei groups from different
regions of the country (i.e., California, the Northwest, the Midwest, and
the East), nor did the ethnic composition of the neighborhood in which a
Sansei was raised influence the results. This was true both for the entire
sampie and within the group of Sansei whose parents were interned.
Although some degree of interest in the internment was nearly
universal for Sansei participating in the survey, one individual stated
that the internment had no relevance to hirn and one interviewee
106 Chapter 6

thought that the internment had in no way affected his life. Several
respondents also commented on their observations of Sansei who did
not seem concerned about the internment. Clearly there exists apercent-
age of individuals who see no relevance between the internment and
their own lives. Although it would appear that this number is quite
small, it is impossible to determlne their numbers given that these
people most likely elected not to participate in the survey.

Level of Knowledge and

Number of Asian American Courses

Results showed that Sansei who had at least one parent interned
have generally had a greater interest in the internment than the No-
Parent Sansei have had. Given that most Nisei parents were relatively
silent about their camp experience, how did Sansei pursue their interest
and develop knowledge about the internment? One way, as discussed
previously, was to read books, watch films or television programs on the
internment, or listen to conversations between parents and relatives.
Another way was to take courses in Asian American studies, in which
the history of the camps would be covered. Previously discussed find-
ings indicated that No-Camp Sansei were much more likely to depend
on books and media as a way of obtaining information about the
internment than were the Two- or One-Parent Sansei. However, when
polled on the number of Asian American studies courses taken, the
Sansei respondent groups did not differ significantly from one another.
This lack of significant differences remained when education and age
were covaried out as well as when respondents from Hawaii were
omitted. Most reported taking one or no course of this kind regardless of
whether a parent had been interned. In addition, current level of interest
in the internment was uncorrelated with the number of courses a
respondent had taken. Age was negatively correlated with the number of
reported courses taken (r = - .07, P < .05). Older Sansei, in many cases,
did not have access to taking such courses, since they had not yet been
introduced into college curricula. In addition, Sansei who outmarried
(M = .78) reported taking fewer Asian American courses than those who
married ]apanese Americans (M = 1.02, F (1,204) = 3.12, P < .10).
Although Sansei with an interned parent were not necessarily more
likely to have taken an Asian American studies course, perhaps they had
greater factual knowledge about the internment through their increased
contact with parents and books in the horne. To determine whether
significant differences existed in the level of factual knowledge held by
Interest and Knowledge 107

Two-Parent, One-Parent, and No-Camp Sansei, the responses to 11 objec-

tive questions about the internment as a historical event were evaluated
using two different methods to compare group responses: (1) calculating
total knowledge scores and (2) looking at the number of correctly
answered questions. (See Appendix A for a list of specific questions.)
Sansei groups were first compared using an overall knowledge score
that was calculated by counting up the total number of correct answers
for each individual. A total of 29 points was possible. One point was
awarded for each of the questions on the date of Pearl Harbor; the
number ]apanese Americans interned; the proportion of V.S. citizens
interned; the number of camps; the number of the executive order that
authorized the internment; the president who signed the order; the
average length of internment; the definition of WRA; and the treatment
of Hawaiian ]apanese. Ten points were allocated to each of two questions
on the names and locations of the camps, since these questions required
10 responses (one for each name and location of the 10 camps). The
majority of questions had one correct answer. However, answers to the
questions regarding the number interned and the proportion who were
citizens were coded as correct if they fell within an acceptable range. A
correct response to the number interned could range from 100,000 to
130,000, while proportions between 60 and 75% were counted as correct
for the questions regarding the number of citizens.
There were significant differences in total knowledge scores among
the Two-Parent, One-Parent, and No-Camp groups (F (2,590) = 8.58,
p< .001), even when the effects of education and age were covaried out.
Table 6.2 indicates that the Two-Parent Sansei had the highest number of
correct responses, significantly more than One-Parent Sansei (t (341.76)
= 2.10 P < .05), and No-Camp Sansei (t (220.56) = 4.39, P < .001).
In addition, One-Parent Sansei had more correct responses than the No-

Table 6.2. Total Knowledge

Scores by Group
Total Knowledge
Score
Group N M s.d.
Two-Parent 323 12.37 6.48
One-Parent 168 11.08 6.41
Father-Only 91 10.51 5.93
Mother-Only 77 11.77 6.90
No-Camp 105 9.66 5.13
108 Chapter 6

Camp group (t (254.75) = 2.03, P < .05). Removal of respondents from

Hawaii did not alter this pattern of results.
When Two-Parent Sansei were compared with the Father-Only and
Mother-Only groups, significant differences in total knowledge were
again found (F (2,485) = 3.49, P < .05). Sansei who had both parents in
camp continued to have the highest knowledge scores when age and
education effects were covaried out. Although the Father-Only and
Mother-Only Sansei groups did not differ significantly from each other,
the Father-Only Sansei received the lowest scores of all those who had a
parent interned. This mean was significantly lower than that found for
the Two-Parent group (t (155.80) = 2.59, P = .01), although when the
effects of a respondent's age were covaried out, this difference became
nonsignificant.
Based on the total knowledge scores, it appeared that Sansei with an
interned parent knew more on the objective portion of the survey than
their No-Camp peers. However, looking at the absolute number of cor-
rectly answered questions for the Two-Parent, One-Parent, and No-Camp
groups, the difference was less impressive. Examination of the number
of correct responses to individual questions from the survey (see Table
6.3) revealed no significant differences among the three groups of Sansei
in their knowledge of 7 of the 11 questions: the date of Pearl Harbor, the
number of Japanese Americans who were interned, the proportion of
V.S. citizens who were incarcerated, the number of internment camps,
the number of the executive order that allowed for the internment, the
average length of time spent in the camps, or whether the Japanese
Americans in Hawaii were treated differently from those on the main-
land.
Two of the four questions for which there were significant group
differences concerned the number of correctly identified camp names
and locations. Although all respondents tended to recall camp names
more than camp locations, groups differed in their knowledge of the
names (X 2 (6, N = 593) = 22.64, P < .001) and locations (X 2 (8, N = 593)
= 19.75, P < .01) of the camps. Twenty-six percent of the No-Camp
Sansei were unable to name a single camp, compared with only 12% of
the Two-Parent and 20% of the One-Parent Sansei groups. This result,
however, is not surprising. That higher percentages of Two- and One-
Parent Sansei knew one or more camp names most likely reflects the fact
that many of these respondents knew at least their own parents' camp
names. Clearly, No-Camp Sansei would not have this advantage. The
data also showed, however, that higher percentages of Two- and One-
Parent Sansei knew seven or more camp names than the No-Camp
Sansei. When analyses of variance for knowledge scores were conducted
Interest and Knowledge 109

Table 6.3. Percentage of Correct and Incorrect Responses

to Questions about the Internment
Sansei Group
Two- One- Father- Mother- No-
Question Score Parent Parent Only Only Camp Overall

Pearl Harbor Correct 70 77 74 80 80 76

Incorrect 30 23 26 20 20 24
Number Correct 55 50 50 50 44 50
Interned Inorrect 46 50 50 56 50
Proportion of Correct 32 30 27 32 28 30
Citizens Incorrect 68 70 73 68 72 70
Number of Correct 28 29 29 29 24 27
Camps Incorrect 72 71 71 71 76 73
Camp Names None Correct 12 20 12 9 26 19
1-4 Correct 55 55 65 64 59 56
5-6 Correct 23 16 16 19 12 17
7+ Correct 10 9 7 8 3 8
Camp None Correct 21 26 28 23 35 27
Locations 1-4 Correct 54 56 51 52 56 55
5-6 Correct 14 7 5 9 3 8
7+ Correct 11 10 5 15 6 10
WRA Correct 38 29 31 26 26 31
Incorrect 62 71 69 74 74 69
Executive Correct 41 42 44 39 35 39
Order 9066 Incorrect 59 58 56 61 65 61
President Correct 85 76 29 18 76 79
Incorrect 16 24 71 82 24 21
Time in Correct 92 88 89 86 86 89
Camp Incorrect 8 12 11 13 14 11
Hawaii Correct 89 85 85 86 85 86
Incorrect 11 15 15 14 15 14

omitting the questions on the names and locations of camps, total

knowledge scores did not differ significantly among the Two-Parent,
One-Parent, and No-Camp groups.
Aside from the questions regarding camp names and locations,
there were only two questions on which the groups differed signifi-
cantly. These questions referred to (1) the president who signed the order
allowing for the internment (X 2 (2, N = 593) = 6.59, P < .05) and (2) the
significance of the initials WRA (X 2 (2, N = 593) = 7.74, P < .05). While
85% of the Two-Parent Sansei knew Roosevelt issued the executive
order, 76% of the One-Parent and No-Camp groups correctly answered
this question. Similarly, the Two-Parent Sansei were more likely to know
110 Chapter6

that the initials WRA stood for the War Relocation Authority. Thirty-
eight percent of the Two-Parent group correctly identified the term,
versus 29% and 26% of the One-Parent and No-Camp groups, respec-
tively. Two-Parent Sansei may have been more knowledgeable about
these questions because of their increased exposure to conversations
with two parents about the internment.
As shown in Table 6.3, most respondents correctly identified the
date of Pearl Harbor, were aware of the average length of time spent in the
camps, and knew that Japanese in Hawaii were treated differently from
mainland Japanese Americans during the war. However, it is interesting
to note that many Sansei in the study, regardless of whether their parent
had been interned, were unable to answer correctly many of the objec-
tive historical questions about the internment. Half of the total sam pie
did not know how many Japanese Americans had been interned, even
when answers ranging from 100,000 to 130,000 were liberally scored as
being correct. Seventy percent did not know what proportion of the
internees were American citizens, and 73% did not know how many
camps were established. Finally, 75% of the sampie knew fewer than
half of the camp names, and 80% knew fewer than half of the camp
locations.
Given the exploratory nature of the research, Sansei were encour-
aged to provide their best guess for all of the objective questions. These
responses provided interesting information on the range of answers for
each question. For example, estimates varied greatly in response to the
question of the number of Japanese Americans who had been interned,
ranging from 3,000 to 500,000. Estimates on the proportion of American
citizens ranged from 10% to 95%, and the number of camps ranged from
4 to 60. Some of the interesting responses on the meaning of the initials
WRA included White Racist Army, World Reform Agency, War Ration
Allotment, World Redress Association, War Rights Amendment, World
Race Act, and the War Reparations Amendment.
Nearly 80% of the sampie failed to identify correctly the number of
Executive Order 9066, which allowed for the evacuation and imprison-
ment of the Japanese Americans. Interestingly, many seemed aware that
the last two digits were the same and that there might be a 6 or a 9.
Examples of these incorrect responses included 9088, 5066,1099,1066,
9099, 90166, 4077, 4066, 9600, and 3099. Others, however, provided
completely incorrect numbers such as 10, 135, 4, 461, 17, 200, and 258.
When overall knowledge scores were calculated for the 11 objective
questions, there were significant differences among Sansei from differ-
ent regions of the country (F (3,540) = 3.23, P < .05). These differences
remained when the effects of education and age were covaried out. As
Interest and Knowledge 111

shown in Table 6.4, East Coast Sansei received the highest scores,
followed by Midwest Sansei, California Sansei, and Northwest Sansei,
who had the lowest scores. Those from the Northwest had significantly
lower scores than Sansei from California (t (191.37) = 2.86, P = .005), the
Midwest (t (205.44) = -2.54, P < .01), and the East Coast (t (149.70) =
-2.68, P < .01). Similar results occurred when regional differences in
knowledge were assessed using only Sansei who had a parent interned
(F (3,467) = 3.47, P < .05). Once again, East Co ast Sansei received the
highest scores (M = 13.38). California (M = 12.33) and Midwest Sansei
scores (M = 12.26) were highly similar to each other, while the North-
west group, once again, had the lowest scores (M = 10.21). The Northwest
group was significantly lower than the California group (t (170.34) =
2.72, P < .01), the Midwest group (t (187.00) = -2.17, P < .05), and the
East Coast group (t (118.54) = -2.86, P = .005).
Sansei gender, religious affiliation, and birth order did not lead to
significant effects, although a very small positive correlation emerged
between Sansei age and overall knowledge scores for the entire sampie
(r = .09, P < .05), with older Sansei receiving higher knowledge scores.
Correlations with age were also conducted separately for Sansei who
had a parent interned (Le., the Two- and One-Parent groups) as weH as
within the No-Camp group. These results indicated that age was not
significantly correlated with total knowledge scores for the No-Camp
Sansei, but it was significantly related within the group of Sansei with
an interned parent (r = .18, P < .001). AdditionaHy, separate analyses
revealed that Sansei who outmarried (Le., married non-Japanese Ameri-
cans) had significantly lower total knowledge scores (M = 10.58) than
Sansei who had married Japanese Americans (M = 13.40, F (1,262) =
9.97, P < .005).
The findings derived from the 11 objective questions on the survey,
although interesting, are limited in scope. The questions were chosen

Table 6.4. Total Knowledge

Scores by Geographical Region
Total Knowledge Score
Region N M s.d.

California 263 12.02 6.26

Northwest 102 10.00 6.00
Midwest 106 12.21 6.55
East Coast 77 12.65 6.96
112 Chapter 6

on the basis of face validity and clearly do not tap the entire range of
factual knowledge a Sansei might have about the internment. The liberal
use of scoring categories for some of the questions may have led to an
overestimation of knowledge scores. In addition, there was no way to
ensure that respondents completed the questions without consulting
other sourees, although the percentages of incorrect responses suggest
that this was unlikely.
More important, these results must be interpreted within the larger
context of the Sansei experience. It has already been seen that survey
respondents, regardless of whether a parent was in camp, expressed a
current interest in the internment, and there was a significant correla-
tion between a respondent's current level of interest in the internment
and total knowledge scores (r = .32, P < .001). At the same time, Sansei
tended to feel they should have more information than they do. When
presented with the statement "I should know more about the internment
than I do" and given ascale from 1 to 7 (1 = strongly disagree to 7 =
strongly agree), the mean rating was 5.63 across all respondent groups.
The Sansei's feeling that they should know more about the intern-
ment than they do may be motivated by different reasons for the Two-
Parent, One-Parent, and No-Camp Sansei. Those whose parents were
interned may be motivated more strongly by adesire to learn ab out their
family history. Those with no interned parent, on the other hand, may be
motivated by adesire to learn more about this as an aspect of their ethnic
heritage.
Given the desire and interest to know more about the internment,
how can the generally low scores on the knowledge section of the survey
be explained? One reason may be that given the limited communication
within families and the lack of coverage on the internment provided in
courses, textbooks, and media in the past, Sansei simply did not learn
this information. Sansei with a previously interned parent were more
likely to recall the presence of greater numbers of books in the horne on
the topic, but they may not have read those books. Another explanation
is that Sansei have been exposed to this information but are unable to
recall it. Some support for this latter possibility was provided in the
survey comments and interviewee data. Several individuals, for example,
expressed puzzlement over the fact that despite having a great interest in
the camps, and having many times learned (and, in one case, even taught
more than once) about the internment, they repeatedly forgot this infor-
mation. One interviewee remarked:
Particularly in my case since I've taught Asian American courses, you know,
it's embarrassing because I've done a fair amount of readings, but a lot of the
statistics, like the dates, ... what were the various camps and so forth, I
Interest and Knowledge 113

couldn't remember them all. ... I would like to remember and know more
specifically all the various ... factual things ... and have more informa-
tion at my fingertips.

Another survey respondent wrote, "I am embarrassed that I cannot

answer some questions. I know that my parents have talked a lot about
camp and I have failed to retain much of their conversation."
A psychodynamic interpretation of this "amnesia" might suggest
the Sansei repressed the internment information from awareness be-
cause of the traumatic associations linked to that event in their families.
However, it is also likely that despite the Sansei's interest in the intern-
ment, the retention of factual information about it is not central to their
everyday life. As one interviewee pointed out, the internment of her
parents was "not something I think about a whole lot."

Summary

Sansei who had a parent interned reported a higher level of interest

in the internment from elementary school through young adulthood
than did the No-Camp group. The fact that present-day levels of interest
did not differ significantly among the three groups may be attributed to
the redress movement, which at the time of the survey was a central
issue within Japanese American communities across the country. Most
Sansei did not fully und erstand the injustice of the internment until
high school. Interestingly, the age at which the Sansei developed their
understanding is approximately the same age as that of their parents
during the internment. This coincidence may have increased the sa-
lience of their newly found awareness.
While personal connection with the internment through a parent's
incarceration may have increased the Sansei's interest in the internment
as they grew up, it did not necessarily lead them to take significantly
more Asian American courses than Sansei whose parents were not
interned. In addition, analyses suggested that Sansei whose parents
were interned did not necessarily know more factual information (aside
from the identification of camp names and locations) about the intern-
ment.
Social context has contributed to the Sansei's lack of information.
The injustice of internment was not publicly acknowledged in schools
while they were growing up. Without this larger sociopolitical recogni-
tion of their parents' past and with the prevalence of silence within the
family, most Sansei had little opportunity to learn about the camps. The
presence or absence of opportunities to learn about injustices perpe-
114 Chapter 6

trated against one's group can have important implications for subse-
quent generations. Sensitivity to injustice is increased when there is
social support for its acknowledgment (Deutsch, 1986). In case studies of
Armenian Holocaust survivors, Armenian schools were found to playa
central role in teaching children about the tragedy of their relatives
decades after the event. This eventually influenced several grand-
children of survivors to become terrorists in order to rectify the past
injustices (Miller & Miller, 1991). The Sansei, on the other hand, have
had no institutions to pass on knowledge about the internment. Only
recently, with the redress movement, have they had opportunities to
learn more about the event.
Interestingly, there were Sansei who had learned objective facts
about the camps but reported an inability to remember these facts. If
their memory was poor for objective information, perhaps their reports
of family communication patterns in Chapter 5 were also inaccurate. As
noted earlier, the self-report of the communication results is subject to
retrospective error. However, the remembrance of affectual material is
often more powerful than remembrance of nonaffectual material (Heuer
& Reisberg, 1990). Therefore, Sansei may have retained salient memories
regarding the details of past interactions with their parents while forget-
ting the less personal facts surrounding the internment.
Despite methodologicallimitations, the survey's factual questions
offer a general measure of knowledge about basic information related to
the internment. The current finding that Sansei children of parents who
were interned did not know significantly more than Sansei whose
parents were not imprisoned is similar to one reported by Heller (1981),
whose analysis of children of concentration camp survivors also failed
to find a significant difference in awareness of Holocaust-related events
between children of survivors and Jews whose parents did not experi-
ence the Holocaust. These results suggest that although dramatic events
in a parent's life may be salient to their children, they do not necessarily
lead the offspring to seek and/or retain historical information ab out
those events. A cross-generational sense of injustice, then, may have
emotional impacts even in the absence of detailed objective information
ab out that injustice.
 CHAPTER 7

Ethnic Preference, Confidence

in One's Rights, and the
Possibility of a Future Internment

n's affected my whole feeling about this country. I no longer stand up at

baseball games and say the Pledge of Allegiance .... I'm real critical of this
government. I feel I have very little patriotism in a way. I mean I care about
what happens to the country and I care about the people, hut I don't feel this
sense of, you know, I love my country and I love my flag. I don't feel that at
all. ... n's really because of what happened to my parents and my grand-
parents.

The impact of the internment on the Sansei is likely to extend beyond

issues of interest or knowledge. As the preceding quote suggests, more
global attitudes and perceptions mayaiso have been affected. Perhaps
the legacy of injustice led Sansei with a previously interned parent to be
particularly skeptical toward the U.S. government. Or perhaps they feel
a greater distrust of Caucasian Americans than do their No-Camp peers.
Aseries of attitude statements were included in the survey that tapped a
broader range of issues in which the effects of the internment might play
a role. These statements assessed the degree to which Sansei preferred
Japanese Americans over Caucasian Americans, had confidence in their
rights, and would react to a future internment.

Assessing General Attitudes

Respondents were asked to rate each of 27 statements on a scale of 1

to 7 (with 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = moderately disagree, 3 = slightly
disagree, 4 = undecided, 5 = slightly agree, 6 = moderately agree, and
7 = strongly agree). An additional 13 repeated statements were inter-

115
116 Chapter 7

spersed with the original 27 to assess the consistency of respondents'

answers. Correlations between the repeated items were high (r = .87)
and suggested that respondents were consistent in their responses. One
of each of the repeated statements was randomly selected for further
analyses, and the other was omitted. Table 7.1 presents the means and
standard deviations for each statement. (Note that in contrast to the
terminology used in this text, questions in the survey used the terms
relocation camp and internment camp rather than concentration camp,
since some individuals are more familiar and comfortable with this
terminology. )
A principal components analysis of the 27 attitude items with a
Varimax rotation revealed four orthogonal factors that, taken tagether,
accounted for 36% of the total variance (Nagata, 1990a). Although this
percentage of variance was low, the factors represented dimensions
worthy of examination given the exploratory nature of the present study.
The 13 items with loadings greater than or equal to .50 were then selected
for further analysis, and factor scores were calculated. A listing of these
items and their factor loadings are given in Table 7.2.
Factor I, referred to here as the Barriers to Communication factor,
included items indicating the degree to which respondents thought
communication about the internment was inhibited in their families.
Results based on this factor are presented in Chapter 5, "Patterns of
Communication," and are omitted from this chapter. üf primary focus
here are Factars 11 through IV. Factor 11, labeled the Ethnic Preference
factor, included items that required the Sansei to indicate the degree to
which they preferred Japanese Americans over Caucasian Americans
(e.g., ''All things being equal, I would prefer to go to a Japanese American
for professional services over a Caucasian American"), while Factor III,
the Sense of Confidence factar, was composed of items tapping the
degree to which individuals feIt confident about their status in Ameri-
can society (e.g., "I am confident that my rights as an American citizen
would not be violated in this country"). Finally, Factor IV, named the
Resistance factor, included a single item: "If Japanese Americans were
ordered into relocation camps today, I would actively resist." Means for
each factor by Sansei group are shown in Table 7.3.

Ethnic Preference

Items for the Ethnic Preference factor were scored such that the
higher a respondent's score, the greater his or her preference for Japanese
Americans. An analysis of variance revealed significant differences
PossibiIity of a Future Internment 117

among the Two-Parent, One-Parent, and No-Camp groups on the Ethnic

Preference factor (F (2,549) = 5.13, P < .01) (see Table 7.3). Two-Parent
Sansei reported a significantly greater level of preference for ]apanese
Americans over Caucasian Americans than either the One-Parent (t
(289.14) = 2.30, P < .05) or the No-Camp Sansei (t (149.09) = .279,
p< .01). Significant group differences remained when the effects of age
and education were covaried out. Males also reported significantly
high er preferences for ]apanese Americans than did females (F (1,546) =
13.41, P < .001). However, a significant interaction also occurred between
the Sansei camp groups and Sansei gender (F (2,546) = 3.85, P < .05). As
shown in Figure 7.1, males of all three groups showed relatively high
levels of preference for ]apanese Americans, and Two-Parent females
showed high er preferences for ]apanese Americans than did either the
One-Parent or No-Camp females. This interaction accounted for the
significant main effects found for camp group and gender. Similar
analyses were conducted omitting respondents from Hawaii, since the
ethnic and racial composition of that state differs greatly from all other
states. Results from this analysis revealed the same pattern of significant
results.
No significant parent gen der effect was found when Two-Parent,
Father-Only, and Mother-Only Sansei were compared. In addition, ne i-
ther Sansei age, level of education, income, birth order, nor religious
background was significantly related to Ethnic Preference scores. Signif-
icant differences did occur with respect to current geographical resi-
dence (F (3,495) = 6.01, P = .001). Table 7.4lists the means for this factor
according to geographical area. Sansei from the Northwest demon-
strated the highest preference for ]apanese Americans, followed by
Sansei from California and the Midwest. East Coast Sansei had the
lowest Ethnic Preference scores. T-tests comparing the regions with one
another revealed that while scores for Northwest Sansei were not signifi-
cantly high er than those for California Sansei, they were significantly
higher than those for both the Midwestern (t (188.62) = 3.01, P < .05)
and Eastern Sansei (t (137.83) = 2.65, P < .01). California Sansei also had
significantly higher Ethnic Preference scores than the Midwestern
(t (210.89) = -3.27, P = .001) and East Coast Sansei (t (104.08) = 2.68,
p< .01). Scores from the Midwestern and Eastern Sansei did not differ
significantly from each other. Similar geographical results emerged
when examining only those Sansei who had a parent in camp (F (3,432)
= 3.25, P < .05). Again, the Northwest (M = .20) and California (M = .15)
Sansei had the highest preference ratings. This time, however, the
Midwest Sansei (M = -.18), rather than the East Coast Sansei (M =
- .04), showed the lowest preference level and were significantly lower
 Table 7.1. Means for General Attitude Statements ......
Sansei Group
=
Two-Parent One-Parent Father-Only Mother-Only No-Camp
Statement M (s.d.) M (s.d.) M (s.d.) M (s.d.) M (s.d.)

In order to protect me, my parents did not discuss the 3.07 (2.03) 2.80 (1.90) 2.51 (1.85) 3.13 (1.92) 2.94 (2.07)
topic of the camps with me as much as they might
have.
I should know more about the internment than I da. 5.73 (1.54) 5.58 (1.58) 5.50 (1.72) 5.67 (1.41) 5.57 (1.50)
I have been more interested in the camps since hearing 4.50 (1.90) 4.78 (1.68) 4.70 (1.62) 4.87 (1.75) 4.93 (1.71)
about the redress/reparations movement.
Relations between the United States and Japan con- 5.26 (1.68) 5.14 (1.57) 5.24 (1.56) 5.01 (1.58) 5.20 (1.62)
cern me more than the average American.
All things being equal, I would prefer to go to a 4.37 (1.88) 4.14 (1.94) 4.07 (2.05) 4.22 (1.82) 4.10 (2.03)
Japanese American for professional services over a
Caucasian American.
I don't know much about my parents' lives during the 4.02 (1.89) 4.14 (1.89) 4.11 (1.91) 4.17 (1.87) 3.99 (1.86)
years of World War 11.
My mother has been (was) open to discussing the 5.61 (1.58) 5.37 (1.77) 5.28 (1.76) 5.46 (1.79) 4.67 (1.88)
camps with me.
The U.S. government should pay monetary compensa- 6.17 (1.43) 6.00 (1.38) 5.98 (1.42) 6.03 (1.33) 5.76 (1.63)
tion to those Japanese Americans who were in
camps.
It is my responsibility to ask about the camps if I want 5.78 (1.39) 5.52 (1.56) 5.33 (1.74) 5.74 (1.29) 5.90 (1.27)
to know about them.
I feel more American than Japanese. 5.24 (1.66) 5.35 (1.70) 5.14 (1.90) 5.59 (1.39) 5.47 (1.69)
At times my parents seemed ashamed to talk about the 3.25 (1.99) 3.09 (1.99) 2.67 (1.96) 3.35 (2.01) 2.82 (1.92)
internment.
I have often been the target of racial slurs and discrimi- 4.20 (1.92) 4.03 (2.01) 4.08 (2.11) 3.97 (1.90) 4.07 (1.83) n
nation. =-
"CI
=
In general, Japanese Americans are more trustworthy 4.78 (1.68) 4.54 (1.68) 4.41 (1.79) 4.70 (1.54) 4.52 (1.96) 'I)

than Caucasian Americans.

.....
"-l
 ~
1 feel uneasy when 1 sing the "Star Spangled Banner." 2.07 (1.73) 2.23 (1.83) 2.26 (1.90) 2.18 (1.75) 1.52 (1.09) .,"
'g.:
I feel more at ease with Japanese Americans than 4.24 (2.00) 3.95 (1.94) 3.61 (1.98) 4.34 (1.83) 3.91 (2.11)
Caucasians. $
Q
My parents have been more interested/willing to 4.35 (1.85) 4.35 (1.68) 4.22 (1.73) 4.51 (1.63) 3.50 (1.80) ...,
discuss the camps since the re dress/reparations il>

movement. ~
My father has been (was) open to discussing the camps 5.15 (1.76) 4.70 (1.92) 5.01 (2.12) 4.32 (1.58) 4.51 (1.82) 2'
..,
<D
with me. ....
I:'
It is possible that Japanese Americans could be interned 3.66 (2.12) 3.73 (2.20) 3.88 (2.11) 3.55 (2.31) 3.49 (2.26) S'
again in this country if war were declared against
Japan.
;
<D
I:'
The Nisei should have more actively resisted the 3.88 (1.57) 3.92 (1.62) 3.83 (1.65) 4.03 (1.57) 4.27 (1.49) ...
relocation during World War 11.
When Caucasians talk about Pearl Harbor, 1 feel uneasy. 4.34 (1.75) 4.34 (1.77) 4.21 (1.85) 4.49 (1.68) 4.15 (1.99)
If Japanese Americans were ordered into relocation 6.18 (1.22) 6.32 (1.07) 6.32 (1.10) 6.32 (1.03) 6.18 (1.30)
camps today, I would actively resist going.
1 am comfortable bringing up the topic of the camps 5.76 (1.60) 5.52 (1.76) 5.36 (1.75) 5.70 (1.77) 5.41 (1.91)
with my mother.
1 know very little about my parents' lives in general. 2.99 (1.82) 2.86 (1.73) 2.59 (1.68) 3.18 (1.75) 2.92 (1.70)
If Japanese Americans were ordered into relocation 6.11 (1.18) 6.11 (1.33) 6.09 (1.38) 6.14 (1.28) 6.30 (1.26)
camps by the D.S. government today, most Sansei
would actively res ist going.
It is my parents' responsibility to tell me about the 4.07 (1.81) 4.22 (1.78) 4.12 (1.87) 4.34 (1.68) 3.55 (1.92)
camps, even if 1 don't ask.
The Nisei are more like the Issei than the Sansei. 4.83 (1.76) 4.53 (1.88) 4.54 (1.88) 4.52 (1.88) 4.90 (1.78)
1 am confident that my rights as an American citizen 3.68 (2.06) 3.59 (2.03) 3.43 (1.97) 3.78 (2.09) 4.09 (2.12)
would not be violated in this country.

,...,...
=
120 Chapter 7

Table 7.2. Factor Scores for General Attitude Items

Factor Loading

Factor I: Barriers to Communication

At times my parents seemed ashamed to talk about the intern- .689
ment.
My mother has been (was) open to discussing the camps with me. -.663
I don't know much about my parents' lives during the years of .665
World War 11.
My father has been (was) open to discussing the camps with me. -.588
In order to protect me, my parents did not discuss the topic of the .587
camps with me as much as they might have.
I am comfortable bringing up the topic of the camps with my -.542
mother.
I know very little about my parents' lives in general. .520
Factor 11: Ethnic Preference
All things being equal, I would prefer to go to a Japanese Ameri- .711
can for professional services over a Caucasian American.
I feel more at ease with Japanese Americans than Caucasians. .702
In general, Japanese Americans are more trustworthy than Cau- .687
casian Americans.
Relations between the United States and Japan concern me more .503
than the average American.
Factor III: Sense of Confidence
I am confident that my rights as an American citizen would not .691
be violated in this country.
It is possible that Japanese Americans could be interned again in -.641
this country if war were declared against Japan.
I feel uneasy when I sing the "Star Spangled Banner." -.584
Factor IV: Resistance to Future Internment
If Japanese Americans were ordered into relocation camps today, .692
I would actively resist going.

than both the California (t (203.53) = 2.92, P < .005) and Northwest
Sansei (t (168.64) = 2.75, P < .01). These significant geographical
differences remained when the effects of age were covaried out.
Looking at individual items from the Ethnic Preference factor, one
can get a more specific sense of the differences among the geographical
groups. For example, in response to the item ''All things being equal, I
would prefer going to a ]apanese American for professional services over
a Caucasian American," the East Coast and Midwest group means were
the lowest, with mean ratings of 3.36 and 3.94, respectively. In contrast,
California Sansei had a mean rating of 4.56, and Northwest Sansei had a
me an rating of 4.88. A similar pattern emerged when Sansei rated their
level of agreement on the statement "I feel more at ease with ]apanese
Possibility of a Future Internment 121

Table 7.3. Attitude Factor Means by Group

Sansei Group
Two- One- Father- Mother- No-
Parent Parent Only Only Camp
Factor M (s.d.) M (s.d.) M (s.d.) M (s.d.) M (s.d.)

HaITiers to 3.14 (1.01) 3.20 (1.03) 3.09 (1.05) 3.32 (1.00) 3.35 (1.10)
Communication
Ethnic Preference 4;66 (1.30) 4.45 (1.27) 4.32 (1.35) 4.59 (1.15) 4.44 (1.42)
Sense of 4.65 (1.49) 4.54 (1.64) 4.43 (1.62) 4.67 (1.67) 5.04 (1.46)
Confidence
Likelihood to 6.11 (1.18) 6.11 (1.33) 6.09 (1.38) 6.14 (1.29) 6.31 (1.26)
Resist

Americans than Caucasians." Here, once again, the East Coast (M = 3.58)
and Midwest (M = 3.31) reported less preference for Japanese Americans
than did the California (M = 4.47) or Northwest (M = 4.57) groups.
The lower preference for Japanese Americans in the Midwest and
East Coast groups may be influenced by several factors. First, it is

0.2
• • •
0.1

Q)
0
0.0
c:
Q)
~
Q) -0.1
......
Q)
• Female
~

Cl.. • Male
.g -0.2

-c:
.L:.
W -0.3

-0.4

-0.5
Two- One- No-
Parent Parent Camp
Group
Figure 7.1. Mean scores on the Ethnic Preference factor as a function of gen der.
122 Chapter 7

Table 7.4. Attitude Factor Means by Geographical Region

Region
California Northwest Midwest East Coast
Factor M (s.d.) M (s.d.) M (s.d.) M (s.d.)
Barriers to 3.19 (.98) 3.30 (.95) 3.12 (1.05) 3.21 (1.16)
Communication
Ethnic Preference 4.77 (1.26) 4.90 (1.21) 4.26 (1.19) 4.11 (1.39)
Sense of Confidence 4.60 (1.47) 4.98 (1.47) 4.76 (1.53) 4.08 (1.67)
Likelihood to Resist 6.11 (1.31) 6.20 (1.19) 6.18 (1.16) 6.00 (1.31)

possible that, in general, the Japanese Americans who resettled in the

East and Midwest and remained there represent a selective group who
did not wish or feel the need to return to the West Coast, where a closer-
knit Japanese American community was available. Second, given the
low concentrations of Japanese Americans in these areas (particularly
when compared with California), these Sansei have likely had fewer
opportunities to interact with Japanese Americans. Hence, issues of
ethnic preference may seem less central to them. Gehrie's (1976) inter-
views with Sansei from the Chicago area, for example, showed that the
social dynamics of the Sansei there had been greatly affected by the
ethnic population density of their area. While "one could associate with
other Japanese Americans in Chicago on a social basis, ... a distinct
effort would have to be made to do so.1t would not be likely to happen as
a matter of course, as it weIl might in the concentrated Japanese Ameri-
can population center ('Little Tokyo') of Los Angeles" (p. 377).
The relationship between population density and stated ethnic
preference is supported by the finding that there were also significant
differences on the Ethnic Preference factor when Sansei were compared
according to the ethnic composition of the neighborhood where they
grew up (F (2,503) = 5.57, P < .005). Table 7.5 displays these means. As
might be expected, those who grew up primarily with Asian Americans
demonstrated a significantly stronger preference for Japanese Ameri-
cans than did those who grew up primarily with Caucasian Americans (f
(171.37) = -2.00, P < .05). Those who grew up with equal proportions of
Japanese Americans and Caucasian Americans reported the lowest pref-
erence for ]apanese Americans (f (128.01) = 2.74, P < .01). No signifi-
cant difference occurred between those growing up primarily with
Caucasian Americans and those who grew up with equal percentages of
these groups. This pattern of results remained constant when age was
covaried out.
Possibility of a Future Internment 123

Table 7.5. Attitude Factor Means by Ethnic Neighborhood

Composition of Neighborhood While Growing Up
Mostly Equally
Caucasian Mostly Asian Caucasian/
American American Asian
Factor M (s.d) M (s.d.) M (s.d.)

Barriers to Communication 3.22 (1.04) 3.09 (.99) 3.10 (1.08)

Ethnic Preference 4.48 (1.30) 4.83 (1.33) 4.36 (1.27)
Sense of Confidence 4.71 (1.53) 4.75 (1.47) 4.80 (1.66)
Likelihood to Resist 6.14 (1.23) 6.25 (1.11) 6.16 (1.23)

Fugita and O'Brien (1991) have also noted that among ]apanese
American males, greater levels of education may be associated with
less discomfort interacting with Caucasian Americans. The lower prefer-
ence expressed by East Coast Sansei and Midwestern Sansei may have
reflected their higher educational status. However, significant re-
gional differences in ethnic preference remained when education was
covaried out.
Current socialization patterns were significantly related to the Eth-
nic Preference factor (F (2,505) = 19.71, P < .001) (see Table 7.6). Not
surprisingly, Sansei who associated primarily with ]apanese/Asian
Americans had a significantly greater preference for ]apanese Americans
than did either those associating primarily with Caucasian Americans (t
(207.19) = 5.74, P < .001) or those who associated equally often with
]apanese/Asian and Caucasian Americans (t (204.38) = 2.73, P < .01). In
addition, Sansei who associated with equal proportions of each ethnic
group had significantlY higher Ethnic Preference scores than Sansei who
currentlY socialized with Caucasian Americans (t (397.99) = -3.90,
p< .001).

Table 7.6. Attitude Factor Means by Ethnic Socialization Patterns

Currently Socializes Primarily with:
]apanese/Asian Caucasian Equally with
Americans Americans Both Groups
Factor M (s.d) M (s.d.) M (s.d.)

Barriers to Communication 3.33 (1.04) 3.23 (1.11) 3.06 (.97)

Ethnic Preference 5.14 (1.31) 4.09 (1.20) 4.64 (1.20)
Sense of Confidence 4.87 (1.57) 4.71 (1.54) 4.67 (1.51)
Likelihood to Resist 6.18 (1.18) 6.30 (1.05) 6.02 (1.34)
124 Chapter 7

Analyses were also conducted to determine whether there were

differences on the Ethnic Preference faetor between those Sansei who
had outmarried and those who had not. Interestingly, there were none.
Those who married Japanese Americans did not show a greater prefer-
ence for Japanese Americans than did Sansei who outmarried. Although
on the surface this finding appears to be somewhat puzzling, it is
important to recognize that ethnic preference is not a unidimensional
construct. Marriage to another Japanese American may not necessarily
reflect a preference for associating with Japanese Americans in other
contexts. The attitude statements included in the Ethnic Preference
factor tapped respondents' global perceptions of trustworthiness and
comfort rather than dating or marriage preferences. Therefore, Sansei
ratings on this factor may weIl differ from preferences related to intimate
relationships.
Although the age at which a father was interned was significantly
related to Ethnic Preference scores (r = .14, P < .005), no such correlation
was found with respect to a mother's age of internment. The older a
father was while in camp, the higher the Sansei's preference was for
Japanese Americans. This relationship remained significant when San-
sei age was partialed out. Length of a parent's internment was not
correlated with this factor.
Finally, it should be noted that despite the significant group differ-
ences in ethnic preference, the actual reported level of Sansei preference
for Japanese Americans over Caucasian Americans was slight. For exam-
pIe, the overall sampIe mean for the statement "In general, Japanese
Americans are more trustworthy than Caucasian Americans" was 4.61.
Similarly, on the statement "All things being equal, I would prefer to
go to a Japanese American for professional services over a Caucasian
American," the overall mean was 4.20.
The finding that Sansei who had a parent in camp showed a greater
preference for Japanese Americans than did the Sansei with no interned
parent fits the predictions made by researcher David Heller, who con-
ducted research on the children of Holocaust survivors. Heller (1981)
suggested that in response to their parents' internment, the Sansei
would, in a manner similar to children of Holocaust survivors, demon-
strate a greater level of ethnic affiliation than individuals from the same
generational cohort whose parents were not interned. However, one
difference in results occurred. While a preference for Japanese Ameri-
cans in the present Sansei sampIe did not correlate with outmarriage
behavior, Heller's study found that children of Holocaust survivors were
more likely to oppose outmarriage than peers whose parents did not
experience the Holocaust.
Possibility of a Future Intemment 125

Sense of Confidence

The Sense of Confidence factor also revealed significant differences

among the Sansei groups (F (2,549) = 3.89, P < .05). (See Table 7.2 far a
listing of specific items within this factar.) Higher scores on this factor
indicated a greater degree of confidence in one's rights and a sense of
security in this country. While factor score means (see Table 7.3) far Two-
Parent and One-Parent Sansei did not significantly differ from each
other, No-Camp Sansei expressed a significantly greater level of confi-
dence in their status in the United States than did either the One-Parent
Sansei (t (224.76) = -2.78, p < .01) or Two Parent Sansei (t (168.66) =
-1.71, P < .10). The significant group differences remained when age
and educational level were covaried out. When respondents from Ha-
waii were omitted, the group differences in Sense of Confidence re-
mained but were marginally significant (F (2,523) = 2.34, P < .10). This
change in significance suggests that far Sansei from Hawaii, the experi-
ence of living in a significantly Asian American environment may playa
critical role in their increased confidence ratings.
One particular attitude statement, "I am confident that my rights as
an American citizen would not be violated in this country," provided
additional data of interest regarding the degree to which the survey
respondents experienced discomfort about their rights. Group differ-
ences on this statement were marginally significant (F (1,575) = 2.874,
P < .10). Sansei generally indicated some uncertainty about the security
of their rights far the entire sampIe. However, the Sansei who had a
parent interned were less secure (M = 3.48) than the No-Camp Sansei (M
= 3.86). An analysis of the tendency to agree or disagree (i.e., comparing
those who rated their response as 3 or less with those who responded
with a 5 or higher) revealed that while the No-Camp Sansei were equally
likely to agree or disagree with this statement (48% indicated slight to
strong agreement, and 47% indicated slight to strong disagreement, with
5% undecided), Sansei who had an interned parent were significantly
more likely to express some uncertainty about the security of their rights
in this country (X 2 (1, N = 593) = 5.09, P < .05). Fifty-seven percent of
this latter group tended to disagree with the statement of confidence in
one's rights, while 33% tended to agree. In addition, 9% of the Sansei
with an interned parent were undecided on this question.
Respondents were split in their ratings of a separate attitude state-
ment included in this factor: "It is possible that Japanese Americans
could be interned again in this country if war were declared against
Japan." Within each of the Sansei groups, there were sizable numbers
who both agreed and disagreed with the statement, and there were no
126 Chapter 7

significant differences between the No-Camp Sansei and those whose

parents were interned. Two-Parent Sansei, however, were most likely to
see future internment as a possibility. Forty-four percent of respondents
in this group indicated agreement with this statement to some degree,
while 51% tended to disagree. Agreement was less strong in the One-
Parent group, in which 34% agreed with the statement and 41% dis-
agreed. Finally, in the No-Camp group, 37% agreed that future intern-
ment was possible and 53% disagreed.
Interview data also indicated that 17 of the 36 Sansei who had a
parent interned thought that a future internment could occur. Six
thought a future internment would not occur, and the remaining inter-
viewees were unsure. Those who thought it was possible acknowledged
that such a move would be more difficult to implement today but
nevertheless believed that Japan's economic strength and the United
States' weakening economy made a future internment possible. The
following quote from one interviewee illustrates this view:
If you take the premise that the economic success of Japan is causing a "sour
grape" effect, to a certain degree areal fear, but certainly sour grapes to the
American political and business machine here (plus) the education, or lack
therefore, of individual authority or power, you could get the same analogies.
You know, Japanese nationalism being equated to Nisei or Sansei. ... Japan
is doing weIl. They're a threat, so the guy who's got the corner store is the
threat .... It's the racism thing. I think it's very much alive .... It's just a gut
response, but I think it could happen again.

Another interviewee voiced similar concerns by noting that large

amounts of hatemail were sent to the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.,
after it opened an exhibit to educate the public about the injustice of the
internment.
Nearly a third (N = 11) of the interviewe es cited the potential
roundup and detention of Iranians at the time of the survey as an issue
that reflected the latent racism and prejudice that underlie current
governmental politics. These individuals saw direct paralleIs between
the increasing anti-Iranian feelings in the country and the anti-Japanese
sentiments that preceded the internment.
Those who thought a future internment would not occur cited
various reasons for their views. Some thought that the media and
publicity surrounding such a dramatic infringement of human rights,
combined with the increased voice of many ethnic minority groups,
would make it impossible. Others thought that passage of the redress bill
would prevent future violations of citizens' rights, and still others
thought that increased activism among Japanese Americans would pro-
vide a deterrent.
Possibility of a Future Internment 127

Sansei age, birth order, income, and religious background were

unrelated to Confidence factor scores, while level of education was
negatively correlated (r = - .14, P < .005). Sansei with high er educa-
tionallevels tended to express lower levels of confidence. It may be that
those with higher educational backgrounds are more skeptical or have a
questioning attitude about the country's political and social dynamies.
Significant gender differences also appeared. Male Sansei expressed
significantly higher levels of confidence than females (F (1,546) = 5.29,
P < .05), a finding that remained significant when Hawaiian respon-
dents were omitted. This result, however, may reflect a more general
tendency for males to express self-confidence rather than self-confidence
related to a sense of security regarding one's rights.
The gender of an interned parent interacted with Sansei gender
when evaluating Confidence scores for the Two-Parent, Father-Only, and
Mother-Only groups (F (2,449) = 5.52, P < .05). Within these groups,
Sansei males again reported a greater level of confidence than females (F
(1,449) = -5.52, P < .05), although as shown in Figure 7.2, this pattern
did not hold true across the groups. Females and males from the Two-
Parent group reported approximately equal levels of confidence. By

0.5
0.4
Q) 0.3
0
c
Q) 0.2
"0
;0:::
c
••
0
0.1

-
Ü Female
0.0 Male
0
Q)
U) -0.1
c
Q)
(J) -0.2
-0.3
-0.4
Two- Father- Mother-
Parent Only Only
Group
Figure 7.2. Mean scores on the Sense of Confidence factor as a function of gender.
128 Chapter 7

comparison, the females of both the Father-Only and Mother-Only

groups and the males of the Father-Only group reported lower levels of
confidence, while males from the Mother-Only group reported high
levels. The Father-Only group reported the lowest overall level of confi-
dence. Neither the age of a parent while in camp nor the length of
internment was correlated with Confidence factor ratings.
As shown in Table 7.4, significant regional differences occurred for
the total sampie (F (3,495) = 6.19, P < .001). Differences remained when
the effects of education were covaried out. Sansei from the Northwest
received the highest Confidence scores followed by Sansei from Califor-
nia, the Midwest, and the East Coast. Northwest Sansei scores were
significantly higher on this factor than California Sansei scores (t
(170.46) = -2.37, P < .05) and East Coast Sansei scores (t (145.81)
= 4.09, P < .001). East Coast Sansei, who had the lowest Confidence
ratings, were significantly lower than Midwest (t (149.81) = 4.09, P <
.001) and California Sansei (t (109.51) = 2.66, P < .01). Scores for the
California and Midwest groups did not differ significantly.
When regional analyses were conducted within the sampie of San-
sei who had a parent interned, significant differences aga in emerged
(F (3,432) = 6.83, P < .001). As before, Northwest Sansei had the highest
Confidence scores; their scores were significantly higher than those of
the California Sansei (t (164.56) = -2.58, P = .Ol), who were second
highest; the Midwest Sansei (t (175.44) = 2.32, P < .05), who were third;
and the East Coast Sansei (t (110.73) = 4.43, P < .001), who had the
lowest Confidence scores. Also, as before, while the California and
Midwest Sansei did not differ significantly from one another, the East
Coast Sansei were significantly lower than both the California (t (85.24)
= 2.86, P = .005) and Midwest Sansei (t (108.65) = 2.55, P = .01).
The lower Confidence scores for the East Coast Sansei may stern
from the fact that they were less likely to live near and socialize with
other Japanese Americans. Without a larger Japanese American commu-
nity available, individuals from this area may feel more self-conscious or
wary of their status. Their scores mayaiso, however, reflect a more
specific regional skepticism, since Midwest Sansei, who also reported
relatively low levels of socializing with Japanese Americans, expressed
confidence levels that were approximately equal to those of Sansei from
California, where contact with other Japanese Americans is more fre-
quent. For example, a separate attitude statement that did not load high
enough to be included within the Confidence factor was "I have often
been the target of racial slurs and discrimination." Although there were
no significant differences among Two-Parent, One-Parent, and No-Camp
Sansei on this item, there were significant regional differences (F (3,535)
Possibility of a Future Internrnent 129

= 5.60, P < .001). East Coast Sansei (M = 4.99) were significantly more
likely to report experiencing racial slurs and discrimination than Mid-
west (M = 4.37), Northwest (M = 4.04), and California Sansei (M = 3.94).
This greater prevalence of perceived racism by the East Coast Sansei may
explain their lower level of confidence.
Reasons for the particularly high level of confidence evident in the
Northwest group are also unclear, although they may reflect that Sansei
in that region have especially strong support networks with other Japa-
nese Americans in their community. As is the case with the East Coast
group, it is impossible to tease out the degree to which regional factors
might contribute to their responses.
The ethnic composition of the neighborhood where respondents
grew up and current socialization patterns with Japanese Americans
versus Caucasian Americans were not significantly related to Sense of
Confidence factor scores. However, the similar confidence levels may
reflect different underlying processes within these two groups. Sansei
who associated primarily with Japanese Americans or Asian Americans,
for example, may have been somewhat insulated from situations that led
them to question the security of their rights. On the other hand, Sansei
who associated primarily with Caucasian Americans may feel so com-
fortable with the "non-Japanese American" world that issues of security
are not of great concern. Social identity theory provides yet another
explanation for this finding. According to that theory, confidence de-
pends more on the ability to identify oneself with a group or category
than on the type of group or category (Hogg & Abrams, 1988). Therefore,
whether Sansei have a primary affiliation with Caucasian Americans or
Japanese Americans may be less critical to their sense of confidence
than the fact that they have a group with which they can affiliate.
Those who married non-Japanese Americans did not differ signifi-
cantly on the Confidence factor from those who married Japanese
Americans, and neither a parent's age nor length of internment was
correlated with Confidence scores. In addition, neither the time a
parent spent in camp nor the parent's age in camp was significantly
related.
Interview data provided additional insights regarding how the in-
ternment affected the Sansei's sense of confidence. Eleven of the inter-
viewees who had a parent in camp saw the internment as having led
them to feelless confident about the V.S. government, constitutional
rights, and their status as members of an ethnic minority group. One
interviewee stated that the internment "has affected my life in that my
attitude of this country, this government in which you're supposed to
have all these rights ... you find out that things aren't that way. It's not
130 Chapter 7

true." Another noted, "I think it (the internment) has made me aware of
the immense injustices that can occur in this society. H's made me
cynical about government. ... H's made me distrust power." A survey
respondent wrote similar comments:
I think the greatest effect the camps has had on me is a distrust of the federal
government. I am outraged that the government locked up American citizens
without any proof, without due process. That a democratic government could
do that is beyond me. I am also angered that the Supreme Court would not
stand up far these people. The internment was c1early a violation of the
Constitution, but the Court could not ar would not see it as such. The very
agencies that are charged with enfarcing and upholding the Constitution
ignored their responsibilities.

Perhaps the conflicts between confidence in the government, patri-

otism, and the internment are most poignant in the comments provided
by Sansei Vietnam veterans. In the words of one interviewee:
I think it (the internment) has affected my life as far as my outlook. I was
warking far a job far a ... company and this was after I'd been in the service
and my dad was in the service and I was born in camp and my mom was in
camp. Anyway, the manager of the company came to me. We were talking and
... he looked at me while we were tal king and he said, "It's hard for me to
stop calling you 'Jap'." ... And what went through my mind was, I don't
understand where this was coming from. You know, my dad fought in the
war. I fought in a war that nobody liked. And I remember coming back off the
plane when we got back from Okinawa and the people were like spitting at us
and all this kind of stuff. And here's this guy who thinks he's real American
and he's taking this attitude. It really upset me, you know, about this whole
thing. And I'm thinking, I don't understand .... What is it that this country
has done by putting us in camps, by having my father go and fight actually
the Japanese, which he is, and then draft me into a war. You know, all this
other stuff and you still have to put up with the prejudices. That's the thing
that gets me upset about the whole thing.

Another respondent expressed his feelings this way:

(The internment) seems so unfair when you think about what I have person-
ally gone through to protect my country and the people in it. I fought the war
in Vietnam in '68 to '69. Although I'm still a little confused as to what
purposes we really served over there, if I were ever asked to protect my
country again, I wouldn't hesitate at all.
Can you remember the way we were treated when we returned horne?
There was no welcome, no parade, acknowledgments, etc. I'm still very bitter
in that respect. I still carry it inside of me. After all these years. It's just
something I'll continue to live with. It's strange to think that I can put my
life on the line for what I feel is right, and yet not be respected for it!

Interviewees did note that it was difficult to determine the degree to

which their skepticism was shaped by the internment or the more
Possibility of a Future Internment 131

general social environment in which they grew up. Although knowledge

of the Japanese American incarceration increased their lack of confi-
dence in government, other events such as Watergate and the civil rights
movement contributed to their views as weIl. However, as one inter-
viewee pointed out, her feelings of distrust as a Japanese American went
beyond those experienced by Caucasian Americans: "I definitely think
if 1 were any other American, any other white American, 1 would
probably not feel the same, the lack of faith in the government."
The comments provided by interviewees support the survey data
that indicate a heightened sense of vulnerability in Sansei whose par-
ents were interned. However, one should not assurne that the No-Camp
Sansei were indifferent to their status in this country. When asked to
indicate the degree to which they agreed that V.S.-Japan relations were
of concern to them, there were no significant differences between Sansei
who had a parent in camp and those who did not. The mean response
was 5.22, on ascale from 1 to 7 (1 = strongly disagree and 7 = strongly
agree), suggesting than even Sansei whose parents did not experience
the internment share these concerns. Indeed, the comments of one
respondent who had neither parent interned indicated that the lack of
confidence affected No-Camp Sansei as weIl: "Finding out about the
internment was a terrible blow to my feeling of being an American and
the confidence 1 had that my government would always treat me fairly."

Resistance to Future Internment

It was hypothesized that Sansei with an interned parent might be
more likely to resist a future internment, since a parent's camp experi-
ences could create a greater des ire to fight the reoccurrence of such an
injustice. The survey data, however, indicated no significant differences
among the Two-Parent, One-Parent, and No-Camp respondent groups on
the Resistance to Future Internment factor. This held true whether or not
Sansei from Hawaii were included in the analyses and when the effects
of age and level of education were covaried out. The overall mean rating
for the single item in this factor was 6.15, indicating very strong agree-
ment with the statement "If Japanese Americans were ordered into
relocation camps today, 1would actively resist. " (Recall that a 7 reflected
the highest possible level of agreement.) Most Sansei, not only those
whose parents were interned, feIt strongly about the need to resist any
other internment attempts. Respondents also tended to think that their
Sansei peers would share their views of resistance: When presented
with a separate statement, "If Japanese Americans were ordered into
132 Chapter 7

relocation camps by the U.S. government today, most Sansei would

resist going," the mean response was virtually the same.
Interview comments illustrated that many Sansei would not pas-
sively accept another internment of Japanese Americans. "I would fight
anyone who questioned my authority," stated one Sansei. Another
commented, "I would fight it." Most interviewees, however, indicated
that they would use existing systems of law and governance to appeal
such a move. As one interviewee noted, "I would mobilize all my friends
and mobilize the system ... people on the outside, not just Americans,
to fight this thing. I would try to fight it provided that the United States
still existed as ... based on the Constitution." These comments show
that Sansei may differ in the way in which they would resist a future
internment. Most stated that they would try to work within the estab-
lished legal and constitutional channels to deter an internment. How-
ever, a few went further to suggest that they would physically fight their
removal were it to happen again.
Several comments emphasized that the Sansei's anticipated resis-
tance to a future internment is based both on their indignation at what
happened during World War 11 and on their experiences from the civil
rights era. They would actively resist a threatened internment not only of
Japanese Americans but of any other minority group whose rights were
violated by such an incarceration.
Not all Sansei were certain that they would resist. One interviewee
noted that he would be reluctant to resist if it threatened the possibility
of his staying with his children. Others had no idea how they might
respond, recognizing that the reality of facing an internment would be
very different from any projections they might make about such an
event.
Age, the gen der of an interned parent, education and income levels,
and birth order were not significantly related to the Resistance scores. In
addition, neither a parent's age during internment nor the length of
internment was significantly correlated with Sansei ratings on this fac-
tor. However, males were significantly more likely to report the likeli-
hood of resisting than females (F (1,546) = 4.77, P < .05). In addition,
Sansei with a Buddhist religious background scored significantly lower
(i.e., indicated less likelihood of resisting) on this factor than Sansei who
had been raised Christian (F (1,435) = 4.61, P < .05). Although the
reasons for this difference are unclear, one possible interpretation is that
Buddhist and Christian teachings emphasize values that would lead to
different responses to an injustice such as an internment. Another
interpretation is that Buddhist Sansei may represent a group who have
maintained closer ties with other Japanese Americans and/or are less
acculturated to adopting a Western emphasis on being outspoken and
Possibility of a Future Internment 133

fighting for individual rights. Involvement with Buddhist churches has

been seen as indicating greater continuity with Japanese culture (e.g.,
Feagin & Fujitake, 1972, and Connor, 1977, as cited in Fugita & O'Brien,
1991). At the same time, because many Christian Sansei have attended
churches that were primarily Japanese American in membership, it
would be erraneous to equate Christianity with greater contacts with
Caucasian Americans.
Significant regional differences emerged for the entire sample (F
(3,495) = 4.00, P < .01) and remained significant when the effects of
educational level were covaried out (see Table 7.4). East Coast Sansei
indicated the strangest likelihood of resistance. Their scores were higher
than those of the Midwest Sansei and significantly higher than those of
the Northwest (t (152.73) = -2.11, P < .05) and California Sansei
(t (122.04) = -2.93, p < .005). Midwest Sansei Resistance scores were
significantly higher than those of Sansei from California (t (207.07) =
-2.59, P = .01), who had the lowest scores on this factor. East Coast
Sansei, who reported the greatest likelihood of resisting, also had the
lowest Sense of Confidence scores. One interpretation of this finding is
that lower Confidence scores reflect a dimension of anger and/or cau-
tious skepticism associated with an increased level of predicted resis-
tance. Another interpretation is that the East Coast Sansei, who also had
the lowest preference for associating with other Japanese Americans,
identify more with the Caucasian American culture of a rebellious spirit.
In contrast, California Sansei who reported higher ethnic preference for
Japanese Americans may identify more with Japanese cultural values of
deference to authority and/or fatalism.
A second interesting point is that although there were camps in
California, the Sansei from this region expressed less anticipated resis-
tance to a future internment than Sansei from regions that were not apart
of the military exclusion areas. Perhaps the California Sansei ratings
were affected by an awareness of that fact. Recognizing how difficult it
was for the Issei and Nisei to resist, these Sansei may be hesitant to
predict their own reactions.
When regional analyses were conducted including only those San-
sei who had a parent in camp, similar results emerged (F (3,432) = 3.67,
P = .01). The East Coast Sansei continued to have the highest scores,
followed by the Midwest, Northwest, and California Sansei grau ps.
Although the East Coast group did not differ significantly from the
Midwest Sansei, their scores were significantly higher than the Califor-
nia (t (93.34) = -2.87, P .005) and Northwest groups (t (117.47) = -2.23,
P < .05). In addition, the Midwest Sansei scored significantly higher on
the Resistance factors than the California Sansei (t (194.13) = -2.29,
p< .05).
134 Chapter 7

Summary

Analyses regarding Ethnic Preference, Sense of Confidence, and

predicted Resistance to Future Internment suggested important ways in
which the internment may have influenced Sansei's current percep-
tions. Sansei who had a parent interned expressed a greater ethnic
preference for associating with ]apanese Americans over Caucasian
Americans than did Sansei whose parents were not incarcerated.
Whether a Sansei had outmarried did not significantly affect these
ratings, although geographicallocation of residence did. Sansei from the
Narthwest and California (areas included in the survey that contained
higher percentages of ]apanese Americans) reported the highest prefer-
ence far ]apanese Americans, while the Midwest and East Coast (areas
with relatively lower percentages of ]apanese Americans) reported the
lowest. Not surprisingly, those who grew up with and currently socialize
with ]apanese and Asian Americans also reported a greater preference
for ]apanese Americans over Caucasian Americans.
The increased in-group preference of Sansei in the Two- and One-
Parent groups could represent one remnant of the internment experi-
ence. Such a preference may help insulate these Sansei from further
racism by minimizing contacts with Caucasian Americans. Although
one might presume that the Sansei generation, given their increased
inclusion into mainstream society, would perceive fewer differences
between themselves and Caucasian Americans than their Nisei parents,
this is not necessarily the case. O'Brien and Fugita (1983) found that
Sansei males were actually more likely to perceive differences between
Caucasian and ]apanese Americans than were Nisei males in inter-
actions related to business, church, social functions, and the family.
They suggest that greater contacts with Caucasian Americans as weIl as
the influence of ethnic identity movements fostered the Sansei's in-
creased awareness of group differences. Sansei whose parents were
interned may perceive these differences even more acutely given their
personal ties to internment.
Sansei who had a parent interned were also less confident about
their rights than No-Camp Sansei. Part of this lack of confidence may
reflect the general effects of racism and discrimination. Even though
structural conditions have changed dramatically since World War II,
Sansei continue to experience forms of discrimination that "provide an
experiential linkage between the two generations" (O'Brien & Fugita,
1983, p. 238). While the majority of Sansei in a study reported in 1983
reported minimal levels of discrimination, only 17% of the Sansei
reported no discrimination. In addition, approximately half thought that
Possibility of a Future Internment 135

there was employment discrimination (O'Brien & Fugita, 1983). The

significantly lower levels of confidence in the offspring of former inter-
ne es suggests the presence of long-term effects into the Sansei genera-
tion that have been layered on the general effects of discrimination.
Regardless of whether they had a parent in a camp, Sansei respon-
dents indicated that should another internment take place, they would
react with active resistance. The relatively uniform response to this item
is in line with previous research on injustice that suggests that when an
injustice is done to any member of a group with which one identifies,
there is a strong re action to that injustice (Lerner, 1980). All Sansei, as
Japanese Americans, seemed to identify with the injustice of the intern-
ment.
The East Coast Sansei rated themselves as most likely to resist,
whereas California Sansei indicated they would be the least likely to do
so. This finding was interpreted in relation to social identity theory. If
East Coast Sansei are seen as identifying more with Caucasian Ameri-
cans than are their California counterparts (given their reported patterns
of current socialization and the ethnic composition of their region), then
their heightened attitude of resistance may indicate their greater identi-
fication with values of rebellion and fighting, which are more commonly
associated with Caucasian American groups.
Sansei with a Christi an religious background reported being more
likely to resist than Sansei with a Buddhist background, a finding that
may reflect value differences inherent within the religions and/or the
degree to which affiliation with the Buddhist religion reflects a greater
affiliation with Japanese cultural values of fatalism and the avoidance of
disruptive behavior.
These results, interpreted along with interviewee and respondent
comments, suggest that a heightened sense of insecurity or wariness
among their Sansei children and a preference for in-group relations are
important cross-generational impacts. A parent's past internment ap-
pears to have contributed to the Sansei's own lack of confidence in the
V.S. government, their sensitivity to being an ethnic minority group
member, and their belief in the possibility that what happened to their
parents could happen again in the future. Viewed in the context of the
communication patterns reported in Chapter 5, and level of knowledge
findings in Chapter 6, these effects suggest that although silence about
the camps within the family may have contributed to the Sansei's lack of
factual knowledge about the internment, it did not prevent the Sansei
from inheriting a more emotional sense of vulnerability.
 CHAPTER 8

Perceptions of Personal
and Family Impact

Somehow the attitudes and feelings that were experienced through intern-
ment, ... kind of proving yourself, your self-worth, and your citizenship ...
somehow that was passed on ... and affected our collective upbringing.

We have seen that Sansei whose parents were interned differed signifi-
cantly from No-Camp Sansei in their general levels of ethnic preference
and confidence about their rights. However, to fully understand the
impact of the internment, we need to explore the more specific ways in
which Sansei children of former internees thought that their lives have
been shaped by their parents' camp experience. Quotes from Project
participants such as the one above provided rich information in this
regard and indicated that their lives have been affected in many ways.

Assimilation

The pressure to assimilate and minimize behaviors related to ]apa-

nese American culture was identified as one major impact of the intern-
ment. Ten of the interviewees saw the camp experience as contributing
to their parents' emphasis on assimilation into the mainstream ''Anglo''
society and making sure not to "rock the boat." Although they recog-
nized that ]apanese cultural values also emphasized not to rock the boat
or stick out in a crowd (Fugita & O'Brien, 1991; Kitano, 1976), the
internment seemed to exaggerate the behaviors in their families. As one
interviewee stated:
I think it (the internment) affected them (my parents) a lot ... the way they
raised us very much as non-Japanese. I think that they encouraged us to do
everything so-called "American" (Ivy League, football). We didn't do any

137
138 Chapter 8

judo. We didn't do kendo. We didn't do anything ]apanese .... They prob-

ably reinforced things that were already culturally there, like get a good
education, don't get into trouble with the law, don't stick up, don't be
different from the rest, achieve, obey.

Another added, "A lot of people (Sansei) didn't even grow up like they
were Japanese and it was conscious, you know."
In some cases, the pressure to assimilate went beyond an avoidance
of rocking the boat to the display of staunch Americanism. For two
interviewees this Americanism was evident in their parents' "buying
American" and shunning products from Japan. One interviewee noted
that he too bought American cars to emphasize his "Americanness."
Not only Sansei who had a parent interned observed an emphasis
on proving one's Americanness. As one interviewee from Hawaii whose
parents were not in camp pointed out:
I think now that (the internment) did have a real impact (on Hawaiian
]apanese Americans). Not in the same sense that Ars (American ]apanese) on
the mainland, you know, suffered from being in concentration camps. But in
Hawaii, for example, I always couldn't understand why there was this kind of
rah-rah patriotism, Americanism, among my uncle's generation. The guys
that fought in the lOOth (Battalion) and the 442nd (Regiment) ... I began to
understand that for them it was achallenge to prove their Americanism and it
was important to them to show that they were Americans and not ]apanese.

Achievement

Other Sansei feIt the legacy of internment through their parents'

emphasis on achievement. Once again, while recognizing the existence
of an underlying Japanese work ethic in their families (Fugita & O'Brien,
1991), six interviewees saw their parents' camp experience as creating
extra pressure to prove oneself in terms of education, career, and citizen-
ship.
I think the internment has influenced all our lives even though we do not talk
about it much. Dur need to achieve, to prove ourselves American, our
feelings of self-worth all have been influenced by the mass rejection we were
subjected to.

While some interviewees saw their parents' press to achieve as a

way of ensuring security for their children, not all shared this view. Two
individuals noted that their parents stressed the importance of educa-
tion for a different reason. "Study hard," said one's father. "People can
take everything you own. They can even put you in prison, but they can't
take away what's inside your head."
Perceptions of Personal and Family Impact 139

Most saw the emphasis on achievement and education as a positive

effect, although one person noted that this pressure became problematic
in his family and eventually led to his seeking therapy. Overall, very few
Sansei reported having sought psychological treatment far internment-
related concerns in their lives. One should bear in mind, however, that
the survey and interview questions for the Project did not specifically
request such information.

Self-EsteemlSelf-Identity

Most Sansei did not see the internment as leading to psychopathol-

ogy in their parents. Only one interviewee attributed her parent's psychi-
atrie problems to the camps. Many interviewees, however, did identify
lasting psychological effects in their fathers and mothers, reflected in
either an enduring sense of insecurity ar a loss of self-esteem. This
impact was transmitted to the Sansei as well. Five of the interviewees
and 11 of the survey respondents reported negative effects of the intern-
ment on their own sense of identity and self-esteem, creating, in the
wards of one respondent, an "emotional inferiority." Others expressed
similar feelings, linking the lack of self-esteem to ethnic identity. Stated
one individual, "I've identified 'assumed rejection'-something I've
experienced especially with Caucasian Americans-that is, 1 assume
they are going to reject me because I'm Japanese since there was such
rejection of my parents." Another said, "I also feel that there was always
something negative about being Japanese."
Two interviewees thought that the internment contributed to a mare
general self-consciousness within the Sansei generation.

Some (of my) friends-their parents were not in the internment camp-I
think they were just a !ittle more, maybe open. Not open, ... but it just seems
that I was a little more tentative about certain things ... more self-conscious,
maybe about being ]apanese and being in a situation where we're not the
majority of people. So therefore we have to be a lot more conscious of what
we do and how we act.

Another individual expressed the following:

One memory I have is that working with Asian immigrants, every so often we
would all have these potluck dinners ... and we'd all get another together
and ... everyone would sing songs from their native country.... Someone
would get on the guitar or something and everyone would belt out singing
140 Chapter 8

. really loud songs, about Korea or whatever. And, whenever it came around to
me, and I think there was another Japanese American on the staff too, it's like
we were just too embarrassed to sing. To sing anything, you know. Like we
couldn't sing. We had no songs for one. And then it was like this thing of
being sort of embarrassed. Being microphone shy.... That really struck me
and I began to notice that as I talked with other Japanese Americans, they feIt
very similar.

For two interviewees who were born in camp, this self-consciousness

took on special significance. Both experienced feelings of shame about
their birthplace while growing up, although as adults they had overcome
these feelings. "It was really hard for me when 1 was growing up," stated
one SanseL "I think I've always ... been somewhat ashamed of it until
after 1 had spent some time in college." Sansei writer David Mura (1991)
suggests that it is not only individuals born in camp who have such
feelings, but rather the third generation as a whole who have inherited
"instead of ]apaneseness, a sense of shame" (p. 218).
The negative impact of low self-esteem, self-consciousness, and
heightened identity issues were seen by some as contributing to more
serious problems in the Sansei generation, in particular drug abuse. One
respondent noted that there appeared to be a "correlation between
younger generations' negative self-image and the camp experience" of
their parents. Another wrote, "Many of my friends have had severe
problems socializing, and the symptoms have been drug abuse, delin-
quency, and other forms of self-denial (Le., rejection of Asian peers or
family)." An interviewee agreed:
I remember one summer there was something like 35 people that were
Japanese Americans overdosing on drugs .... If someone said, "Well, can
you prove it?" well, I can't prove it but I think ... that there's a correlation
between people's negative identity, negative sense of seIt, and what happened
to Japanese Americans as a group.

Not all effects on self-esteem were negative. Some Sansei developed

feelings of ethnic pride, recognizing the hardships endured by their
parents and relatives. As one respondent wrote, "I have a barrage of
emotions when 1 dwell on what my relatives went through, including
sadness, depression, and anger, but 1 also feel an immense amount of
pride to see where those survivors have ended up."

Parental Insecurity

Sansei perceived a parent's internment as affecting their lives in

other ways as weIl. Four interviewe es thought that the internment
Perceptions of Personal imd Family Impact 141

created strong feelings of insecurity in their parents, a feeling that was

transmitted to them. Often, the insecurity was manifested in attitudes
toward money.
They (my parents) don't own credit cards and my father keeps a stash of
money ... ready cash.... It's enough to buy a car.... It's that feeling of
what can you carry with you if something like this happens again. That's my
interpretation. And I think he would probably agree with that. There's a sense
of "let's be liquid" because I don't want to tie things up in assets that I'm going
to have to unload or lose .... Let's not do anything risky, no risk.

Another respondent wrote, "He doesn't seem to trust anyone except

hirnself. He keeps all his money to hirnself." Still another noted, "Secu-
rity means quite a lot to them. Most things are bought 'in case' -saving
and financial security is important."
Insecurity was also communicated in less obvious ways. One inter-
viewee stated that she carries a general feeling of "existential anxiety"
about her life, something she attributed to her own parents' insecurities
related to the internment.

Health Problems in Parents

Sansei also saw the internment as contributing to health problems and

even premature deaths in their parents. Three interviewees wondered
what physical effects the camps had on their fathers and mothers. One
noted, "I think it made (my father) older earlier. I think it tired hirn out."
I'm really worried about their health. I don't know if what they went through
damaged their health or if it contributed to my father's dying at what I
considered a relatively young age .... Holding it in, trying to forget some-
thing you can't forget. I'm a person who needs to talk. If I had to hold that
in I'd probably explode.

Still another Sansei respondent stated:

I think that many Nisei have died early of various diseases (my father
included. He had cancer at 40 and died at 54). I really strongly believe that the
trauma of incarceration had a physiological effect on them. Most of my
Japanese American friends' fathers have died before age 60.

Testimony during the CWRIC hearings echoed these concerns.

The impact on Sansei cannot be denied when you look at the early and
untimely deaths of so many Nisei parents in the Japanese American commu-
nity. It is understood that the Issei worked the hardest jobs imaginable, and
that the Nisei in fact were beneficiaries of that hard work. But in that process
of living a life trying to prove that the Nisei were worthy of being Americans,
atoll has been taken on their lives. And in my eye it's not been proven but
142 Chapter 8

will be in the future, that the Nisei that retire at sixty-two and suddenly die
within ten years and are not enjoying the time of retirement that they worked
so hard for because of failing health, because of getting illnesses like cancer;
all of this is a direct reaction to the stress and experience that perhaps started
in the camps and continued throughout their Jives. (Furutani, 1981, p. 103)

Although the Project survey did not specifically ask respondents

whether they thought their parents' physical health suffered from the
internment, it did ask them to indicate whether a parent had died and,
if so, the age at the time of death. By comparing the ages at which
previously interned parents died with the ages of deceased parents from
the No-Camp group, some assessment could be made of the hypothesis
that the internment led to negative health effects. Of the total sampIe,
16% (N = 95) reported that their father was no longer living. This
included 59 Sansei, or 14% of the Sansei who had a father interned. The
remaining 36 were Sansei who did not have a father in camp. This
constituted 20% of that group. With regard to the ages at which the
fathers died, the data showed that 41% (N = 24) of the Sansei who had a
father in camp reported that their father died before the age of 60
compared with only 19% (N = 7) of those from the group in which a
father had not been interned.
Five percent (N = 31) of the total sampIe reported that their mother
had died. This included 19 (or 6%) of those Sansei who had a mother
interned and 12 (5%) of those Sansei who did not have a mother in camp.
Fifty-eight percent of the deceased mothers in both groups died before
the age of 60. It appears that mothers who were interned did not differ
from non-interned mothers in their age at death.
These results must be interpreted with caution given the small
sampIe sizes involved and the fact that the cause of parental deaths was
not indicated in the survey responses. It was impossible to separate out
accidental deaths from deaths due to physical illness that might be
attributed to the stress of the concentration camps. However, the possi-
bility also exists that the numbers underestimate the health impact of
the camps, since they do not include parents who became ill but did not
die from their illness.
The findings are suggestive that fathers, in particular, may have been
at risk for an early death following the internment. One reason for their
vulnerability to camp-related stress may be attributed to their develop-
mental stage during the internment and the particular tasks they faced as
men at that time. Levinson, Darrow, Klein, Levinson, and McKee's (1978)
book, The Seosons of 0 Mon's Life, describes early adulthood as an era of
the life cycle beginning in late adolescence and ending in the mid-40s.
Most Nisei men would have fallen into this age range at the time of the
Perceptions of Personal and Family Impact 143

internment. According to Levinson et al. (1978), the core tasks presented

at this stage include (1) exploration, when a man must discover and seek
out alternative options, and (2) creation of a stable environment, by
taking on adult responsibilities and making something of his life. During
the internment it was impossible to explore or establish a stable life in
any normal fashion. Also, because Nisei men were the family's main link
to society, they feIt the indignities of the ostracism and suspicions of
disloyalty strongly. Holocaust research has similarly suggested that male
survivors were worse off than female survivors because the helplessness
of their trauma was particularly inconsistent with the male roles of
protector and provider (Danieli, 1982; Nadler & Ben-Sushan, 1989).
Given these circumstances, it is plausible that Nisei men experienced
negative effects that had a lasting impact on their lives both physically
and emotionally.

"What If?" Questions

Finally, Sansei interviewees noted that the internment has led them
to ask how their lives and the lives of their parents would be different
today if the internment had never happened. In some cases, these "what
if?" questions included speculations about the economic standing of
their families. Several interviewees recognized that if their parents had
not lost their farms during the war, that land would now be worth
millions of dollars. As one interviewee commented:
When you do hang around with mainly non-Japanese, you do see what the
other families have that (your parents) didn't. There were nest eggs to build
upon and trust funds and things like that .... You do see what could be
accomplished through past fortunes and realize, yes, you were short-changed
to a certain degree.

For others, the focus was more on their parents themselves. These
Sansei wondered whether their parents might have been more assertive,
more confident, or more expressive without the internment experience.
Three interviewees commented on their perceptions that the camps
prevented their parents from actualizing their potential. The lasting
effects of this remained long after the war ended.
He's been a gardener since (the war). He's never really used his artistic
talent. ... He was a fine artist, so that part is sad .... He could have been a
much more influential person, a much more self-satisfied person, maybe
having his own company or being a much more successful person .... My
father was never proud to be a gardener.... As a result, we never really talked
about what our father did for a living.
144 Chapter 8

Another Sansei respondent described a similar situation. Her father

wanted to attend college, but the internment curtailed that goal. Fol-
lowing the war he became and remained a truck driver.

Family Impact Factors

To further explore the effects of a parent's internment within the

sampie of survey respondents, a list of 10 attitude statements focused
specifically on personal and family impacts of the internment. These items
were rated only by those Sansei who had a parent interned. (One additional
repeated statement induded to assess reliability was highly correlated with
the original item (r = .90) and was omitted from further analyses.) Table
8.1 presents the means and standard deviations for each statement. The
question format for these statements was identical to that used with the
more general attitude statements presented in Chapter 7 (Le., a rating on
a 7 - point scale, with high er ratings indicating greater level of agreement).
A principal components analysis with Varimax rotation of these
statements produced three orthogonal factors. Items with loadings
greater than or equal to .50 were then selected for further analyses, and
factor scores were calculated. A listing of these items along with their
factor loadings is presented in Table 8.2. The three factors were labeled
(1) Familial Distance, (2) Negative Affect, and (3) Positive Impacts. Taken
together, the factors accounted for 49% of the variance. Familial Distance
induded items indicating the degree to which a parent's internment led
to the experience of distance within the family (e.g., "The internment
experience of my parents has created a distance between my parent(s)
and myself"), while the Negative Affect factor included items reflecting
the degree to which Sansei feit anger and sadness about their parents'
experience. The Positive Impacts factor was composed of items indicat-
ing the degree to which respondents perceived there to be positive
effects or communications in their family related to the internment (e.g.,
"My parent(s) internment experience has brought us doser together as a
family"). Because only Sansei with an interned parent rated these
statements, between-group comparisons exduded the No-Camp group
and focused instead on the Two-Parent, Father-Only, and Mother-Only
Sansei. Table 8.3 presents the Family Impact factor means by Sansei group.

Familial Distance

No significant differences 'were found among the Two-Parent,

Father-Only, and Mother-Only Sansei on the Familial Distance factor
 ltII
'C:I
Cf.
Q
Table 8.1. Means for Family Impact Statements !;
~
Sansei Group :i
;!
Two-Parent One-Parent Father-Only Mother-Only Q

Statement M (s.d.) M (s.d.) M (s.d.) M (s.d.) e.=

When I was a child I first thought that "camp" referred to a fun summer 3.07 (1.89) 2.86 (1.75) 2.59 (1.57) 3.18 (1.90) ~
Q.
camp my parent(s) attended.
The internment experience of my parent(s) has created distance be- 2.04 (1.53) 1.98 (1.46) 2.07 (1.62) 1.88 (1.26)
tween my parent(s) and myself. ~
i==
I feel angry when I think of my parent(s) having been in the internment 5.80 (1.47) 5.80 (1.50) 5.72 (1.56) 5.90 (1.44)
...a
'C:I
camps.
My parent(s) experience during the camp years has made them extra- 3.75 (1.82) 3.59 (1.82) 3.44 (1.82) 3.75 (1.82)
P!
..
protective of me.
My parent(s) internment experience has brought us eloser together as a 4.14 (1.50) 3.96 (1.50) 4.01 (1.59) 3.91 (1.41)
family.
I wish my parent(s) had shared more about the camp experience 5.42 (1.49) 5.46 (1.35) 5.42 (1.49) 5.50 (1.17)
with me.
My parent(s) have adjusted to life after the camps better than I would 5.14 (1.43) 4.80 (1.52) 4.63 (1.49) 4.49 (1.53)
have.
My parent(s) have expressed a dislike for certain foods, places, or 3.43 (2.05) 3.20 (1.89) 3.10 (1.92) 3.32 (1.87)
objects because they are areminder of camp.
I feel sad when I think of my parent(s) having been in the internment 6.13 (1.24) 6.04 (1.32) 6.03 (1.40) 6.05 (1.22)
camps.
My parent(s) have shared some positive memories of the camp experience. 5.39 (1.58) 4.79 (1.77) 4.56 (1.88) 5.06 (1.61)

...
~
CI1
146 Chapter 8

Table 8.2. Factor Scores for Family Impact Attitude Items

Factor Loading
Factor I: Familial Distance
My parent(s) experience during the camp years has made them .682
extraprotective of me.
The internment experience of my parent(s) has created distance .624
between my parent(s) and mys elf.
When I was a child I first thought that "camp" referred to a fun .576
summer camp my parent(s) attended.
I wish my parent(s) had shared more about the camp experience
with me.
Factor 11: Negative Affect
I feel sad when I think of my parent(s) having been in the .817
internment camps.
I feel angry when I think of my parent(s) having been in the .806
internment camps.
Factor III: Positive Impact
My parent(s) internment experience has brought us closer to- .769
gether as a family.
My parent(s) have shared same positive memories of the camp .605
experience.

(see Table 8.3). Neither Sansei gender, income level, education level,
birth order, nor religion was significantly correlated with Familial Dis-
tance scores. A small significant correlation was found, however, be-
tween the Familial Distance Factor and Sansei age (r = .11, P < .05), with
older Sansei reporting greater distance than younger Sansei. The ethnic
composition of the neighborhood in which a respondent was raised and
the current ethnic socialization patterns did not significantly affect

Table 8.3. Family Impact Factor Means by Group

Sansei Group
Two- Father- Mother-
Parent Only Only
Factor M (s.d.) M (s.d.) M (s.d.)

Familial Distance 3.57 1.69 3.38 1.63 3.58 1.57

Negative Affect 5.97 1.36 5.88 1.48 5.98 1.33
Positive Impacts 4.77 1.54 4.23 1.74 4.49 1.53
Perceptions of Personal and Family Impact 147

Familial Distance scores. In addition, no significant regional differences

were found (see Table 8.4). Those who outmarried did not differ signifi-
cantly from those who married Japanese Americans on this factor.
The age at which a father was interned demonstrated a small but
significant correlation with Familial Distance scores (r = .15, P = .001).
Tbe older a father was during the internment, the more Sansei perceived
there to be distance within the family around the topic of the camps.
This relationship remained significant when Sansei age was partialed
out (r = .09, P < .05). The length of a father's incarceration, however, was
unrelated to Familial Distance scores. Neither a mother's age in camp nor
the length of time spent in camp was significantly correlated with
Familial Distance scores.
An examination of individual item means in Table 8.1 revealed that
although respondents tended not to view the internment as having
created an emotional distance within their families or having made their
parents extraprotective of them, they did wish their parents had shared
more about the camps. Comments from interviewees, however, sug-
gested there are ways in which Sansei have experienced a distancing
within their families. For example, quotes included in Chapter 5 point to
the effects of limited communication. One Sansei whose father was
interned perceived a link between her father's lack of closeness to his
children and the camp experience.
He was the oldest. I don't think he ever knew what family life was .... My
mom would tell me that they would go and hang out with the boys where
they weren't with a family. You know, I don't really think he knew what a
father is like or what a father should do .... Like when my brother was in
school I don't think my father played much with my brother. You know, like
how other dads play ball or da something like that. ...

In addition, two other Sansei, one interviewee and one respondent,

attributed their fathers' verbal abuse and aloofness to the internment.

Table 8.4. Family Impact Factors by Geographical Region

Region
California Northwest Midwest East Co ast
Factor M (s.cl.) M (s.cl.) M (s.cl.) M (s.cl.)

Familial Distance 3.51 1.02 3.47 .98 3.55 1.07 3.73 1.05
Negative Affect 5.84 1.30 6.00 1.19 6.03 1.14 6.28 .85
Positive Impacts 4.62 1.19 4.74 1.13 4.71 1.14 4.52 1.60
148 Chapter 8

Negative Affect

Items from the Negative Affect factor assessed the degree to which
Sansei currently experience feelings of anger and sadness about their
parents' past internment. Given the range of negative internment effects
perceived by the Sansei, it is not surprising that respondents and
interviewees alike reported experiencing a great deal of anger and
negative emotions. There were no significant differences among Two-
Parent, Father-Only, and Mother-Only groups in their levels of negative
affect. Members of all three groups reported a high degree of anger and
sadness. For example, when asked to rate the degree to which they
agreed with the statements "I feel sad (or angry) when 1 think of my
parent(s) having been in the internment camps," and given a scale
ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), the me an rating
for sadness was 6.10 and the mean rating for anger was 5.80.
A small correlation between Sansei age and the Negative Affect
factor scores occurred (r = .11, P < .05), with older Sansei expressing
greater levels of negative emotion. A significant correlation was also
found for birth order (F (2,442) = 5.23, P < .01), and Sansei who were the
youngest in their family reported greater negative affect than those who
were in the middle or the eldest. However, when the age of the Sansei
was covaried out, the birth order difference was no longer significant.
Sansei gender, educational and income level, religious background, the
ethnic composition of the neighborhood where the respondent grew up,
and current ethnic socialization patterns were unrelated to Negative
Affect.
Significant differences in geographical region did emerge once the
effects of education were covaried out (F (3,457) = 2.88, P < .05). As
shown in Table 8.4, East Coast Sansei reported the greatest level of anger
and sadness, and California Sansei expressed the lowest level. One
explanation for the higher negative affect in the East Coast Sansei is their
greater identification with Caucasian American values. It may be, for
example, that these Sansei feel more comfortable acknowledging strong
emotions than the California Sansei, who may identify more strongly
with Japanese American values emphasizing the restraint or internaliza-
tion of emotions.
The age of a parent while interned and the length of a mother's
internment were not significantly correlated with Negative Affect
scores. Only the length of a father's internment showed a significant
correlation (r = .09, P < .05). The longer a father's time in camp, the
higher the Sansei's reported level of negative affect. Perhaps fathers who
were interned longer experienced the greatest los ses regardless of their
Perceptions of Personal and Family Impact 149

age. A partial correlation controlling for Sansei age was also significant
(r = .10, P < .05), suggesting that this effect was not attributable to the age
of a respondent as opposed to the age of his or her parent while in camp.
Comments from 11 interviewees emphasized the fact that anger and
sadness represent the two primary emotional reactions of the Sansei in
response to the internment. The following excerpt expressed the range
of negative Sansei emotions.
No matter how many times I hear, speak, or read of the internment, there is an
inevitable feeling of overwhelming hurt, sadness, anger, and fear that wells
up inside of me. I feel hurt for the thousands of people who had to experienee
the ordeal; sadness for the pain, suffering, and sears that it left; anger at
the government (not the eountry) of the time for so blatantly infringing upon
citizen freedom for ungrounded reasons; and fear of the possibility that it
eould, indeed, happen again, to any of us for any reason, beeause of the
unpredictability (and predietability) of man.

These comments parallel those reported by Sansei from the Seattle,

Washington, area, who expressed more anger than embarrassment about
the injustice of the internment (Takezawa, 1989b).

Positive Impacts

A significant difference among Two-Parent, Father-Only, and Mother-

Only Sansei occurred on the Positive Impacts factor (F (2,447) = 6.85,
P = .001). This difference remained when the effects of age and educa-
tion were covaried out. As indicated in Table 8.3, Two-Parent Sansei
reported the highest level of Positive Impacts, and Father-Only Sansei
reported the lowest. In addition, a significant interaction between San-
sei camp group and Sansei gender was found (F (2,477) = 5.76, P < .05).
As shown in Figure 8.1, females from the Father-Only and Mother-Only
groups were less likely than males to identify positive effects of the
internment. However, females in the Two-Parent group perceived higher
levels of Positive Impact than males, and both males and females of the
Father-Only group had the lowest Positive Impact scores.
An examination of the means for individual items within this factor
in Table 8.1 provides a more detailed picture of the Sansei's views. When
asked to rate their level of agreement with the statement "My parent(s)
internment experience has brought us closer together as a family," the
overall mean response was 4.08, suggesting neither strong agreement
nor disagreement. In addition, the overall mean response of 5.09 to the
item "My parent(s) have shared some positive memories of the camp
experience" suggests that respondents tended to agree that their parents
150 Chapter 8

0.3
0.2
0.1
rn
.-
0
c.. 0.0
CIS
- • Female
E
Q)
>
-0.1 - • Male
:0::
.Ci)
0
-0.2
Q.
-0.3

-0.4
-0.5
Two- Father- Mother-
Parent Only Only

Group
Figure 8.1. Mean scores on the Positive Impacts factor as a function of gender.

had shared some positive memories about the camp experience (M

= 5.09).
Sansei age, income level, birth order, religion, ethnic composition
of the neighborhood where the respondent grew up, and current ethnic
socialization pattern did not significantly affect Positive Impacts factor
scores. Educational level, however, did have a significant correlation
with the Positive Impact factor (r = .14, P < .005). Sansei with higher
levels of education tended to report greater levels of positive impact.
Regional differences were also significant (F (3,451) = 2.59, P = .05).
Table 8.4 reveals that East Coast Sansei reported the highest degree of
Positive Impacts, and California Sansei reported the lowest (t (128.79) =
- 3.25, P = .001). East Coast Sansei Positive Impact scores were also
significantly higher than those for Sansei from the Northwest (t (138.94)
= -2.18, P < .05). Scores for the Northwest and Midwest Sansei did not
differ significantly.
A father's age while in camp was positively correlated with Positive
Impact scores (r = .12, P = .01). The older a father was during the
internment, the greater the Sansei's tendency to report a positive effect.
Analyses partialing out the effects of Sansei age continued to show a
Perceptions of Personal and Family Impact 151

significant correlation between father's age in camp and the Positive

Impact factor (r = .09, P < .05).
Six Sansei interviewees described what they considered to be posi-
tive effects of their parent's internment experience. One noted that she
would not have been born had it not been for the fact that her parents met
in a camp. Another interviewee noted how his mother was able to travel
after the war because she obtained a position during re settlement that
allowed this. Others commented that they were impressed by the lasting
friendships and sense of community parents developed while in camp.
In addition, while discussions about the internment were far from open
in most families, Sansei did recall humorous stories told by parents
about camp. Finally, Sansei saw their parents' strength from coping with
adversity as a positive effect from the camp experience.

Additional Family Impact Items

Two items from the Family Impact statements did not load .50 or
above in the principal components analysis. Therefore, their results are
presented here individually. One attitude statement, which asked San-
sei to rate the degree to which parents expressed a dislike for certain
foods, places, or objects because they were reminders of camp, revealed
no significant differences among the respondent graups. The mean
response for this item was 3.34. A second statement, "My parents have
adjusted to life after the camps better than I would have," showed
significant univariate differences among the Sansei graups (F (2,485) =
4.28, P < .01). Two-Parent Sansei (M = 5.14) were significantly more
likely to agree with this statement than the Father-Only graup (M = 4.63,
t (485) = 2.92, P < .005). Mother-Only Sansei ratings (M = 4.99) fell
between the Two-Parent and Father-Only graups and did not differ
significantly from them.

Summary

The results presented in this chapter suggest that Sansei whose

parents were in camp perceived the internment to have affected their
own lives in a variety of crucial ways. They frequently reported astrang
emphasis on assimilation and achievement within the family, themes
that have also been found in families of Holocaust survivors (Danieli,
1982; Pennebaker et al., 1989; Trachtenberg & Davis, 1978). Reactions to
group injustice, then, may incIude avoiding family discussions about
152 Chapter 8

that event and actively discouraging one's children from adopting be-
haviors that might identify them as members of the victimized group.
Interestingly, we have seen that the Sansei's increased structural
assimilation has not prevented them from maintaining a keen awareness
of their Japanese American identity. Simply because the Sansei do not
live in Japanese American communities or speak the Japanese language
does not me an there has been a decline in their ethnic identity (Fugita &
O'Brien, 1991). Rather, ethnic identity involves a much broader process
of coming to terms with the cultural differences between one's own
group and the dominant group (Phinney, 1990). For many Sansei, the
internment is areminder of such a difference.
Others noted that the internment created feelings of shame and
insecurity. A lowered sense of self-esteem stemming from the intern-
ment has been reported in both the Nisei and Sansei. One explanation
for this finding comes from research on the negative effects of stigma-
tization. Crocker and Major's (1989) review of literature in this area
defines stigmatization as applying to "individuals who by virtue of their
membership in a social category are vulnerable to being labeled as
deviant, are targets of prejudice or victims of discrimination, or have
negative economic or interpersonal outcomes" (p. 609). The treatment of
Japanese Americans fits this definition of a stigmatized group, and the
internment represents the most blatant example of their discrimination.
How do members of a stigmatized group come to incorporate the nega-
tive attitudes of others around them? The reflected appraisal theory
suggests that self-concept develops from one's awareness of how others
evaluate the self and the adoption of the views of these others (Crocker &
Major, 1989). From this perspective, the Sansei's awareness of others'
negative stereotypes and discrimination stemming from the internment
may have led to an incorporation of negative self-evaluations and a
lowered self-esteem.
A second theory, the ethnicity-based self-esteem theory, proposes
that stigmatized individuals have lower self-esteem because they are
blocked from opportunities to control and manipulate their environ-
ment (Crocker & Major, 1989). Similarly, equity theory (Wal ster, Walster,
& Berscheid, 1978), social exchange theory (Thibaut & Kelley, 1959),
social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954), and social identity theory
(Hogg & Abrams, 1988; Tajfel & Turner, 1986) also predict that social
stigma negatively affects self-esteem.
Crocker and Major (1989), however, note that much of the empirical
research has not found a link between membership in a stigmatized
group and lower global self-esteem. It is important to remember that the
current study did not specifically evaluate this relationship, and many
Perceptions of Personal and Family Impact 153

interviewees did not mention this issue when discussing their percep-
tions of the internment's impact. In addition, there were Sansei who saw
a positive link between a parent's internment and their own self-esteem
and identified with the strength of ]apanese Americans in the face of
adversity. Hence, the stress of being a victim of prejudice can actually
increase personal identity (Dion & Earn, 1975), and membership in a
stigmatized group can result in higher rather than lower self-esteem
(Hoelter, 1983; Porter & Washington, 1979).
The finding that a much greater percentage of fathers who were
interned died before the age of 60 than fathers who were not interned is
striking. And, although more extensive research would be needed to
further explore this issue, these preliminary results suggest that a par-
ent's internment may be related to an early death. The long-term effects
of stress have only recently been studied. One interesting area of work
suggests that the avoidance of discussing one's traumatic experiences
may negatively affect physical health. Pennebaker et al. (1989) reported
that the active constraint of behavior or emotional expression can cause
increases in autonomie processes. These researchers reasoned that if
trauma victims are unable to discuss their experiences with others over
an extended period of time, they may experience cumulative stressors
within their autonomie nervous system. One of their studies, for exam-
pIe, found that individuals who suffered sexual traumas in childhood
were found to be at risk for health problems several years after the
experience if they had not discussed the trauma with anyone (Penne-
baker & Susman, 1988).
To further explore the link between nondisclosure and health sta-
tus, Pennebaker et al. had 33 Holocaust survivors from Texas discuss
their Holocaust experience while being monitored for skin conductance
level and heart rate. Participants were also asked to report their experi-
ence of health problems prior to the interview and again 14 months later.
Pennebaker et al. reported that individuals who showed lower skin
conductance levels while disclosing traumatic information in the inter-
view demonstrated greater improvement in physical health at follow-up
than low disclosers. "Disclosing an extremely traumatic event over 40
years after its occurrence has apparent positive health benefits" (Penne-
baker et al., 1989, p. 586).
The paralleis between nondisclosure and ill-health in both Holo-
caust survivors and Nisei male internees are intriguing. It should be
noted, however, that while the Sansei Research Project data suggested
that Nisei males may have been at greater risk for an early death than
Nisei females, the Pennebaker et al. study did not find significant gen der
differences. Others have reported male Holocaust survivors to be more
154 Chapter 8

emotionally closed than female survivors (Kav-Venaki, Nadler, & Ger-

shoni, 1985; Nadler & Ben-Sushan, 1989). However, the differences in
methodology between various investigations make a direct comparison
on gender findings impossible.
Sansei also wondered how their lives would be different today if
their parents had not been incarcerated. They mourned the loss of family
income, parental education, and self-esteem from those years. Whether a
Sansei had one or both parents interned did not affect their perceptions
regarding the degree to which the internment created distance in their
families or their level of sadness or anger about the camps. Not sur-
prisingly, the Sansei expressed high levels of negative feelings about the
injustice their parents experienced. Posner (1991) points out that the
following generation often has greater moraloutrage over atrocities than
their parents. Whether the Sansei's report of outrage is greater than that
of their Nisei parents is impossible to determine from the present data.
This would be an interesting area to explore in its own right. If, for
example, extreme forms of injustice such as the internment prevent
victims from fully expressing and/or recognizing their unjust treatment,
it may fall on the next generation to do so. The interpretation of data
comparing Nisei and Sansei levels of outrage, however, would need to
take into account generational differences in acculturation that would
also affect the expression of such emotions.
The Sansei did identify some positive effects. Two-Parent Sansei,
for example, recognized that they would not have been born if their
parents had not met in a camp, and these Sansei were more likely than
One-Parent Sansei to feel there had been positive impacts from the
internment. And, while an interviewees wished the internment had
never happened, many admired their parents for coping so wen with
that experience and see them as positive role models.
 CHAPTER 9

Perceptions of Suffering
and Coping

Thus far we have compared the attitudes, communication patterns,

interest, and knowledge levels of Sansei respondents with and without
an interned parent. We have also explored the ways in which Sansei
perceive their parents' internment to have affected their lives. However,
these data do not directly assess Sansei perceptions of the level of
injustice suffered by their parents. Exploring how respondents viewed
their parents' suffering and coping in response to the internment pro-
vided one important avenue in evaluating this phenomenon.
Much of the literature on the reactions of Japanese Americans
interned during the war focuses either on their suffering and hard-
ships or on their resilience and coping in response to the events that took
place. Obviously, because the Sansei in the present research were born
after the war, there was no way for them to directly assess their parents'
experiences at that time. These Sansei could, however, evaluate the
degree to which they feIt their parents had suffered and coped with the
concentration camps. This assessment of Sansei views on coping and
suffering was valuable in investigating the relationship between social
comparison theories and the cross-generational perception of injustice.
Individuals who have been disadvantaged or victimized often rely
on social comparisons with others to assess their status. Comparing
one's own suffering with others worse off than oneself, for example (Le.,
downward comparisons), can help victims believe that their situation
could have been worse (Wills, 1981, as cited in Nagata & Crosby, 1990),
reduce other-blame for the circumstance (Tennen & Affleck, 1990), and
maintain a sense of justice. Research suggests that stigmatized individ-
uals are especially likely to compare themselves with others who share a

155
156 Chapter 9

common fate within their own group (Crocker & Major, 1989). Such in-
group comparisons can play a vital role in protecting the self-esteem of
the stigmatized individual. However, studies have also identified a
seemingly paradoxical finding: Members of disadvantaged groups often
see the injustices that affect their own group, yet see themselves as
exempt from these same injustices (Crosby, 1982; Crosby & Gonzales-
Intal, 1983). This phenomenon is called the "denial of personal disad-
vantage" and has been observed to occur in various groups (Nagata &
Crosby, 1990). Crosby (1982), for example, found that while female
workers acknowledged the disadvantaged status of working women as a
group, they reported a high level of personal job satisfaction and did not
perceive themselves to be disadvantaged. Similarly, lesbians also denied
their personal dis advantage and reported suffering less discrimination
than lesbians in America generally (Crosby, PufaIl, Snyder, O'Connell, &
Whalen, 1989).
Nagata and Crosby (1990) wanted to explore the phenomenon of
personal disadvantage with respect to the Sansei and their parents'
internment. They wondered whether the denial of personal disadvan-
tage extended into subsequent generations following an injustice.
Would the Sansei minimize the suffering of their parents while ac-
knowledging the victimization of Japanese Americans generally? Or
would being a generation removed from the experience reduce the
likelihood of denying the family's dis advantage?
Four survey questions explored these questions by evaluating San-
sei perceptions of coping and suffering. One question asked respon-
dents to rate on a scale from 1 to 5 (where 1 = very little and 5 = a great
deal) how much Japanese Americans, in general, had suffered from the
internment. A similar question requested that they use another 5-point
scale to rate how weIl they thought most Japanese Americans had coped
with the internment experience. On this scale, a 1 was equated with
"very poorly," and a 5 was equated with "very weIl." Two additional
questions asked the Sansei to rate their parents' suffering and coping in
relation to most other interned Japanese Americans. Degree of suffering
was rated on a 5-point scale with the following choices: 1 = much less
than most, 2 = slightly less than most, 3 = about the same as most,
4 = slightly more than most, and 5 = much more than most. Degree of
coping was rated on a 5-point scale with similar choices: 1 = much
worse than most, 2 = slightly worse than most, 3 = about the same as
most, 4 = slightly better than most, and 5 = much better than most. All
questions were answered only by those individuals who had at least one
parent in camp.
Suffering and Coping 157

Suffering and Coping

among Japanese Americans

Table 9.1 shows the ratings for coping and suffering by Sansei group.
No significant differences emerged among the Two-Parent, Father-Only,
and Mother-Only Sansei in their perceptions of suffering among ]apa-
nese Americans in general. The mean response was 4.63, indicating that
Sansei thought that ]apanese Americans had suffered a great deal from
the internment. In fact, 68% of the sample rated the amount of suffering
as 5, the highest possible score.
Although most ratings of ]apanese American suffering tended to be
high, there was a significant difference among the perceptions of Sansei
from different geographical regions (F (3,453) = 2.56, P < .05). When the
effects of education were covaried out, these differences remained mar-
ginally significant. As shown in Table 9.2, East Coast Sansei gave the
highest ratings for ]apanese American suffering. This rating was signifi-
cantly higher than that provided by California Sansei (t (101.82) = -2.41,
P < .05) and Midwest Sansei (t (136.76) = -2.70, p < .01) but was not
significantly different from Northwest Sansei. All other comparisons
were nonsignificant. The relatively high ratings of ]apanese American
suffering from the East Coast Sansei and low ratings from the California
Sansei are difficult to interpret. One might expect the California Sansei
to perceive high levels of suffering given the larger numbers of ]apanese
American communities within that state. However, the fact that East
Coast Sansei provided the highest ratings of suffering suggests that there
are other factars that must be considered. An alternative explanation is
related to the possibility that East Co ast Sansei may have a generally
mare guarded view about the status of ]apanese Americans. Recall that
the East Coast Sansei reported the lowest level of confidence in their

Table 9.1. Levels of Suffering and Coping by Group

Sansei Group
Two-Parent Father-Only Mother-Only
Variable M (s.d.) M (s.d.) M (s.d.)
Japanese American Suffering 4.65 (.60) 4.56 (.66) 4.65 (.62)
Japanese American Coping 4.28 (.92) 4.01 (1.03) 4.34 (.88)
Parental Suffering 3.16 (.82) 2.98 (.95) 3.09 (.69)
Family Coping 3.67 (.88) 3.72 (.85) 3.53 (.80)
158 Chapter 9

Table 9.2. Levels of Suffering and Coping by Geographical Region

Geographical Region
California Narthwest Midwest East Coast
Variable M (s.d.) M (s.d.) M (s.d.) M (s.d.)

]apanese American 4.62 (.61) 4.71 (.54) 4.65 (.63) 4.81 (.54)
Suffering
]apanese American 4.20 (.96) 4.45 (.76) 4.26 (.98) 4.05 (.99)
Coping
Parental Suffering 3.07 (.87) 3.10 (.83) 3.14 (.74) 3.35 (.76)
Family Coping 3.67 (.86) 3.77 (.87) 3.64 (.90) 3.53 (.82)

rights, the highest perceived level of discrimination, and the highest

internment knowledge scores. Their higher level of guardedness and
perception of suffering among ]apanese Americans may stern from a
greater knowledge about the internment itself and a relatively strong
sense of vulnerability.
Sansei group differences in perceptions of coping among ]apanese
Americans were marginally significant (F (2,478) = 2.79, P = .06) and
remained so when the effects of age and education were covaried out.
Although the mean scores for all the groups indicated general agreement
in perceiving ]apanese Americans as having coped quite weIl, the
Father-Only group had a mean rating that was significantly lower than
the ratings of both the Two-Parent (t (131.28) = 2.22, P < .05) and Mother-
Only groups (t (165.00) = -2.20, P < .05) (see Table 9.1).
Interviewees also acknowledged their respect for the way in which
]apanese Americans coped.
I just don't feel that we were victims. I feel that they were survivors .... You
know, it wasn't just like they were such weak and docile people.

Another interviewee also commented on her admiration for all ]apanese

Americans during the war.
Of course I think most people feel the anger and all that. But I also feel
different. I feel a lot of respect for the people who went to camp, far the
people who were outside of camp, the ]apanese people who lived through the
wartime, ]apanese Americans no matter where they were. In camp or out, it
was very difficult. I have a lot of respect far them.

Neither Sansei gender, religious affiliation, nor geographicalloca-

tion of residence was significantly related to perceptions of ]apanese
American suffering, although a small significant correlation was found
Suffering and Coping 159

between Sansei age and Japanese American coping (r = .09, P < .05).
01 der Sansei tended to perceive greater levels of coping. One reason for
this finding may be that older Sansei are at a point in their lives where
they have developed a greater appreciation for the range of ways in
which the Japanese Americans coped with their past. Interviewees, for
example, noted that over the years they have become increasingly aware
of their parents' ability to overcome the hardships created by the intern-
ment. Several, in fact, stated that they moved from a position of being
angry with their parents for their passivity and silence during and after
the war, to a position of understanding the circumstances of that time.
This testimony before the CWRIC illustrates such as developmental
change.
My initial reaction when I heard that my parents were herded off and put into
camp was based upon being weaned on cowboy movies, being weaned on
war movies and watching John Wayne. I imagined myself with guns in both
hands firing away and claiming I would never be apart of that, I would never
have gone to camp, and I couldn't imagine why my Nisei parents and Issei
grandparents went to camp. But out of that ignorance was stirred a curiosity.
With that curiosity I began to find out what the camp experience was
about. ... I began to understand why so many Nisei fought in World War 11
in the heralded 100th Battalion and 442nd Regiment. ... I began to under-
stand the true reality of the experience of the Nisei and Issei. ... Their
survival was in fact based upon a pride, an ability to endure, a tenacity, that
in fact occurred. (Furutani, 1981, pp. 102-103)

The survey results indicated that while education level was unre-
lated to both Japanese American suffering and coping scores, income
level showed a small hut significant positive correlation with coping
scores (r = .09, P < .05). The higher a Sansei's own income, the greater
was his or her perception of successful coping among Japanese Ameri-
cans. There were no significant differences in perceptions of suffering or
coping between Sansei who outmarried and those who did not.
In addition, both a respondent's current level of interest in the
internment (r = .28, P < .001) and the Sansei's total knowledge score
from the survey (r = .11, P < .05) were positively correlated with rat-
ings of Japanese American suffering. The greater the level of interest and
knowledge, the more likely the respondent was to perceive greater levels
of suffering. This is not surprising since Sansei who focused on the
internment were more likely to have been exposed to the range of
injustices suffered by those in the camps. Total knowledge scores were
also negatively correlated with perceptions of Japanese American cop-
ing (r = -.17, P < .001). Those with greater knowledge were less
optimistic in their assessment of the degree to which Japanese Ameri-
cans have coped with the concentration camp experience.
160 Chapter 9

Correlations were also calculated between respondents' ratings of

]apanese American suffering and coping and the four general attitude
factors (Barriers to Communication, Ethnic Preference, Sense of Confi-
dence, and Likelihood to Resist) and three family impact factors (Famil-
ial Distance, Negative Affect, and Positive Impacts). Significant positive
correlations emerged between the ratings of ]apanese American suffer-
ing and scores on the Ethnic Preference factor (r = .20, P < .001) and the
Likelihood to Resist factor (r = .15, P = .001). Respondents with a greater
preference for ]apanese Americans and a greater likelihood to resist
future internments tended to perceive greater levels of suffering. In
addition, ]apanese American suffering was negatively correlated with
respondents' scores on the Sense of Confidence factor (r = -.16,
P < .001). The greater the perceived level of suffering, the lower the
scores in the Sense of Confidence factor.
Ratings of ]apanese American coping were positively correlated
with Confidence factor scores (r = .34, P < .001). Greater confidence was
associated with perceptions of greater levels of coping. Both the Barriers
to Communication (r = .09, P < .05) and Resistance factor scores
(r = - .08, P < .05) were negatively correlated with coping scores. Sansei
who experienced greater barriers to communicating about the intern-
ment in their families as weIl as those who thought they would res ist an
internment tended to perceive lower levels of coping.
Additional correlational analyses looked at the relationship be-
tween coping and suffering ratings and the Family Impact factors. Here,
ratings of ]apanese American suffering were positively correlated with
Family Distance scores (r = .12, P = .005) and Negative Affect scores
(r = .37, P < .001). Greater levels of perceived ]apanese American
suffering were associated with the experience of distance within the
family and greater feelings of sadness and anger. ]apanese American
coping was negatively correlated with the Family Distance factor (r =
.13, P < .005) and the Negative Affect factor (r = -.08, P < .05) and
positively correlated with the Positive Impacts factor (r = .13, P < .005).
Lower levels of coping were associated with the experience of greater
family distance and negative feelings, while higher coping ratings ten-
ded to be associated with the presence of positive communications or
effects related to the internment.
The age of a father during internment was positively correlated with
the Sansei's ratings of ]apanese American suffering (r = .09, P < .05)
but not with coping. However, when Sansei age was partialed out, the
correlation was no longer significant. The length of a father's time in
camp was unrelated to ]apanese American and coping ratings, and
neither a mother's age nor time in camp was significantly related to
Sansei ratings of ]apanese American coping or suffering.
Suffering and Coping 161

Parental Suffering and Coping

Two-Parent, Father-Only, and Mother-Only Sansei did not differ

significantly in the degree to which they perceived their parents to have
suffered from the internment. In general, Sansei tended to see their own
parents as having suffered no more or less than other }apanese Ameri-
cans. Comments by Sansei reporting their parents' level of suffering,
however, varied. Some discussed financial losses, while others de-
scribed emotional and physical hardships. Responses from several inter-
viewees also suggested the importance of understanding the context in
which ratings of parental suffering were made. For example, two inter-
viewees noted that although the internment created hardship for their
parents, other events in their lives, such as the loss of a child, caused
greater suffering. For them, the internment seemed less central as a
traumatic event. In addition, one interviewee noted that while most
people focus on the suffering caused by the camps, there were even
greater traumas such as lynchings that were perpetrated against }apanese
Americans at that time.
Ratings for parental coping also did not differ significantly among
the groups, suggesting that Sansei tended to see their parents as having
coped "about the same" or "slightly better" than most others. Many
Sansei interviewees and survey respondents expressed their admiration
for their parents' coping. Comments such as "I am amazed at the bounce-
back ability of both the Issei and Nisei as wen as their lack of bitterness"
were not uncommon.
This admiration is also reflected in Sansei responses to an addi-
tional survey question. When presented with the statement "My parents
adjusted to life after the internment camps better than I could have" and
presented with a 7-point scale (where 1 = strongly disagree and 7 =
strongly agree), nearly half of the Sansei thought their parents coped
better than they could have. Only 10% thought they might have coped
better, and the remaining 30% were undecided. The following respon-
dent quote illustrates this feeling.
I felt that this period of internment for my parents has taught me to appreciate
my freedom and to respect them more for the suffering that they and my
grandparents had to endure .... I have the utmost respect for all those who
were interned because they have showed us that they could withstand the
pressures that were put upon them during the war and after. They were model
citizens always, something that I would find very hard to be.

The appreciation for the Nisei's coping was not apparent to all
Sansei while growing up. One respondent noted that it was not until she
herself became a parent that she developed a full awareness of her
parents' experiences.
162 Chapter 9

Being a parent myself now, many of my "mixed" reactions to their relocation

experience have been replaced with admiration. That they raised children
in a "normal" environment and could be as open-minded as they were and
are amazes me more and more as I raise my children.

Sansei gender, religious affiliation, educational background, and

whether a respondent had outmarried were unrelated to either parental
suffering or coping ratings, although age was correlated positively with
parental suffering (r = .12, P < .005) and negatively with family coping
(r = -.10, P = .01). Older Sansei tended to perceive greater suffering in
their parents and lower levels of coping than did younger Sansei.
Additionally, Sansei income (r = .11, p. = .01) and current interest level
in the internment (r = .16, P < .005) were positively correlated with
ratings of parental suffering, while level of knowledge about the intern-
ment, as assessed within the Project survey, was not related to family
coping or suffering scores. There were also no significant differences in
parental coping or suffering ratings among the California, Northwest,
Midwest, and East Coast Sansei.
Evaluations of parental suffering were positively correlated with the
Ethnic Preference (r = .19, P < .001) and Likelihood to Resist factors
(r = .08, P = .05). Greater preference for Japanese Americans and
resistance to future internments were associated with perceptions of
greater parental suffering. This suffering was also negatively correlated
with the Confidence factor (r = - .09, P < .05). The greater the perceived
level of suffering, the lower the Sansei's confidence in their own status.
Family coping scores were positively correlated with Confidence
factor scores (r = .10, P < .05). Not surprisingly, those who had greater
levels of confidence also tended to perceive greater levels of family
coping. Family coping was also negatively correlated with the Barriers to
Communication factor (r = -.22, P < .001) and the Ethnic Preference
factor (r = -.13, P < .005). That is, those who favored Japanese Ameri-
cans over Caucasian Americans and experienced greater barriers to
discussing the internment with their parents tended to perceive lower
levels of coping in their families.
For the Family Impact factors, parental suffering was positively
correlated with the Familial Distance (r = .19, P < .001) and Negative
Affect factors (r = .21, P < .001). Greater experience of family distance
and personal sadness and anger about the internment were associated
with higher ratings of parental suffering. Ratings of family coping were
unrelated to the Negative Affect factor scores but were negatively corre-
lated with the Family Distance (r = - .22, P < .001) and Positive Impacts
factors (r = .23, P < .001).
The age of a father (r = .19, P < .001) and the age of a mother (r = .14,
Suffering and Coping 163

p < .005) during internment were each positively correlated to the

amount of parental suffering perceived by Sansei. The older a parent was
while in camp, the higher the Sansei rated their level of suffering. Partial
correlations controlling for Sansei age remained significant for both
father's age (r = .12, P < .01) and mother's age in camp (r = .09, P < .05).
Length of a parent's internment was not significantly related to suffering
scores. A father's length of internment, however, was negatively corre-
lated with levels of family coping (r = - .08, P < .05). The longer a father
had been in camp, the lower the perceived level of coping. A similar rela-
tionship, however, did not emerge for a mother's length of internment.

Summary

The data on Sansei perceptions of parental coping and suffering

indicate that although the Sansei see the internment as having caused a
great deal of suffering for most Japanese Americans, they also think that
Japanese Americans have coped weH in response to this suffering. The
results showed that ratings of the degree of parental suffering were
positively correlated with Ethnic Preference, Resistance, Familial Dis-
tance, and Negative Affect factor scores, and ratings of parental coping
were negatively related to the Confidence, Familial Distance, and Posi-
tive Impacts factors. It is tempting to conclude that greater parental
suffering from the internment created greater emotional distance in the
family, caused the offspring to prefer associating with Japanese Ameri-
cans over Caucasian Americans, created more negative feelings about
the internment, and reinforced their resolve to resist any future intern-
ments. Similarly, one might conclude that poorer parental coping
caused Sansei to have less confidence in their rights, greater family
distance, and less exposure to positive impacts from the internment.
Such conclusions, however, are premature. There was no "objective"
measure of the actuallevels of coping and suffering rated by the Sansei,
and it is unclear wh ether parents themselves, or an outside observer,
would agree with these ratings. It is also possible that the correlations
indicate a more general response style in the Sansei. For example, Sansei
who tend to have a negative or guarded view of the world not only may
see more suffering in their parents and Japanese Americans but also may
harbor more negative feelings about a parent's internment, be more
likely to be distrustful of Caucasian Americans, and be resistant to any
encroachment on their rights.
The Sansei respondents did not engage in a "denial of personal
disadvantage"; they did not downplay either the suffering of Japanese
164 Chapter 9

Americans as a group or the suffering of their own parents. One explana-

tion for the difference between these and previous studies supporting
the denial of personal dis advantage is that the present methods differed
from those of previous social comparison investigations (Nagata &
Crosby, 1990). While the Sansei were asked to contrast their perceptions
of the disadvantage suffered by their parents with that of their own group
(i.e., most Japanese Americans), other researchers have typically con-
trasted self-perceived dis advantage with the disadvantage of others in
one's membership group. The difference in results mayaiso reflect the
fact that the denial of personal disadvantage is partially a product of
culture (Gergen, 1973; Markus, 1989; Markus & Kitayama, 1991). In
particular, remnants of the emphasis on group solidarity and humility in
Japanese culture (Kitano, 1969; Yamamoto & Wagatsuma, 1980) may have
remained with the Sansei and contributed to their disinclination to sep-
arate their own parents' suffering from that of other Japanese Americans.
Nagata and Crosby (1990) also reported that there were important
individual differences in the denial of personal disadvantage within the
Sansei sampie. A small subgroup (N = 66), for example, thought that
their parents had suffered less than most others. It is possible that this
subgroup actually had parents who suffered less than the norm. How-
ever, discriminant analyses indicated that these respondents also re-
ported significantly less preference for Japanese Americans over Cauca-
sian Americans than the Sansei who saw their parents' suffering as equal
to or greater than that of other Japanese Americans. (For a more extended
discussion of this analysis, see Nagata and Crosby, 1990.) This finding
suggests the possible existence of a more pervasive phenomenon of
denial in the Sansei who saw less suffering, although further investiga-
tions of this possibility are needed. Specific qualities of the experienced
injustice itself mayaiso alter the likelihood of an individual's denial of
personal disadvantage (Nagata & Crosby, 1990). It may be, for example,
that the dramatic and episodic nature of the internment has provided a
definable rallying point for the Japanese American community. Under
such conditions, denial of personal disadvantage may be less likely. In
contrast, injustices that occur in a less dramatic fashion than the intern-
ment and that unfold slowly over long periods of time may be less
detectable (Winter, 1988) and may increase the likelihood of denying
personal disadvantage.
Unfortunately, data were not collected on Japanese American cop-
ing and suffering for all Sansei in the Project. The addition of such
information would have allowed for the exploration of whether having a
parent personally experience the internment significantly affected San-
sei ratings for Japanese Americans as a group. This issue is relevant in
Suffering and Coping 165

untangling the contributions of generational status, shared group status,

and personal dis advantage to perceptions of group injustice.
Finally, one must also recognize that the terms suffering and coping
are ambiguous, and their definitions are culturally influenced. What is
considered coping by Japanese standards may not be seen as adaptive by
Western standards. For example, it was noted earlier that the Japanese
culture values "gaman," the internalization of emotions, as a response to
stress. This same internalization response could be labeled as maladap-
tive from a Western point of view, since Western cultures are more likely
to emphasize the open expression of emotions. Adding to this ambiguity
is the fact that we do not know the degree to which Sansei were
influenced by Japanese (Eastern) and American (Western) cultural
values, and it is important to recognize the potential contributions of
both in the current analyses.
 CHAPTER 10

Impact on Behaviors

Attitudes do not always predict actions, and it was possible that the
Sansei responses to the survey's attitude questions might differ from
their behaviors. For example, it was not clear whether stated preferences
for Japanese Americans over Caucasian Americans would translate into
lower outmarriage rates or greater participation in Japanese American
community groups. Therefore, the analyses presented here explored
group differences in Sansei behaviors: their patterns of socialization,
dating, and outmarriage; membership in Japanese American groups; and
ability to und erstand the Japanese language.

Dating History

As noted previously, there are major differences in ethnic composi-

tion between Hawaii and the mainland (Daniels, 1988). These differ-
ences have particularly important implications for the comparisons of
social interaction made here with the No-Camp Sansei group, since this
group had a disproportionately large percentage of respondents from
Hawaii. (Recall from Chapter 4 that 18% of the No-Camp group were
from Hawaii compared with less than 1% from the Two- and One-Parent
groups.) As a result, significant differences found between the No-Camp
Sansei and the Two- or One-Parent Sansei could be attributed to the
differences in having a parent interned during the war, or to differences
related to coming from Hawaii's unique ethnic environment. For exam-
pIe, a higher rate of inmarriage in the No-Camp group may be due to the
fact that these Sansei did not experience the pressure to assimilate from
a parent who was interned, or to that fact that the No-Camp group results
were affected by the high er percentage of Hawaiian Sansei who are in an
environment where there are proportionately more Japanese Americans
167
168 Chapter 10

available for Sansei to marry. Therefare, analyses of dating and marriage

patterns were conducted both with and without the inclusion of respon-
dents from Hawaii.
The Ethnic Preference factor results from Chapter 7 indicated that
Sansei who had a parent interned showed a significantly greater prefer-
ence far Japanese Americans over Caucasian Americans. Would a simi-
lar preference be reflected in their dating patterns? Sansei were asked to
identify whether they had dated primarily Japanese Americans, primar-
ily Caucasian Americans, ar approximately equal numbers of Japanese
Americans and Caucasian Americans. Significant differences emerged
among the Two-Parent, One-Parent, and No-Camp groups (X 2 (6, N =
592) = 13.75, P < .05). While 42% of the No-Camp Sansei had dated
primarily Japanese Americans, 29% of the Two-Parent and 23% of the
One-Parent Sansei had done so. At the same time, 41% of the Two- and
One-Parent groups dated primarily Caucasian Americans compared
with only 27% of the No-Camp respondents. Approximately equal
percentages of each group had dated equal proportions of Japanese and
Caucasian Americans. However, when additional analyses comparing
the Sansei groups were conducted omitting the Hawaiian respondents,
significant differences in dating patterns no langer occurred and the
percentage of No-Camp Sansei who reported dating primarily Caucasian
Americans rose to 39%, nearly equal to the percentage reported by the
Two- and One-Parent groups. Similarly, when Hawaiian respondents
were omitted from the analyses, the percentage of No-Camp Sansei who
reported dating primarily Japanese Americans fell to 26%, which was
comparable to the percentage reported by Sansei who had a parent
interned. No significant gen der differences were found among the San-
sei respondents. In addition, the gender of the interned parent did not
significantly affect dating his tory patterns.
Significant regional differences in dating his tory occurred for the
overall sample (F (3,539) = 9.17, p < .001). California Sansei (M = 3.92)
were significantly more likely to have dated Japanese Americans than
were Northwest (M = 4.39, t (191.08) = -2.39, P < .05), East Coast
(M = 4.52, t (139.71) = -3.07, P < .005), and Midwest Sansei (M = 4.82,
t (290.71) = -5.83, P < .001). Significant differences also emerged when
analyses were conducted including only those Sansei whose parents
were interned (F (3,462) = 7.64, P < .001). Once again, California Sansei
(M = 3.95) were significantly more likely to have dated Japanese Ameri-
cans than were Northwest (M = 4.46, t (175.85) = ~2.48, P = .01), East
Coast (M = 4.49, t (111.64) = -2.63, P = .01), and Midwest Sansei
(M = 4.80, t (267.23) = -5.20, P < .001).
Impact on Behaviors 169

Outmarriage and Intermarriage Rates

Dating patterns do not necessarily reflect marriage patterns. There-

fore, separate chi-square analyses evaluated the degree to which the
Sansei groups married ]apanese Americans versus non-]apanese Ameri-
cans to explore the possibility that a parent's internment may have
shaped Sansei marriage patterns. On one hand, a parent's internment
might have led Sansei to marry within their own ethnic group, possibly
as a form of self-protection. Because the Nisei had been rejected by much
of Caucasian American society, they may have encouraged their Sansei
children to marry within the ]apanese American group to spare them
from similar rejection. It is also possible that Sansei married other
]apanese Americans because they shared cultural values. On the other
hand, a parent's internment might also have increased the likelihood of
Sansei outmarriage. In this case, the press to assimilate and minimize
ties with the ]apanese American culture after the war could have contrib-
uted to increased outmarriage rates.
Kitano, Yeung, Chai, and Hatanaka (1984) refer to the term outmar-
riage as "marriage where one partner was not of the specific nationality
group" (p. 180) being studied. In the present analyses, outmarriage rates
were calculated by examining the percentages of respondents who
married ]apanese Americans and comparing that percentage with those
who were married to non-]apanese Americans. A second method of
evaluating marriage patterns involves comparing the percentage of re-
spondents married to ]apanese or other Asian Americans, and compar-
ing that percentage with those married to non-Asian Americans. Kitano
et al. (1984) has used the term intermarriage to refer to such marriages
where a partner was non-Asian.
There were no significant differences in the rate of outmarriage
when comparing Two-Parent, One-Parent, and No-Camp Sansei groups.
As shown in Table 10.1, elose to half of the Sansei overall were married to
non-]apanese Americans. Additional analyses omitting respondents
from Hawaii revealed similar group percentages and no significant
differences in outmarriage among the Sansei groups. The percentage of
those married to non-Asian Americans (Le., those represented inter-
racial marriages) was also similar among the Two-Parent, One-Parent,
and No-Camp Sansei groups. Approximately 39% were intermarried.
This percentage did not change significantly when respondents from
Hawaii were omitted.
Separate analyses evaluated whether there were significant differ-
ences in outmarriage among the Two-Parent, Father-Only, and Mother-
170 Chapter 10

Table 10.1. Percentage of Sansei Married to Japanese

Americans versus Non-Japanese Americans by Group
Spouse Ethnicity
Group N Japanese American Non-Japanese American
Two-Parent 137 51 49
One-Parent 46 37 63
Father-Only 19 32 68
Mother-Only 27 52 48
No-Camp 52 64 36

Only Sansei. The Father-Only group had the highest rate of outmarriage
(68%) in contrast to the Two-Parent and Mother-Only groups, which
each had approximately a 48% outmarriage rate. Chi-square analyses
comparing these three groups, however, were not significant. Similar
intermarriage rates occurred for the Two-Parent, Father-Only, and
Mother-Only groups, although once again the Father-Only Sansei had
the highest intermarriage rate.
The overall outmarriage rate of elose to 50% is highly similar to
those reported in past studies on Japanese American outmarriage (e.g.,
Kitano et al. , 1984; Tinker, 1982). Based on a review of studies conducted
in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Fresno, California, through the early
1970s, Tinker (1982) coneluded that the rate of outmarriage was approx-
imately 50%. More recent data reported by Kitano et al. (1984) assessed
outmarriage rates in Los Angeles in 1979 and found more than a 60% rate
of outmarriage for Japanese Americans. There are several explanations
for the lower rates reported here. One explanation may relate to the fact
that different rates of outmarriage and interracial marriage have been
found between urban and rural areas of the same state (Tinker, 1982). The
present sampie ineluded individuals from across the country, while
Kitano et al. based their percentages on a sampie from Los Angeles,
California, an urban area with a relatively high percentage of ]apanese
Americans. The restriction of the present sampie to only Sansei respon-
dents also differs from other studies in that it ineludes a younger group
of ]apanese Americans from a single generational cohort. In contras!,
previous studies on outmarriage are typically based on all marriages
with a ]apanese American partner at a given point in time without regard
for generational status.
The present sam pie is also unique in that it ineludes a dispropor-
tionate number of people who are members of a ]apanese American
Impact on Behaviors 171

organization. (As described in Chapter 4, the majority of respondents

were recruited through their membership in the Japanese American
Citizens League.) Such individuals are likely to have a greater interest in
Japanese American culture and heritage and may be less likely to
outmarry.
Significant regional differences in outmarriage rates did occur
within the present sampIe (X 2 (3, N = 246) = 18.77, P < .001). As shown
in Table 10.2, California Sansei showed the lowest rate of outmarriage,
and the Midwest Sansei showed the highest. The patterns of interracial
marriage rates paralleled those for outmarriage (X 2 (3, N = 246) = 29.48,
p< .001), with California Sansei showing the lowest interracial marriage
rate (26%), followed by the Northwest (35%) and East Coast Sansei
(42%). The Midwest Sansei were again the highest (70%).
When examining only those Sansei who had a parent interned,
significant regional differences in outmarriage remained (X (3, N = 204)
= 10.07, P < .05), and the pattern of results was similar to that found
in the overall sampIe. The lowest outmarriage rate occurred in the
California sampIe (41%), followed by the Midwest (51%) and East (52%).
The highest outmarriage rate occurred with the Northwest Sansei (70%).
Patterns for interracial marriage among the regions again paralleled
those for outmarriage (X 2 (3, N = 204) = 19.49, P < .001). California
Sansei showed the lowest percentage of intermarried respondents
(29%), followed by the Northwest (38%), East (41%), and Midwest (68%).
One explanation for the lower rates of outmarriage and intermar-
riage among the California Sansei is that there are greater concentrations
of ]apanese Americans in that state when compared with the ather
regions. This would increase the possibility of meeting and marrying
another Japanese American. In contrast, in areas where there are fewer
Japanese Americans, outmarriage might be more likely. There are some

Table 10.2. Percentage of Sansei Married

to Japanese Americans versus Non-Japanese
Americans by Geographical Region
Spouse Ethnicity
Region N Japanese American Non-Japanese American

California 117 64 36
Northwest 43 53 46
Midwest 50 28 72
East Coast 36 47 53
172 Chapter10

data to support this explanation. For example, intermarriage rates for

Japanese Americans in Maryland and Virginia between 1969 and 1970
were reported to be 85 and 90%, respectively (Monahan, 1977, as cited in
Endo and Hirokawa, 1983). These rates are considerably higher than
those reported for California during a similar time period.
An explanation for the particularly low outmarriage rate in the
Northwest Sansei group is less obvious, particularly given that it was the
Northwest Sansei who reported the strongest preference for Japanese
Americans in the Ethnic Preference ratings cited in Chapter 7. However,
as noted before, the attitude questions assessed global perceptions of
trustworthiness and comfort rather than attitudes about dating and
marriage to Japanese Americans.
Additional analyses for the total sampie examined the possible
relationship between outmarriage and intermarriage rates and the San-
sei's educational and income levels. Respondents were divided into one
of three groupings by educationallevel. These included those who had
less than 4 years of college, those who completed college, and those with
some advanced graduate or professional schooling. Percentages of out-
married Sansei who fell within each of the three educationallevels were
nearly equivalent to those from the group of Sansei who married Japa-
nese Americans. The same nonsignificant findings occurred with re-
spect to intermarriage rates and educational level. When only Sansei
who had a parent interned were examined, there was once again no
significant difference in the educationallevels of either the outmarried
or intermarried respondents.
Three levels of personal income were also established to evaluate
the relationship between Sansei personal income and outmarriage/
intermarriage. These included the following: less than $20,000; $20,000
to $39,000; and $40,000 or more. Once again, no significant differences
were found for either the entire sample or the sample of Sansei who had
a parent interned. Therefore, the data indicated that outmarried and
intermarried Sansei did not differ significantly from Sansei who mar-
ried Japanese Americans or Asian Americans in terms of their educa-
tional or income levels.
The present results are in contrast with previous findings regarding
gender differences in outmarriage rates. Both Kitano et al. (1984) and
Tinker (1982) noted that Japanese American females outmarried at a
higher rate than males. For example, in the Los Angeles sample from
Kitano et al. , approximately 47% of the males had outmarried compared
with 53% of the females. In contrast, Sansei males in the current study
actually showed a higher percentage of outmarriage (51%) than Sansei
females (45%), although this difference was not statistically significant,
Impact on Behaviors 173

and females and males were virtually equivalent in their rates of inter-
marriage. Once again, differences in sampling techniques between the
present and past studies may account for these differences. While rates
of outmarriage did not differ between males and females from the
Northwest, Midwest, or East Coast, a higher percentage of males from
California (38%) were outmarried than females (24%) (X 2 (1, N = 182)
= 4.00, P < .05).
When each of the Sansei groups (Two-Parent, One-Parent, Father-
Only, Mother-Only, and No-Camp) was examined separately for gen der
differences, only the Mother-Only (X 2 (1, N = 31) = 3.89, P < .05) and No-
Camp groups (X 2 (1, N = 55) = 5.83, P < .05) demonstrated statistically
significant results, although the small sampie sizes in each suggest
caution in interpreting their generalizability. Females in the Mother-
Only group outmarried at a higher rate (67%) than males (31%), and
males in the No-Camp group outmarried more frequently (54%) than
females (23%). The explanations for these latter two results are unclear.
The higher outmarriage rate for females in the Mother-Only group may
stern from the fact that the mothers from this group had the highest
percentage (10%) of outmarriage themselves. Having a mother who has
already outmarried may have increased the likelihood of a daughter
doing the same. However, potential reasons to explain the particularly
small proportion of outmarried females in the No-Camp group were not
obvious. There were no appreciable differences in outmarriage rates for
mothers or fathers in this group. When respondents from Hawaii were
omitted from analyses, fern ale Sansei continued to show a significantly
lower rate for hoth outmarriage (X 2 (1, N = 50) = 5.12, P < .05) and
intermarriage (X 2 (1, N = 50) = 3.92, P < .05) than males. The reasons
for the low fern ale rates in the No-Camp group are unclear. For example,
the data revealed that they did not differ significantly in age from their
male counterparts. However, given the extremely small sampie of fe-
males in this group (N = 26), the findings may be spurious.
Rates of outmarriage and intermarriage were also evaluated with
respect to religious affiliation. Chi-square analyses revealed a significant
difference in rates of outmarriage between Buddhist and Christian
respondents (X 2 (1, N = 208) = 15.27, P < .001). Twice as many Christians
outmarried as Buddhists. While 28% of Buddhist Sansei had outmar-
ried, 57% of Christian Sansei had done so. Similar significant differ-
ences occurred with respect to intermarriage (X 2 (1, N = 208) = 7.83,
p = .005), with Christian Sansei outmarrying at a rate of 47% compared
with 27% for Buddhist Sansei. Analyses omitting Hawaiian respondents
continued to show similar significant patterns of intermarriage and
outmarriage. Previous data reported by Tinker (1982) and Levine and
174 Chapter 10

Montero (1973) found that Christian Nisei were more likely to outmarry
than those who were Buddhist. Tinker (1982) surveyed Sansei respon-
dents, however, and reported that patterns of dating Caucasian Ameri-
cans were quite high (over 50%) for both Buddhist and non-Buddhist
Sansei. Tinker's data seem contrary to the current findings. However,
because his data reflect dating patterns rather than outmarriage, a direct
camparisan is difficult.
The outmarriage rates reported for the present study must be inter-
preted with caution. They are biased by the fact that the present sampie
represents only one generation of Japanese Americans and includes a
disproportionate number of individuals who were members of the JACL.
Determining the social significance of outmarriage is also complex.
Outmarriage has been interpreted as rejecting one's own cultural group
or being motivated by adesire to increase one's status by being married
to a member of the dominant ethnic or racial group. The sheer un-
availability of potential spouses who are Japanese Americans mayaiso
play a role in increasing outmarriage rates. In addition, as noted by
Takezawa (1989a), negative stereotypes held by fern ale and male Sansei
about each other can make it difficult for Sansei to find a Japanese
American partner.

Parental Preferences for Marriage

In part, the Sansei's choices for a marital partner may have been
influenced by a parent's wishes. Sansei respondents were asked to rate
the degree to which their fathers and mothers had indicated a preference
that they marry a Japanese American. The scale provided ranged from 1
to 7, where 1 = marry only a non-Japanese American, and 7 = marry
only a Japanese American. When analyses of variance compared ratings
from Two-Parent, One-Parent, and No-Camp Sansei, excluding respon-
dents from Hawaii, there were no significant differences in fathers'
preferences for their children's marriage partner. Overall, respondents
indicated that their fathers had a slight to moderate tendency to prefer
that they marry a Japanese American (M = 5.29). A significant group
difference did occur with respect to a mother's preferences (F (2,566) =
5.16, P < .01). Contrasts performed between the groups indicated that the
mothers of One-Parent Sansei (M = 5.11) were seen as being significantly
less biased toward favoring marriage with Japanese Americans than the
mothers of either the two-Parent Sansei (M = 5.37, t (333.22) = 2.41,
P < .05) or the No-Camp Sansei (M = 5.57, t (167.49) = -3.03,
p <. 005).
Impact on Behaviors 175

Interviewee comments supported the survey findings. Parents did

show a preference that their children marry another Japanese American
but did so indirectly.
They always use sort of subtle pressure. It was never "You can't do this" or
"You can't do that" ... but it was clear, you know, the way they were talking
and what they approved of and that they wanted us all to marry and to date
Japanese.

While most interviewees indicated that marriage to a Caucasian Ameri-

can would rank third, behind marriage to other Asian Americans and
Japanese Americans in their parents' preferences, not all Sansei's par-
ents held similar views. One woman, for example, noted that her mother
most strongly opposed marriage to a Caucasian American because of her
mother's camp experience.
The results do not support the hypothesis that parents who were
interned would hold stronger views about having their children marry
other Japanese Americans than the No-Camp parents. In the case of
fathers, no significant differences emerged, and, in the case of mothers,
the mothers who had not been in camp showed a stronger preference
than their children marry another Japanese American.

Current Socialization Patterns

Sansei were also asked to indicate whether they currently social-

ized primarily with ]apanese/Asian Americans, primarily with Cauca-
sian Americans, or about equally with both groups. Although initially a
significant difference emerged among the Two-Parent, One-Parent, and
No-Camp groups, this difference did not hold once Hawaiian respon-
dents were omitted. Overall, 22% of the Sansei reported socializing
primarily with Japanese/Asian Americans, 36% primarily with Cauca-
sian Americans, and 38% about equally with both groups.
Statistical analyses comparing current socialization patterns across
the four geographical regions were not possible because of inadequate
cell frequencies. However, cross-tabulations for the entire sampie (see
Table 10.3) showed that for the overall sampie, the Midwest Sansei
included the lowest percentage who socialized with other Japanese/
Asian Americans and the largest percentage who associated with Cauca-
sian Americans. Although East Coast Sansei were also more than twice
as likely to socialize with Caucasian Americans as with Japanese/Asian
Americans, they included a larger percentage of Sansei who socialized
equally with Caucasian and Japanese/Asian Americans than the Mid-
176 Chapter 10

Table 10.3. Ethnic Socialization Patterns by Geographical Region:

Total Sam pie
Percentage of Respondents Who Socialize with:
Equally Japanese/
Primarily Japanese/ Primarily Caucasian Asian & Caucasian
Region N Asian Americans Americans Americans

California 249 28 28 43
Northwest 97 34 22 44
Midwest 102 8 67 25
East Coast 72 17 46 37

west group. The Northwest and California groups had the highest per-
centages of Sansei who associated primarily with Japanese/Asian Amer-
icans and the smallest percentage who associated primarily with Cauca-
sian Americans. However, the majority of both the California and
Northwest Sansei reported associating equally with Japanese/Asian
Americans and Caucasian Americans.
When examining only those Sansei whose parents were interned, a
similar pattern emerged, with Sansei from the Midwest showing the
largest percentage who socialized primarily with Caucasian Americans,
and California and Northwest Sansei reporting the greatest percentage
who associated with Japanese/Asian Americans.
These results most likely reflect the different population distribu-
tions of Japanese Americans and Asian Americans in the various regions
examined. Compared with California, both the Midwestern and East
Coast states have smaller concentrations of Japanese Americans. Hence,
Sansei from these areas would likely have fewer opportunities to social-
ize with Japanese Americans on a frequent basis. It mayaiso be the case
that Japanese Americans who resettled in the East Coast and Midwest
after the war and did not return to the West Coast represent a group who
feit less need to be affiliated with a larger Japanese American commu-
nity. If this were the case, then it is possible their children would also
be less likely to do so.

Loss of the Japanese Language and Culture

Chapter 2 described the range of effects the internment has had on

the Nisei. One such effect was their increased desire to assimilate into
Impact on Behaviors 177

the "majority" culture and minimize their "Japaneseness." Whereas

many Nisei living near Japanese American communities attended Japa-
nese language school before the war, this has not been the case for the
Sansei. The internment has been seen as causing an accelerated loss of
the Japanese language (Takezawa, 1989a), that is, a loss of the language
at a rate beyond that which might have occurred without such a trauma.
Would the loss of the Japanese language be especiaHy great for Sansei
whose parents were interned? To investigate this possibility, respon-
dents were asked to rate the degree to which they feIt they understood
the Japanese language. Because few Sansei speak Japanese, evaluating
their level of Japanese comprehension was used as an indicant of
language competence rather than their speaking ability.
Analyses comparing the Two-Parent, One-Parent, and No-Parent
groups revealed no significant difference in the ability to und erstand
Japanese (see Table 10.4). Most respondents had Httle understanding of
the language. On a scale from 0 to 3, where 0 = no understanding, 1 = a
Httle, 2 = pretty weH, and 3 = very weH, the mean rating for level of
understanding was 1.12. An additional analysis comparing Two-Parent,
Father-only, and Mother-Only Sansei did show a significant group differ-
ence (F (2,479) = 7.84, P < .001), which remained when the effects of
education and age were covaried out. While Two-Parent (M = 1.03) and
Mother-Only Sansei (M = .97) were roughly equivalent in their assess-
ment of skill in understanding Japanese, Father-Only Sansei indicated a
greater level of understanding (M = 1.40) than either the Two-Parent
group (t (133.55) = -3.55, P = .001) orthe Mother-Only group (t (165.30)
= 3.41, P = .001), although this level still remained low.
Significant regional differences occurred for the entire sampie (F
(3,544) = 4.50, P < .005). As shown in Table 10.5, East Coast and
CaHfornia Sansei reported the greatest understanding of the Japanese

Table 10.4. Understanding of

Japanese Language by Group
Level of
Understanding
Group M s.d.
Two-Parent 1.03 .80
One-Parent 1.20 .84
Father-Only 1.40 .89
Mother-Only .97 .71
No-Camp 1.13 .84
178 Chapter10

Table 10.5. Understanding of Japanese

Language by Geographical Region
Levelof
Understanding
Group M s.d.
California 1.18 .82
Northwest 1.03 .71
Midwest .90 .82
East Coast 1.29 .94

language, and the Midwest Sansei reported the lowest. Northwest Sansei
fell between these groups. The Midwest Sansei rating was significantly
lower than that from the East Coast (t (149.07) = -2.92, p < .005) and
California (t (193.88) = 2.97, P < .005) groups. Northwest Sansei ratings
were also lower than both the East Coast (t (136.10) = -1.99, P < .05) and
California (t (209.47) = 1.68, P < .10) Sansei. The significant regional
differences remained when the effects of education were covaried out.
A similar pattern occurred within the group of Sansei who had a
parent interned (F (3,467) = 2.98, p < .05). Dnce again the East Coast
Sansei had the highest language ratings (M = 1.25), followed by the
California (M = 1.16), Northwest (M = 1.00), and Midwest (M = .93)
Sansei. The Midwest Sansei rating was significantly lower than that of
Sansei from California (t (186.71) = 2.33, P < .05) and the East Co ast
(t (116.83) = -2.19, P < .05). In addition, the Northwest Sansei were
lower than California Sansei (t (207.43) = 1.82, P < .10) and East Coast
Sansei (t (100.92) = -1.79, P < .10). The effects of education level did not
change the significance of the results.
East Co ast Sansei reported the highest level of understanding, yet
they lived in communities with relatively little contact with other
]apanese Americans. Since this regional group also had the highest
educationallevel, perhaps they took courses in ]apanese language as a
way of maintaining contact with their ethnic heritage. Another possi-
bility is that their parents were more likely to teach them ]apanese than
were parents from the other geographical regions. Unfortunately, the
survey did not ask Sansei to specify whether they acquired their under-
standing of ]apanese at horne, through a language course, or through
some other means.
Although the data did not reveal significant differences in ability to
understand ]apanese between the Sansei who had a parent interned and
Impact on Behaviors 179

those who did not, 7 out of 36 interviewees nonetheless perceived the

internment as a critical event that caused their parents to avoid passing
on the ]apanese language. The effect of this language lass extended
beyond the Sansei's lass of culture. It also prevented them from being
able to communicate with their Issei grandparents, who spake primarily,
and in many cases entirely, in ]apanese. And, it was not only those
Sansei who had a parent in camp who identified these lasses, for
interviewees whose parents escaped the internment reported a similar
lass of culture, which they attributed to the internment.

Membership in Japanese
American Organizations

Membership in organizations consisting primarily of ]apanese

Americans (e.g., the ]ACL, churches, and community groups) provided
another indicator of the degree to which Sansei had maintained ties
with ]apanese American culture. Analyses indicated that Two-Parent,
One-Parent, and No-Camp Sansei differed significantly in their past
memberships with ]apanese American groups (t (594) = 4.01, P < .001).
More than two-thirds of the Two-Parent and One-Parent Sansei reported
being members of such organizations in the past, compared with less
than half of the No-Camp Sansei who reported similar memberships.
Current levels of membership, however, as shown in Table 10.6, revealed
no significant differences. Approximately 71% of all Sansei respondents
reported being involved in ]apanese American groups. This level of
membership is similar to that reported by Fugita and O'Brien (1991) for
Sansei males from California. The data also suggest that while the
membership for Sansei from families with a previously interned parent

Table 10.6. Membership in Japanese

American Organizations by Group
Number of
Organizations
Group M s.d.

Two-Parent 1.22 1.08

One-Parent 1.08 1.05
Father-Only 1.07 1.07
Mother-Only 1.09 1.03
No-Camp 1.00 .84
180 Chapter 10

has remained relatively stable over time, No-Camp Sansei showed a

sizable increase in their participation level. The recent redress would
appear to be a likely factor in spurring the increased involvement of this
group.
Age was positively correlated with current participation level
(r = .17, P < .001). Older Sansei indicated greater participation than
younger Sansei. Not surprisingly, Sansei with higher total knowledge
scores from the survey (r = .31, P < .001) and those who indicated a
high er degree of current interest in the internment (r = .21, P < .001)
were also likely to participate in more Japanese American organizations.
However, as was the case in a previous study, educationallevel did not
correlate with membership in Japanese American associations (Fugita
& O'Brien, 1985). A marginally significant difference occurred between
Sansei who outmarried and those who married Japanese Americans (F
(1,207) = 3.36, P < .10). Outmarried Sansei (M = 1.07) reported member-
ship in fewer Japanese American groups than nonoutmarried Sansei (M
= 1.36), a finding that again paralleis earlier research (Fugita & O'Brien,
1991). (Interestingly, even outmarried Sansei tend to maintain a greater
level of membership in ethnic organizations than most third-generation
European ethnics [Fugita & O'Brien, 1991].)
There were significant regional differences in the membership of
Sansei in Japanese American groups (F (3,544) = 4.50, P < .005). These
differences remained when the effects of education and age were
covaried out. Table 10.7 shows that California Sansei reported the
highest membership, followed by the Midwest and East Coast Sansei.
The group with the lowest level of participation was the Northwest
Sansei. The California Sansei were members of significantly more
groups than the Northwest (t (221.15) = 3.18, P < .005) and East Cpast
(t (165.77) = 2.03, P < .05) groups but did not differ significantly from

Table 10.7. Membership in

Japanese American Organizations
by Geographical Region
Number of
Organizations
Region M s.d.

California 1.29 1.14

Northwest .92 .94
Midwest 1.18 .95
East Coast 1.05 .84
Impact on Behaviors 181

the Midwest Sansei group. The Midwest Sansei, however, participated in

significantly more groups than the Northwest Sansei (t (205.88) = -1.96,
P = .01). All other comparisons were nonsignificant.
Significant regional differences also occurred when only Sansei
who had a parent interned were included in analyses, covarying out
education and age effects (F (3,467) = 3.82, P = .01). Once again,
California (M = 1.35) and Midwest (M = 1.17) Sansei reported the
highest level of membership in Japanese American groups. Northwest
Sansei (M = .93) reported the lowest, and East Coast Sansei were second
lowest (M = 1.03). In these analyses, however, the only significant
comparison between regions occurred between the California and
Northwest Sansei (t (123.34) = 2.27, P < .05).
The high level of membership in the California group seems logical
given that California has the highest proportion of Japanese Americans,
and a relatively large proportion of California Sansei reported socializ-
ing with Japanese Americans or Asian Americans. Research has also
shown that Japanese Americans whose best friends are Japanese Ameri-
can tend to show greater involvement in Japanese American voluntary
organizations (Fugita & O'Brien, 1991). However, this explanation would
not apply to the Northwest group, which reported greater levels of
socializing with Japanese and Asian Americans than their California
counterparts yet less activity in Japanese American groups. A problem
with trying to relate membership in Japanese American organizations
with frequency of social contact with Japanese Americans is that mem-
bership in Japanese American groups can reflect many different things.
For example, membership may reflect activism rather than socialization.
From this perspective, the results may suggest that the Northwest Sansei
have less interest in community activism and that California Sansei
show a greater interest in this regard. That the Northwest Sansei also had
the lowest total knowledge scores on the 11 factual questions about the
internment could also be seen as supportive of the hypothesis that this
group was less politically interested. On the other hand, lower levels of
membership among the Northwest sampie may simply reflect less op-
portunities to join Japanese American groups.
It should be noted as weIl that questions from the survey did not ask
respondents to indicate the level of their participation in groups. Indi-
viduals may have membership in several organizations but demonstrate
litde actual active involvement in those groups. There mayaiso be
Sansei who belong to only one group but are very active in that organiza-
tion. Current results also did not explore the Sansei's level of member-
ship in non-Japanese American organizations. One study found that
Sansei males maintained membership in a greater number of non-
182 Chapter10

Japanese American than Japanese American groups (Fugita & O'Brien,

1991). Such comparative information from the present respondents
would be useful in exploring whether children of former internees
demonstrated a particular interest in ethnic groups or a more general
interest in voluntary organizations.

Education and Career Choices

With an average personal income of $25,000 to $35,000 and high

levels of educational attainment, the Sansei in the Project have achieved
a great deal. It would be difficult, looking at these averages, to suggest
that this generation has suffered financiaHy or careerwise as a function
of their parents' incarceration. Nonetheless, comments from inter-
viewees indicated that the internment did, in fact, shape their educa-
tional and career choices.
Eight of the interviewees, for example, cited the internment as a
factor in determining their careers in community activism, the ministry,
theater, law, and other professions. The community activists worked to
empower directly the Japanese American community and educate
others about racism and prejudice. Those who chose law indicated that
the internment sparked adesire to master the legal system so that they
might fight against injustice perpetrated against all minorities and
prevent the occurrence of a future internment. One individual attributed
his entry into the ministry to his participation in the CWRIC hearings,
and another who worked in the ministry stated, "My commitment in my
life and ministry is to work in solidarity with the oppressed and
powerless for a country and world in which all have dignity and the
fuHest life." One interviewee described the impact on her career choice
in the following way:
I definitely think that it (the internment) helped to cut a frame, my life work,
some of the choices that I have made .... I am not just going to go into
business and make aB the money I can for myself.... I see it as my will to
educate and to work in coalition with other people of color and white people
... even as an artist.

Interviewees also reported that the internment of their fathers, in

particular, influenced their educational goals. In each of these cases,
camp forced their fathers to attend institutions that were not their first
choice or to give up their educational goals altogether. As a result, their
Sansei children attended particular universities or attained the educa-
tional degree their father had been unable to complete. The Sansei, then,
received the task of completing a father's unfinished business. In most
Impact on Behaviors 183

cases the Sansei accomplished the specific educational goal of their

parent. However, one interviewee linked the completion of his doctoral
thesis to the internment of both his parents as weIl as all Japanese
Americans by dedicating his thesis with the following words:
This thesis is dedicated to my parents, who were forced to terminate their
college years because of the injustices levied against them and 110,000 other
}apanese Americans during World War 11. May it never happen to a race of
humans ever again. This dissertation rightfully belongs to them. It represents
the degree that they never had the opportunity to finish.

The internment may have influenced Sansei career choices in other

ways. One respondent wrote, "I wonder if the internment is a factor in
most Sansei opting for jobs as an income producer, rather than going into
their own business, taking entrepreneurial risks." Another described
how his desire to enter a career in sales required hirn to be assertive in
ways that seemed to counter his mother's "don't rock the boat" attitude.
In these cases, a parent's camp experience was seen as creating barriers
to the Sansei's career choices.

Summary

While most Sansei see their parents as preferring that they marry
other Japanese Americans, this preference was not significantly stronger
in those parents who were interned. In addition, parents were not
perceived to be inflexible in their insistence that their children marry
within their ethnic group. This can be contrasted with the response of
many Holocaust survivors who thought it critical that their offspring
marry within the culture to preserve its existence. Both cultural differ-
ences and differences in the severity of experienced trauma may explain
the present finding that Japanese Americans appeared less prohibitive of
outmarriage. For example, the genocide of Jews made issues of survival
critical, while the internment of Japanese Americans did not.
There were also no significant differences among the Two-Parent,
One-Parent, and No-Camp Sansei in the degree to which they reported
currently socializing with Japanese Americans and Caucasian Ameri-
cans, in their ability to speak the Japanese language, or in their current
membership in Japanese American organizations.
In most respects, having a parent who was in camp did not seem to
have resulted in significant effects on the behaviors measured. One area
in which the internment did seem to have had an important and lasting
impact in the Sansei's lives was in their choice of careers. Although the
survey questions did not directly assess this issue, comments from
184 Chapter 10

interviewees and survey respondents noted that their decisions to enter

particular types of work or to pursue certain educational goals were tied
to a parent's camp experience. For some, these decisions served the
purpose of fulfilling a mother or father's uncompleted dream. For others,
the legacy included a commitment to combat racism and discrimination
in society. As we will see in the next chapter, this commitment also
played a vital role is shaping the Sansei's views toward seeking redress
for the injustices incurred a generation earlier.
 CHAPTER 11

Redressing Injustice

A monetary sum and words alone cannot restore lost years or erase
painful memories; neither can they fully convey our Nation's resolve to
rectify injustice and to uphold the rights of individuals. We can never
fully right the wrongs of the past. But we can take a clear stand for justice
and recognize that serious injustices were done to ]apanese Americans
during World War 11.
In enacting a law calling for restitution and offering a sincere
apology, your fellow Americans have, in a very real sense, renewed their
traditional commitment to the ideals of freedom, equality, and justice.
You and your family have our best wishes for the future.
Sincerely,
George Bush,
President of the United States

We have seen that the legacy of internment emerged in many forms

within the Sansei generation. Many effects were negative, including
feelings of insecurity, self-consciousness, anger, and sadness. However,
positive consequences also surfaced. The internment increased many
Sansei's sense of ethnic identity and their appreciation of their parents'
ability to cope with adversity. It also continues to serve as areminder
of the past racism endured by those born before them and provides a
sense of "connectedness" with the Japanese American community.
Rather than being detached observers of the injustice that their parents
and relatives experienced, the Sansei "have played a crucial role in not
only resurrecting the event from its buried past, but also in demonstrat-
ing its relevancy to the contemporary Japanese American community"
(Nakanishi, 1988, p. 169). One way in which the Sansei have expressed
their reactions to the internment is through their support of the redress
movement. The redress movement demanded that the V.S. government
make monetary payments to all surviving internees as a way of recogniz-
ing the injustice they had suffered. While the leaders of the redress effort
185
186 Chapterl1

were Nisei, the Sansei also made major contributions. As one Nisei from
Seattle, Washington, commented:
I think that 10 percent of the Nisei wanted to go after redress but 90 percent
didn't. ... Suddenly, this thing spilled into the Sansei, and you've got 50
percent of the Sansei (supporting it). That combination of 10 percent Nisei
and at least 50 percent Sansei began to persuade everyone that we should at
least struggle, we shouldn't give up. But I would say that the Sansei have
supplied a lot of muscle for this. (Takezawa, 1989a, p. 215)

Ta what degree have the Sansei been supportive of the redress

movement? How has their reaction to the injustice of the internment
varied from that of the Nisei? And, why would Sansei who never
experienced the camps take an active role supporting redress when
many of their parents, who lived through the internment, were reluctant
to da so for many years? Ta und erstand the answers to these questions,
same background to the redress movement is necessary. The journey
toward implementing the redress campaign was a complex one. Many
more events, individuals, and issues affected the movement's develop-
ment than can be described in this brief summary, and the reader is
encouraged to refer to other sources that describe the redress movement
more completely than is possible here (e.g., Hohri, 1988; Takezawa,
1989a; Tateishi, 1984).

The Development of the Redress Movement

In 1980, President Carter signed a bill creating the Commission on

Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC). The commis-
sion, which was mandated to investigate the circumstances surrounding
the internment and make recommendations based on their findings,
held hearings in major cities across the country. Over 750 witnesses
testified. Many were former interne es who spake for the first time in 40
years about the effects of the concentration camp experience on their
lives. While the idea of seeking redress from the government can be
traced back to the early protests of a minority of internees in the camps
during the internment, it was not until the late 1960s and early 1970s that
a large-scale redress movement emerged within the Japanese American
community (Daniels, 1988).

Barriers to Overcome

Greenberg (1984) has noted that "the expression of the inequity or

the enactment of behaviors aimed at ameliorating feelings of inequity
Redressing Injustice 187

may be encouraged or discouraged by a combination of internal and

external forces" (p. 180). For the Nisei, there were many forces that
militated against actively seeking redress for the injustice of the intern-
ment directly following the war (see Chapter 3). On a practical level,
reseUlement policies of the WRA scaUered the Nisei geographically,
making it impossible to organize a consolidated redress effort. The Nisei
needed to find new hornes and employment and establish a new life. In
addition, anti-Japanese sentiment did not disappear with the end of the
war. Launching a campaign to seek an apology and monetary compensa-
tion from the government could easily rile animosities.
The psychological consequences of the internment contributed as
weIl. One Nisei woman recalled how the betrayal by her own govern-
ment made it too painful to respond to the injustice (Hohri, 1988).
Pursuing redress would necessitate the reopening of wounds that most
wished to forget and could draw aUention to Japanese Americans at a
time when many saw assimilation as necessary to their reintegration.
These factors, along with Japanese cultural values emphasizing stoicism
and the avoidance of drawing attention to oneself and dwelling on the
past prohibited a large-scale redress effort.
From an aUribution theory perspective, the Nisei's reluctance to
pursue redress mayaiso have stemmed from their own self-devaluation,
which led them to believe they did not des erve beUer in life (Stolte,
1983). Years of exclusion combined with the degradation of the intern-
ment created the conditions for such a belief. However, what people
expect may differ from what people consider just (Martin, 1986), and
discrepancies can exist between the public report and private belief of
disadvantaged individuals for many reasons (Cohen, 1986). The Nisei's
nonpursuit of redress could also be seen as representing their expecta-
ti on of injustice. As one Nisei interviewed by the author stated, '~ccept­
ing it was one thing, but to think it was fair or not was something else.
Naturally, ... to everyone it was unfair. But ... even before the war the
Japanese in California were not treated the same as other Americans ....
We always had the feeling of being kicked around." The Nisei, then, may
weIl have felt they deserved beUer but learned to expect exclusion and
injustice. Even those who were relatively young at the time of their
incarceration recognized the injustice. One interviewee, for example,
described how her mother wrote a high school paper while in camp on
the discrepancy between her treatment as a Japanese American and the
principles of American democracy.
Cohen (1990), however, suggests that silence in response to injustice
should not be confused with "lack of an objection" or an "endorse-
ment or approval" of what has happened. Indeed, notes Cohen, "si-
lence mayaiso camouflage injustice and discontent" (p. 12). There are
188 Chapter 11

several conditions und er which silence may occur in the face of an

injustice:

a) silence due to a lack of awareness that an injustice has occurred,

b) silence when opportunities to voice areaction to injustice are absent,
c) silence when opportunities to voice areaction may be (or thought to bel
shams, and
d) when breaking the silence may bedangerous (Cohen, 1990)

Although the Nisei were aware of the unjust nature of the intern-
ment, breaking the silence could be dangerous. The danger was feit at a
personal level (not wanting to revi,ve painful memories) as wen as at a
societallevel (not wanting to stir up anti-Japanese sentiments). There
were also no obvious channels through which to voice a response to
their injustice. Prior to the election of Japanese American congress-
men, it was unclear who might champion aredress movement within
the government. In addition, silent victims are unlikely to speak out
when they believe their efforts to voice a response will not reduce the
injustices suffered or when they believe that the expression of dissat-
isfaction would appear self-serving (Cohen, 1990). Most in the Japanese
American community did not believe that aredress effort would suc-
ceed, and some worried that,· given their largely successful standing
after the war, arequest for monetary redress would appear greedy or
presumptuous.
Factors external to the Japanese American community similarly
decreased the chance of developing aredress effort. School books failed
to mention the internment. The public was ignorant of the circum-
stances. Therefore, it seemed unlikely that other groups might support
the Japanese Americans in the quest for redress. Silence about the camps
existed both within and outside of the Japanese American community:
As a result the injustice went largely unrecognized.
Many non-Japanese Americans viewed the internment as justified
and saw no need for redress. Among these were individuals who be-
lieved that the internment was militarily necessary and those who
thought that the government did the Japanese Americans a "favor" by
protecting them from vigilantes (Nagata, 1990b). There were also those
who, in line with Lerner's (1980) Belief in a Just World theory, saw the
Japanese Americans as deserving of their imprisonment. Lerner's theory
describes how judgments of "deserving" are frequently based on the
outcome an individual receives and that "the victim's fate, rather than
her behavior in the situation, elicits the observer's condemnation"
(p. 70). The very fact that Japanese Americans were incarcerated was
seen by some as evidence of their need to be interned.
Redressing Injustice 189

Moving toward Redress

Over time, however, additional factors increased the possibility of

seeking redress. The psychological confidence of ]apanese Americans
rose in the 1960s and 1970s through several events: an increase in the
numbers of ]apanese Americans, an improvement in their status, the
revival of ethnic consciousness, an increase in awareness by the majority
society of other ethnic groups, the growing international status of Japan
and China, and an increase in American cosmopolitanism (Daniels,
1988).
At the same time, ]apanese Americans were being portrayed as a
model minority, an image that suggested that they had "successfully
overcome" the hardships of racial discrimination and internment with-
out help from the government or other assistance. According to Naka-
nishi (1988), this model minority thesis worked against movement
toward redress in several important ways:
1. By promoting such a positive image of ]apanese Americans, the
model minority thesis discouraged them from raising unpleasant
associations stemming from the internment.
2. It allowed ]apanese Americans to assurne a "stance of letting
bygones be bygones" (p. 170).
3. Group-Ievel internment-related activities (such as pilgrimages
and Days of Remembrance) were belittled, considered no more
than apart of the ethnic revival fad.
4. It served to negate the magnitude of injustice suffered by the
]apanese Americans.
Nonetheless, there were also key events in the late 1960s that helped
to counter the negative effects of the model minority stereotype. In 1968,
the National ]ACL called for a repeal of the Emergency Detention Act,
Title 11 of the Internal Securities Act, the act that had allowed for the
establishment of "detention camps." Even after the war ended, Title 11
had remained on the books raising the specter that it might someday be
called into use again. The Title 11 repeal campaign emerged out of the
cancerns of black activists who worried that the Emergency Detention
Act might allow for the detention of ghetto rioters or anti war demonstra-
tors. With the assistance of ]apanese American Senator Inouye, Repre-
sentative Matsunaga, and the ]ACL, Title 11 was officially repealed in
1971 (Nakanishi, 1988). The Title 11 campaign was central to reraising the
topic of internment in the ]apanese American communities.
Far from being a momentary or faddish phenomenon, the resurrection of the
event during the late 1960's served for the ]apanese Americans as a starting
190 Chapterll

point for an intense, prolonged, and often controversial period of political

actions and creative activities, as well as collective and personal reexamina-
tion of the internment. (Nakanishi, 1988, p. 171)
It was also about this time when the first pilgrimages to the sites of
former concentration camps began, bringing together all generations of
Japanese Americans to remember their past. The issue of the injustice of
the internment became more visible outside as well as within the
Japanese American community.
In 1970, Edison Uno, a lecturer at San Francisco State University,
introduced aresolution at anational convention of the JACL to make
redress a focus of the organization's efforts. Uno asked the JACL to
request an admission from the government that the internment had been
amistake. In July of that year, the JACL adopted "in principle" a
resolution calling for individual monetary compensation for World War
11 internees (Takezawa, 1989a). Not long after, a Nisei from Seattle,
Washington, Henry Miyatake, found legal precedence for government
compensation of former internees. A group of Nisei joined hirn to form
the Seattle Evacuation Redress Committee and to develop a plan for
financial redress (Takezawa, 1989a).
These initial proposals for redress were not well received. Worried
that such an effort would draw negative attention to Japanese Americans
and revive unpleasant memories, individuals wondered whether they
dared to put their faith in the democratic system. Victims of trauma often
avoid seeking redress, fearing that their efforts will fail and that they will
incur a "second injury" (Symonds, 1980, as cited in Fine, 1983). For
former internees, losing a bid for redress would mean facing, once again,
the country's rejection of their rights. JACL members initially discour-
aged active pursuit of aredress plan. During these beginning phases of
the redress movement, approximately one-third of Japanese Americans
openly favored redress, one-third opposed it, and one-third remained
uncommitted (Daniels, 1988). Introduction of the idea of monetary
compensation raised many important questions. Should such compen-
sation be made on a case-by-case basis according to damages suffered or
should one fixed sum be paid to everyone? Should there be group
payment with the money placed into a community trust fund? Those
who opposed individual payment argued that the evacuation was a
collective crime against an entire group of people. Those favoring indi-
vidual payment considered the internment a violation of individual
civil rights. Other questions arose: How could such injustice be given a
dollar value? How much should be requested? There was even disagree-
ment among those who wished to call the payment redress and those
who called it reparations.
Redressing Injustice 191

Over time, the push toward redress continued. Part of the incentive
to pursue the movement further came from an increase in political
involvement by Japanese Americans and a resurgence of anti-Japanese
sentiments in the 1970s and 1980s. As America's economy weakened
and Japan's strengthened, there were increased references to Pearl Har-
bor, more frequent use of the term Jap, and campaigns to boycott
Japanese products "These signals have underscored the necessity for
Japanese Americans to go beyond the Title II campaign. They have
provided added incentive to further confront myths about the intern-
ment, and to be psychologically sensitive to and politically vigilant
about even. seemingly minor or remote episodes that resemble these
wartime experiences" (Nakanishi, 1988, p. 175).
Also, in the 1970s new critical information revealed the unjust
policies behind the incarceration of the Japanese Americans. By 1976,
pressure from the Seattle chapter of the JACL led President Ford to
rescind the 1942 Executive Order 9066 and sign "the American Prom-
ise," the first government document to recognize officially that the
evacuation and internment were amistake. At the end of 1977, survey
results indicated growing support for redress among the JACL member-
ship. Increasing numbers of pilgrimages were made to the camps, and
the "Days of Remembrance" were held (Takezawa, 1989a).
Disagreements continued, however, regarding the mann er in which
to pursue redress. One possibility was to establish a governmental study
commission that would fully investigate and document the injustice of
the internment. There were advantages and disadvantages to such an
approach (Naito & Scott, 1990). Such a commis si on would establish a
record of its findings and proceedings, might receive publicity, and
would educate both Congress and the public about the internment. The
commission approach was also supported by four Japanese American
congressmen. But approval of a commission and the completion of the
study itself would be time consuming. Even after a commission pre-
sented its findings, there was no guarantee that Congress would eventu-
ally pass aredress bill. The longer the redress process took, the less
likely it was that surviving internees would live to see the injustice
acknowledged. Eventually the JACL leadership voted to support the
commission strategy (Naito & Scott, 1990). In July 1981, President Carter
signed a bill that created the CWRIC. The nine-member commission was
directed to:

1. review the facts and circumstances surrounding Executive Order

9066, issued February 19,1942, and the impact of the Executive
Order on American citizens and permanent resident aliens;
192 Chapterl1

2. review the directives of United States military forces requiring

the relocation and, in some cases, detention in internment camps
of American citizens, including Aleut citizens and permanent
resident aliens of the Aleutian and Pribilof Islands; and
3. recommend appropriate remedies. (CWRIC, 1982, p. 1)

Throughout 1981, the commission held hearings across the United

States, to gather data from former internees, their relatives, and govern-
ment officials. Emotional testimonies by the witnesses educated the
public as to the suffering created by the internment and played an
important role in promoting the redress movement (Nakano, 1990).
The commis si on eventually concluded that "Executive Order 9066
was not justified by military necessity and the decisions that followed
from it-exclusion, detention, the ending of detention and the ending of
exclusion-were not founded upon military considerations. The broad
historical forces that shaped these decisions were race prejudice, war
hysteria and a failure of political leadership" (CWRIC, 1983, p. 5).
Included in its recommendations were the following:
1. That Congress pass a joint resolution, to be signed by the presi-
dent, that recognized that a grave injustice had been done and
offer an apology for the nation
2. That a fund for educational and humanitarian purposes related
to the wartime internment be established that would sponsor
research and public educational activities
3. That a one-time payment be made of $20,000 to each of the
surviving internees
There were members of the Japanese American community who
saw the approach as accommodationist (Hohri, 1988). The National
Council for Japanese American Redress (NCJAR), founded by William
Hohri and supported by the members of the original Seattle Evacuation
and Redress Committee, objected to the commission hearing, claiming
that they had put the camp victims "on trial" instead of the government
officials who had perpetrated the injustice (see Hohri, 1988, for a fuller
discussion of the NCJAR perspective). The NCJAR sought an unsuccess-
ful multi-billion-dollar class action suit against the government. A third
organization, the National Coalition for Redress and Reparations (NCRR),
which was composed primarily of Sansei, focused on encouraging
cooperation among the JACL, the NCJAR, and grassroots community
redress efforts to educate the public about the internment and sponsor
Day of Remembrance ceremonies (Chin, 1981-1982; Nakano, 1990).
Additional impetus for the redress movement began in 1983 when
Redressing Injustice 193

Sansei legal teams filed coram no bis petitions to vacate and remove the
Supreme Court's convictions of Gordon Hirabayashi, Minoru Yasui, and
Fred Korematsu, the men who had been jailed for their refusal to comply
with the curfew or evacuation orders (see Chapter 3). The petitions
alleged that crucial evidence had been withheld from the justices at the
time of the original convictions (Irons, 1989). Minami (1986), who
hirnself helped to spearhead the legal effort to overturn Korematsu's
conviction, described the writ of error coram no bis petition as "a device
which allows a person convicted of a crime to challenge his conviction
on certain grounds after his sentence has been served" (p. 200). In
essence, Minami stated that "by challenging the convictions, the peti-
tioners were actually attacking the underlying legality of the exclusion
and imprisonment" (p. 200). Two of the three cases reached a successful
outcome by 1988 (Yasui's case was rendered moot because of his death in
1986). The legal victory stimulated further enthusiasm to seek redress.
Aredress bill requesting monetary compensation was first intro-
duced to the House of Representatives in 1983, but 4 years went by before
its passage "(Nakano, 1990). Tremendous lobbying and political efforts
took place, led by key Japanese American politicians and organizers
(Naito & Scott, 1990). Finally, in the fall of 1987, HR442 was passed in the
House of Representatives by a vote of 231 to 141, and in April of the
following year the Senate voted to support the bill 69 to 27. A final
version of the bill was approved by the Congress by the beginning of
August 1988 (Naito & Scott, 1990). On August 10,1988, President Reagan
signed the Civil Liberties Act, which provided legal restitution payment
for surviving internees and acknowledged the wrongdoing of the intern-
ment. For the Japanese American community, the official apology and
authorization of redress payments symbolized, at last, an official recog-
nition of the injustices suffered. It also was a tribute to the courage and
resilience of those who had been interned.

Perceptions of Sansei Respondents

When the Sansei Research Project survey data were collected in

1986, the CWRIC hearings had been completed and the bill seeking
monetary redress payments for former internees was being prepared for
introduction to the House of Representatives and the Senate. Partici-
pants in the Project, although aware that an effort to address the past
injustice was underway, did not yet know what the outcome of that effort
would be. What were their viewpoints concerning the movement to seek
monetary redress?
194 Chapterll

Four questions within the survey asked Sansei to rate their attitudes
toward redress and their degree of involvement in the redress movement.
All respondents were asked to indicate whether they favored, opposed,
or were undecided about seeking monetary compensation. Chi-square
analyses (see Table 11.1) revealed that although a smaller percentage of
No-Camp Sansei supported redress than either the Two- or One-Parent
Sansei, this difference was not significant. Close to 80% of the sampie
favored the movement. The omission of respondents from Hawaii did
not change these results. When Two-Parent, Father-Only, and Mother-
Only groups were compared, differences were again nonsignificant, and
similar percentages for those favoring, opposing, and remaining unde-
cided occurred. It appeared, then, that the majority of Sansei favored
seeking monetary redress, and whether one's parents were in camp did
not significantly affect Sansei support of this issue. These findings are
strikingly similar to data reported by Fugita and O'Brien (1991), who
found that 78% of their Sansei sampie agreed with the re dress effort.
There were no significant regional differences in terms of the San-
sei's opinions about redress for the entire sampie of respondents (see
Table 11.2). When only those who had a parent interned were assessed
for regional differences, results were again statistically nonsignificant,
although East Coast Sansei whose parents had been in camp had a
particularly high percentage who supported the idea of redress (90%)
and a particularly low number who opposed it (5%). By contrast, the
Northwest Sansei showed the lowest level of support (73%).
Aseparate question asked respondents to rate the degree to which
they agreed that "the O.S. government should pay monetary campensa-
tion to those ]apanese Americans who were in camps" on ascale ranging
from 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree. When Two-Parent
(M = 6.17), One-Parent (M = 6.00), and No-Camp (M = 5.76) Sansei were
compared, Two- and One-Parent Sansei were found to endorse the

Table 11.1. Opinions about Redress by Group

Percentage of Respondents Who:

Group N Favored Redress Opposed Redress Were Undecided

Two-Parent 323 80 9 12
One-Parent 168 79 8 13
Father-Only 90 78 8 14
Mother-Only 77 81 9 10
No-Camp 105 74 11 15
Redressing Injustice 195

Table 11.2. Opinions about Redress by Geographical Region

Percentage of Respondents Who:
Region N Favored Redress Opposed Redress Were Undecided

California 263 80 10 10
Northwest 102 76 7 17
Midwest 106 79 8 13
East Coast 77 84 8 8

importance of redress payments more strongly than did the No-Camp

sansei (F (2,591) = 3.29, P < .05). This difference remained significant
when Sansei from Hawaii were omitted. Comparisons among Two-
Parent, Father-Only, and Mother-Only Sansei were not significant.
Hence, although Sansei tended to favor redress regardless of whether
they had a parent who was interned, those who did have a parent in the
camps feIt more strongly about the issue. There were no significant
differences on this question among geographical regions for either the
entire sampie or those Sansei whose parents were interned.
Twenty-two of 36 interviewe es who had a parent interned sup-
ported the idea of monetary compensation as did five of the six inter-
viewees with neither parent interned. The majority of Sansei thought
that re dress was important as a way of publicly and officially recogniz-
ing the level of injustice that occurred. The monetary payment repre-
sented a symbol of that recognition. As one interviewee stated:
I think it (monetary payment) is an important part.... Everybody knows
you're not supposed to do something that's wrang. Hut if you think you're
going to be punished, then you're less likely to do it. Hopefully, people will
remember if there's some sort of financial punishment.

Another interviewee held similar views, recognizing the limitations of

monetary payments in addressing the issues of past suffering and hardship.
With the kind of legal system we have, when a party is injured there is usually
some kind of compensation .... In that context it's completely appropriate
that people are compensated. People will never be repaid for what they
lost. . . . [Tlhat's impossible, because we're talking about people's lives,
family members that have died, education that was lost, material pos sessions
that went. All these things will never be compensated. But I think it has to be
substantial enough where it means something. Even twenty-five thousand
dollars a person is a token.

Most Sansei who endorsed the idea of monetary redress noted that
although the money would never compensate for the injustice of the
196 Chapter11

internment, "money talks" in this country, and a formal apology without

payment would be a hollow gesture. All expressed concern for redress-
ing former internees as a group. However, one interviewee cited more
personal reasons for his support as weIl:
I just want their last few years to be good ones and not suffer the trials and
tribulations as they do now. I don't want them to die knowing nothing was
ever done to compensate all these people including themselves. To lift that
burden would heal my heart .... Although some of the pain in my parents'
hearts will always be there. But, yet they could go to sleep at night, knowing
someone finally cares!

As noted in the preceding quote, Sansei also considered redress as a

way of preventing future injustices. In fact, eight interviewees stressed
that the establishment of funds for educating the public about the
internment was more critical than the individual monetary payments.
One interviewee described this perspective as follows:
What is more important in my mind, and this is something much more long
term, is that people in general are educated about what happened-that they
don't get mixed up with ]apanese and ]apanese Americans. That they don't
confuse or allow something like that to happen because of wartime hysteria
or the situation at hand .... [T]he whole education process is areal impor-
tant part to me. I know you can throw money at it, and you'll only get so
far.... We're talking about something that's going to take twenty or thirty or
forty years.

One reason for the Sansei's support for redress has been their own
sense of commitment to combat racism and oppression not only against
Japanese Americans but against any disempowered group in society.
Takezawa (1991) found that more Sansei than Nisei saw this as an
important aspect of redress. Nine of the Project interviewees reported
that their political consciousness was directly affected by having a
parent in camp. Stated one interviewee, "It (the internment) contributes
to this sense ... that it could happen again if we aren't active or
conscious or aware to call attention to this nation's racism." Several
respondents and interviewees thought it was especially the responsibil-
ity of Japanese Americans and the Sansei to prevent future internments
and discriminatory acts from reoccurring. "In a lot of ways," commented
one interviewee, "we have a responsibility to try to protect (others'
rights), given that it happened to us." Another respondent expanded on
this, stating:
We become stronger by viewing our stand for reparation and redress as only a
part of a larger struggle against injustice and racism. Making ties with other
groups who are working against racist immigration laws, racism in school,
ethnocentric curriculum, segregated neighborhoods, laws which are homo-
Redressing Injustice 197

phobie, racist or sexist, and racial violence is actively resisting Japanese

American concentration camps. Working against legislation of English as the
officiallanguage, supporting the Big Mountain (Navajo) resistance of reloca-
tion from traditionallands, supparting the UFW against inhumane condi-
tions and the spraying of pesticides on farm workers are also part of the
resistance against relocation camps. Japanese Americans have a special
understanding of the American struggle far justice and due process because
of our experience in the concentration camps. Our legacy becomes to strug-
gle in this particular sphere of racial justice to help prevent it happening
again on the scale it did and to respond to similar events now.

Not all Sansei, however, favored redress. Fourteen interviewees who

had a parent interned expressed uncertainty about the wisdom of re-
dress because of the potential for a backlash against Japanese Americans.
This may cause a lot of hostility toward Japanese Americans by other racial
groups, whether ar not we deserve to receive such payment. 1s this the best
way to remember this wrongdoing by the government and will it prevent its
reoccurrence in the future?

Another individual stated, "I fear that most Americans would view
redress as a self-serving, greedy act on the part of Japanese Americans."
Two interviewees also thought that the timing of the redress movement
was inappropriate: "Part of the problem is that so much time has passed
and as the years go by . . . it's kind of hard to see what might be
accomplished through redress." Still another interviewee expressed
concerns that passage of the redress legislation would lead Japanese
Americans to believe that the issue of internment was resolved when in
fact they had yet to confront their own personal feelings about what
occurred.
I guess what I'm mare concerned about now is more the whole question of
healing our collective levels as weIl as personal levels. I'm concerned and
worried that if people get money, then there'll be public denial. You know,
you get your money and "goodbye" and there'll be a sense that OK, now
it's done.

Survey respondents were asked to rate, on ascale from 1 to 7 (where

1 = very Httle and 7 = a great deal) the degree of knowledge they felt they
had about the redress movement and the degree to which they were
active in the movement (where 1 = not at all and 7 = a great deal).
Significant differences were found among Two-Parent, One-Parent, and
No-Camp Sansei for both redress knowledge (F (2,590) = 4.42, P = .01)
and redress activity (F (2,590) = 3.51, P < .05). Removal of Hawaiian
respondents did not alter these findings. Table 11.3 indicates that the
Two-Parent and One-Parent Sansei did not differ significantly from one
another with respect to redress knowledge. However, the No-Camp
198 Chapterll

Table 11.3. Level of Knowledge

about the Redress Movement by Group
Level of Knowledge
Group N M s.d.
Two-Parent 323 4.61 1.54
One-Parent 168 4.38 1.63
Father-Only 91 4.28 1.57
Mother-Only 77 4.51 1.69
No-Camp 105 4.04 1.74

group reported having significantly less knowledge about the redress

movement than did the Two-Parent group (t (159.94) = 3.02, P < .005).
The No-Camp Sansei knowledge about redress was also lower than that
of the One-Parent group, although this difference did not reach statistical
significance.
As shown in Table 11.4, No-Camp Sansei also reported being the
least active in the redress movement and their scores for activity were
lower than those found for Two-Parent (t (196.00) = 2.92, p < .005) and
One-Parent groups (t (232.96) = 1.71, P < .10). Comparisons among Two-
Parent, Father-Only, and Mother-Only groups did not reveal significant
differences in redress activity. It is interesting to note that while the No-
Camp Sansei reported the lowest activity level in the redress movement,
Two-Parent and One-Parent also reported fairly low participation. Ap-
proximately 43% of the Sansei with a previously interned parent and
55% of the No-Camp Sansei rated their level of activity as a "1,"
indicating they were not at all active.
There were no significant gen der differences in relation to whether

Table 11.4. Level of Activity

in the Redress Movement by Group
Level of Activity
Group N M s.d.

Two-Parent 323 2.80 1.94

One-Parent 168 2.59 1.86
Father-Only 91 2.43 1.78
Mother-Only 77 2.78 1.94
No-Camp 105 2.21 1.73
Redressing Injustice 199

a respondent supported redress, their strength of support for monetary

compensation, or their level of activity in the movement. Significant
gender differences occurred only in relation to ratings of knowledge
about the movement, with males (M = 4.65) reporting greater knowledge
than females (M = 4.23), (F (1,590) = 8.11, P = .005). Those who
outmarried did not differ significantly from those who married Japanese
Americans in the strength of their support for or in their level of redress
activity. A marginally significant difference was found with respect to
outmarriage and redress knowledge (F (1,207) = 2.79, P < .10), with
outmarried Sansei (M = 4.46) reporting less knowledge than those who
did not outmarry (M = 4.84).
Age was not correlated with the degree to which a respondent
agreed with the idea of monetary redress. It was also uncorrelated with
redress knowledge and activity ratings for the No-Camp Sansei. In
addition, only small significant correlations between Sansei age and
redress knowledge (r = .15, P = .001) and redress activity (r = .20,
P = .001) occurred with the group of Sansei who had a parent in camp.
Older Sansei in this group tended to have greater knowledge and higher
activity levels. Level of education also showed a very small positive
correlation with redress knowledge (r = .12, P < .01) and activity (r = .14,
P < .01). Similarly, higher incomes were positively correlated with
greater knowledge (r = .13, P < .01) and activity (r = .09, P = .05). Once
again, however, all correlations were low.
No significant differences in redress knowledge occurred among
Sansei from different regional groups (see Table 11.5). However, signifi-
cant regional differences did occur with regard to redress activity far the
entire sampie (F (3,539) = 16.51, P < .005). These differences remained
after covarying out the effects of education. As shown in Table 11.6, East
Coast Sansei reported the highest level of activity, followed by the

Table 11.5. Level of Knowledge

about Redress Movement
by Geographical Region
Level of Knowledge
Region M s.d.

California 4.48 1.60

Northwest 4.30 1.49
Midwest 4.58 1.51
East Co ast 4.82 1.84
200 Chapterll

Table 11.6. Level of Activity

in the Redress Movement
by Geographical Region
Level of Activity
Region M s.d.
California 2.67 1.94
Northwest 2.29 1.61
Midwest 3.03 1.97
East Co ast 3.17 2.01

Midwest, California, and Northwest Sansei. The difference between the

East Coast and Northwest activity ratings was significant (t (142.63) =
-3.13, P < .005), as was the difference between the Midwest and
Northwest groups (t (200.84) = -2.94, p < .005). Differences between
the California and Northwest groups (t (219.78) = 1.88, P < .10) and the
California and East Coast groups (t (120.74) = -1.93, p < .10) were
marginally significant.
Significant regional differences also occurred when analyzing only
those Sansei who had a parent interned (F (3,462) = 4.18, P < .01). Once
again, East Coast Sansei reported being most active (M = 3.41). Next
came the Midwest (M = 3.05) and California Sansei (M = 2.67), while
Northwest Sansei were the lowest (M = 2.41). The East Coast activity
ratings were significantly higher that those from the Northwest (t
(110.94) = -2.93, P < .005) and California Sansei (t (92.51) = -2.24,
p < .05). The Northwest Sansei were also significantly higher than the
Midwest Sansei (t (185.58) = -2.36, P < .05). The increased activity
level in the East Coast and Midwest Sansei may be related to previous
research that found a reduced level of political activity among Sansei
who had more ]apanese American friends (Fugita & O'Brien, 1991). Both
the East Coast and Midwest Sansei were least likely to socialize with
]apanese Americans, and showed a greater level of political activity
when compared with Sansei who socialized more within their group.
Correlations were also conducted to determine whether attitudes
toward redress were associated with Sansei ratings of the degree of
suffering and coping among ]apanese Americans and their parents
resulting from the internment. (See Chapter 9 for a fuller discussion of
these items.) Strength of support for seeking monetary compensation
was significantly correlated with Sansei ratings of suffering by ]apanese
Americans in general (r = .27, P < .001) and parental suffering (r = .13,
Redressing Injustice 201

p < .005). These correlations remained significant when the effects of

Sansei age were partialed out. Not surprisingly, those who perceived the
most suffering expressed the strangest support for redress. Ratings of
coping among Japanese Americans or parents were not significantly
related to support for redress.
Knowledge of the redress movement was also positively correlated
with ratings of Japanese American suffering (r = .15, P = .001) and
parental suffering (r = .13, P < .005). Sansei who saw their parents and
Japanese Americans as suffering more also reported having greater
knowledge about redress. Once again, when the effects of Sansei age
were partialed out, correlations with Japanese American suffering
(r = .14, P = .001) and parental suffering (r = .12, P = .005) remained
significant.
Activity in the redress movement was also positively correlated
with ratings of Japanese American suffering (r = .19, P < .001) and
negatively correlated with perceived levels of Japanese American coping
(r = - .11, P = .01). When the effects for Sansei age were partialed out, the
correlations remained significant between redress activity and Japanese
American suffering (r = .18, P < .001) as weH as Japanese American
coping (r = - .13, P < .005).
The age of both a mother (r = .15, P = .001) and a father (r = .14,
p< .005) at the time of internment was positively correlated with redress
knowledge. The older a parent was while interned, the more knowledge
a Sansei reported having. However, when Sansei age was partialed out,
the correlation with father's age in camp was no longer significant,
whereas the correlation with mother's age remained significant (r = .08,
P = .05). Length of a parent's internment did not significantly correlate
with redress attitudes, knowledge, or activity.
The data showed that the Sansei groups did not differ significantly
from one another in terms of whether they favored monetary compensa-
tion. Interestingly, when these respondents were asked to indicate what
they thought their parents' views were on this matter, differences did
emerge. A much smaHer percentage of No-Camp Sansei reported that
their fathers and mothers favored monetary redress. While 80% of the
Two-Parent Sansei reported that their fathers and mothers supported
redress payments, only 60% of No-Camp Sansei indicated parental
support. In addition, while appraximately 30% of No-Camp Sansei
indicated that their parents were undecided about their views, only
about 10% of the Two-Parent group felt unsure.
Despite the fact that Sansei interviewees expressed both strang
personal and political reasons to support redress, over a third were
pessimistic that the redress bill would pass. Most cited the country's
202 Chapterll

current budget deficit and conservative political climate as primary

reasons for their opinions.
The issue of redress has sparked increased communication with
Japanese American communities around the topic of the internment. A
sampie of Nisei and Sansei interviewe es from Seattle, Washington,
agreed that the re dress movement and its related events provided in-
creased opportunities to discuss the internment (Takezawa, 1989b). To
what degree, however, have families discussed their views on re dress
specifically? To assess this, respondents were asked to indicate whether
they had discussed the issue of redress with both parents, only with
their father, only with their mother, or with neither parent.
Table 11.7 shows that a higher percentage of Two-Parent and One-
Parent Sansei discussed redress with both parents than the No-Camp
Sansei. If one looks more closely at the percentage of Sansei with a
previously interned parent who discussed redress with at least one
parent and compares that percentage with those in the No-Camp group,
the differences are even more impressive. While only 51% of the No-
Camp Sansei discussed redress with a parent, approximately 84% of
those in the combined Two-Parent and One-Parent camp groups had
done so. Those in the Two-Parent and No-Camp groups who had dis-
cussed redress with only one parent were most likely to have spoken to
their mothers. This finding paralleis the results from Chapter 5 that
showed that Sansei were also more likely to discuss the internment with
mothers as opposed to fathers.
The results indicate that discussion about redress has occurred
more in families where a parent was interned than in families where
neither parent was in camp. In addition, with the exception of the
Father-Only group, mothers were the most likely to have discussed the
issue of redress with their children. A small percentage of Sansei whose
parents were interned (11% in the Two-Parent group and 16% in the One-

Table 11.7. Percentage of Respondents

Who Discussed Redress with Parents
Percentage Who Discussed with:
Group N Neither Father-Only Mother-Only Both
1\vo-Parent 323 11 9 15 65
One-Parent 168 16 13 20 51
Father-Only 90 16 22 7 55
Mother-Only 77 14 3 36 47
No-Camp 105 46 9 12 33
Redressing Injustice 203

Parent group) had not discussed redress with either parent. For some,
the Sansei claimed the topic was not of central importance. For others,
the Sansei continued to feel it an imposition on their parents to bring
up any internment-related topics.

Summary

The redress results indicate that the Sansei, and particularly those
who had a parent in camp, clearly see redress as important. Supporting
redress was linked to their personal sense of responsibility to correct the
past injustice and to prevent future injustices to others. A similar feeling
of responsibility has been observed in the children of Nazi perpetrators
(Posner, 1991) and the children of Armenian Holocaust survivors (Miller
& Miller, 1991).
The different reactions between the Sansei and Nisei generations to
the internment illustrate that "people in different historical eras have
learned to formulate their thought and understanding in different inter-
pretational contexts" (Sampson, 1981, p. 110). The Sansei did not directly
experience the trauma of exclusion. They have grown up in a more
"inclusive" and ''Anglo-Americanized'' environment that encourages
the expression of individual opinions and attitudes. As a result, they
have been freer to articulate their reactions. Literature also suggests that
the more privileged members of a subordinate group often feel injustices
more acutely because they see themselves as more similar to the domi-
nant group (Berkowitz, 1972, as cited in Hogg & Abams, 1988). Greater
structural assimilation and reduced levels of discrimination have led to
more similarities between the Sansei and mainstream society and ac-
corded them more privileges. In addition, sensitivity to injustice also
increases when social support for its acknowledgment is provided
(Deutsch, 1986), and the Sansei have lived in an era where there has been
increased public concern over ethnic minority injustices in general and
about ]apanese American victimization in particular.
Recently, documents from the government's own files revealed that
crucial evidence was deliberately withheld from the Supreme Court and
false evidence was submitted during the trials of the three ]apanese
Americans who contested the internment orders (Irons, 1989). The more
an injustice is attributed to the opposite party and seen as intentional,
the more likely the injustice will be accompanied by negative emotion
and anger (Lamm, 1986). It is likely that the Sansei's feelings of anger and
support for redress increased as they learned more about these circum-
stances.
204 Chapterll

The present study also shows that those Sansei who had a parent
interned continue to feel a greater sense of insecurity about their rights.
Apparently, they retain a skepticism about the government, and it is
perhaps the blend of both an increased sense of inclusion in the wider
society and a persisting awareness of vulnerability that has placed the
Sansei in a unique position to assist in redressing the injustice.
From a developmental perspective, the redress movement also
reflects the convergence of life stages for the Issei, Nisei, and Sansei
generations. The death of most of the interned Issei and the increasing
numbers of dying Nisei created a real sense of urgency for the movement.
Both the Nisei and Sansei hoped that a successful redress campaign
would be realized within their parents' lifetimes. The Nisei, many in
their retirement years, were in a position to direct their energies to the
redress issue, and many Sansei, now adults themselves, were in posi-
tions to express their concerns as well.
Some might see the Sansei's support for redress as self-motivated.
Those whose parents were interned stand to inherit their parents' share
of the redress money. Comments of the Sansei, themselves, however,
do not support this. All those interviewed noted that the importance of
redress was symbolic, not financial; indeed, no amount of money could
truly compensate for what had happened.
The redress movement affected the Sansei and the larger Japanese
American community in many positive ways (Takezawa, 1989a, 1991). It
reinforced the Sansei's sense of ethnic identity and increased their
awareness of discrimination. It also strengthened intergenerational ties
in the family and community. Interviews with Sansei as well as Nisei
suggest that the real sense of victory has come not from the allocation of
redress monies but from the public recognition that the internment was
unjust. Participating in the judicial process itself, testifying before the
CWRIC hearings, and lobbying in Washington and around the country
were also beneficial for Japanese Americans. Satisfaction in the judicial
process is much greater when individuals have an opportunity to partic-
ipate in the proceedings (Lind & Tyler, 1988), and this has been the case
for many Japanese Americans. As one respondent commented:
I think redress, because the whole campaign works against the way Japanese
Americans have suppressed the camp experience, is incredibly therapeutic.
The movement isn't just cathartic; it has given a sense of contral to Japanese
Americans and a better framework to make sense of our history.

The redress effort was therapeutic in other ways as weIl. Libow and
Doty (1979) found that compensation or redress for rape victims may
diminish the victim's need for self-derogation. The self-blame and
Redressing Injustice 205

shame of internment has been likened to the feelings of rape victims,

and redress may serve a similar function for former internees. In addi-
tion, the testimonies of former internees were in themselves therapeutic
for other Japanese Americans. Testimony has been defined as "a ritual
of healing as well as a condemnation of justice whereby private pain is
transformed into political and spiritual dignity" (Agger & Jensen, 1990,
p. 116). Clinicians working with victims of trauma have used private
testimony as a tool to reframe the feelings of shame and self-blame, and
as a process of catharsis that can produce symptom relief (Agger &
Jensen, 1990; Cienfuegos & Monelli, 1983). In addition, disclosure of
traumatic events, even for abrief time-limited period, can produce
physical health benefits (Pennebaker et al., 1989). Witnessing the testi-
mony of others who have shared similar traumas may also be beneficial
by providing victims with confirmation of their own experiences through
another's revelations (Agger & Jensen, 1990).
Has justice been achieved now that the redress bill was passed? The
ans wer to this question is not a simple one. The benefits of the redress
movement and its outcome cannot be underestimated. However, many
Japanese Americans are quick to point out that, as noted in President
Bush's letter at the beginning of this chapter, no amount of money can
reverse the damages created during the internment. In that respect,
redress was never meant to achieve or reinstate justice per se. Some
Japanese Americans continue to feel that full justice will not be achieved
until the Supreme Court overrules its original wartime decision, which
it has not done.
It is sobering that a variety of groups, including some veterans'
groups, were vocal in opposing re dress and continue to confuse the
Japanese with Japanese Americans. They argue, "Why should we pay for
what happened to the Japanese Americans if we never have been paid by
Japan for what happened to the POWs?" and "Why should we pay the
Japanese Americans when Japan started the war?" Such comments
suggest that even though action has been taken at the legislative level to
redress the internment, efforts to prevent the racism that underlay that
injustice will take more extensive efforts.
 CHAPTER 12

Overview and Implications

of Findings

Overview

What do the data from the Sansei Research Project tell us about the cross-
generational impact of the internment? Abrief overview of the findings
from previous chapters suggests that internment effects did not emerge
in all areas of the Sansei's lives. For example, survey respondents,
regardless of whether they had a parent in camp, demonstrated approx-
imately equallevels of outmarriage, interest in the internment, comfort
in discussing the internment with parents and others, membership in
Japanese American groups, and anticipated reactions to a future intern-
ment. In addition, the level of factual knowledge about the internment
held by Sansei whose parents were interned was not drastically different
from that of the No-Camp Sansei, and both groups supported the idea of
monetary redress for surviving internees.
Yet Project data also suggested the existence of important differ-
ences among the groups studied. Sansei who had a parent interned
demonstrated a greater preference for Japanese Americans over Cauca-
sian Americans, feIt significantly less confidence in their rights, and
showed stronger support for and activity in the redress movement than
Sansei whose parents were not interned.
Relatively few Sansei characteristics significantly affected the pat-
tern of results. Geographical differences (particularly between the East
Coast and California Sansei) and significant age correlations occurred
on several measures, but gender, religion, educationallevel, personal
income, birth order, and outmarriage had minimal effects. Similarly,
while it was hypothesized that the age of parents at the time of their
incarceration and their length of internment would influence Sansei

207
208 Chapter 12

responses, these relationships were largely nonsignificant. (See Appen-

dix C for a more detailed summary of findings regarding Sansei and
parent characteristics.)
The gen der of the interned parent, however, was associated with
several significant findings. Respondents indicated that Nisei fathers
were less communicative than Nisei mothers. In addition, a greater
percentage of Nisei fathers who were interned died before the age of 60
than fathers who were not in camp, and Sansei who had only a father
interned reported the lowest levels of confidence in their rights and were
least likely to see positive impacts stemming from their father's intern-
ment experience.
Respondents who had two interned parents did not necessarily
experience more intense cross-generational effects than Sansei who had
only one parent in camp. While Two-Parent Sansei learned about the
camps at an earlier age, spoke more frequently with their parents about
the internment, and expressed a greater preference for ]apanese Ameri-
cans than did the One-Parent Sansei, these two groups did not differ
significantly from one another on other measures of impact. Intuitively,
one might expect Two-Parent Sansei to have been exposed to "double"
the transgenerational traumatic effects experienced by both parents.
However, having two interned parents may have provided more oppor-
tunities for clarification about the internment, thereby counteracting
some of the expected impacts. It is also possible that parents who were
both former internees benefitted from marrying someone who shared
the camp experience. This in turn might have ameliorated the severity of
effects in the Two-Parent group families.
Both interview and survey results document the high degree of
silence and noncommunication that surrounded the internment within
most ]apanese American families. Although those who had a parent in
camp had more frequent and longer conversations about the internment
with their parents, communication still was quite minimal and limited
to cryptic or matter-of-fact accounts of a parent's experience. In addition,
some 40% of the surveyed Sansei whose parents were in camp indicated
that their primary source of information did not come directly from their
parents but rather through overhearing conversations, reading books, or
watching films about the internment.
Trauma may directly or indirectly affect the children of trauma
victims. The multiple pathways of its effects create a variety of conse-
quences (Carroll, Foy, Cannon, & Zwier, 1991). Despite the silence, or
perhaps because of it, the Sansei who had a parent interned feIt the
effects of that experience in numerous ways. They are sad and angry
about the injustice and attribute a number of negative consequences in
Overview and Implications 209

their own lives to their parents' internment. These include feelings of

low self-esteem, the pressure to assimilate, an accelerated loss of the
Japanese culture and language, and experiencing the unexpressed pain
of their parents. Haunting questions about how life might have been
different if their mother or father had been spared the camps also exist.
Contrary to those studies on the Holocaust that found increased
psychopathology in clinic populations of children of survivors, there
was little evidence to suggest that the Sansei whose parents were
interned experienced severe psychopathological effects. However, the
Sansei Research Project was not a clinical study and therefore probably
excluded the most seriously affected individuals. The current investiga-
tion also did not directly ask respondents or interviewees about psycho-
logical problems or use of mental health services. Although severe levels
of pathology appear to be rare, several respondents and one interviewee
did feel that their parents' internment influenced their need to seek
psychotherapy.
Positive internment effects emerged as well. Some Sansei recog-
nized that if the internment had not occurred their parents would never
have met and they would not have been born. Many also admired their
Nisei parents for their ability to succeed in life despite the injustices and
setbacks suffered during the war. These parents have served as role
models of perseverance and stoic courage. In addition, the Sansei
recognize that they now share in the responsibility to educate others
about the internment and must themselves be vigilant not only of their
own rights as Japanese Americans but also of the rights of all minority
groups whose rights are violated. Their support for the redress move-
ment exemplifies the continued effects of this awareness.
Although the Sansei experienced a diverse range of effects attrib-
uted to the internment, there have also been key patterns of experience
that characterize most Sansei. These include the silence and hesitancy
in communications about the camps, the minimization of their Japanese
heritage, and a concern about injustice. Such patterns may reflect the
homogenizing effects of the internment on the larger Japanese American
community. Recall that over 90% of all mainland Japanese Americans
were interned. This means that almost the entire Japanese American
mainland community at that time was subjected to the depersonalized
conditions of the camps and the WRA's press to ''Americanize.'' The
intensity of the camp trauma clearly shaped the lives of Nisei parents.
Ima (1982) has suggested that "in spite of the successes of the Nisei in the
postwar years, they tend to identify with the prewar and war years. They
remember the hard times and struggles, especially the camp experi-
ences .... Thus camp years are a feature of being aNisei" (p. 266). One
210 Chapter 12

might argue with Ima's aSS8ssment that the Nisei focus primarily on the
camp years. Nonetheless, it is true that most Nisei share the experience
of the internment as weH as the experience of having lived in a relatively
segregated ethnic community before the war (Breton, 1964, as cited in
Fugita & O'Brien, 1991). This homogeneity in parental experiences may
then have been transferred to a common set of Sansei experiences.
This book represents the first systematic attempt to assess the cross-
generational impact of the internment. As such, it furthers our under-
standing of the long-term effects of trauma and injustice. However, the
presented results must be placed in context. As noted earlier, it is
impossible to conduct a true experimental investigation on the effects of
the camps because (1) there can be no true "control" group, and (2) it
would be difficult to obtain a random sampie of Sansei. The majority of
respondents for the Sansei Research Project were contacted through the
Japanese American Citizens League (JACL). This means that the current
data contain a disproportionate number of Sansei who retained some
contact with an ethnic organization. While the JACL, as noted in Chapter
4, represented the single best organization for recruiting Sansei, most
Sansei do not belong to the JACL. Therefore, caution must be used when
generalizing from the present findings.
Another form of sampie bias sterns from using the mail-back survey
technique. Obviously, only data from those who returned the survey
could be analyzed. Because it is likely that only the most motivated
Sansei returned their ratings, the present research may be biased in the
direction of including those individuals who had the greatest interest in
the internment by omitting those who feit no interest or need to return
their surveys.
Interestingly, some of the study's methodologicallimitations can be
traced to aspects of the internment itself (Nagata, 1990c). For example,
reliance on JACL members was necessary in the absence of another
method of reaching the Sansei population, which is now widespread.
The geographical dispersal of Sansei resulted in part from the resettle-
ment policies imposed on Japanese Americans after the war. That geo-
graphical differences arose among Sansei from the various regions of the
country in the present study suggests that these resettlement patterns
may have affected not only the dispersal of Sansei but also their atti-
tudes, perceptions, and behaviors. The overrepresentation of Hawaiian
Sansei in the No-Camp group is also directly related to the internment,
since, as noted in Chapter 4, less than 1% of Japanese Americans in
Hawaii were interned, while over 90% of mainland Japanese Americans
were put into camps.
An additional complicating factor in interpreting results from the
Overview and Implications 211

Project is that although the No-Camp Sansei did not have a parent who
was interned, they may have been affected through contacts with aunts,
uncles, or grandparents who were incarcerated. That is, No-Camp Sansei
could have been influenced through a relative's (rather than through a
parent's) camp experience. (The No-Camp sampie included 25 Sansei
who had at least one relative who was interned even though neither their
mother nor father was in camp.)
A similar problem arises when attempting to draw conclusions
about the Sansei who did have a parent in camp. In most cases, if a
Sansei's parent was interned, so too were his or her grandparents, aunts,
and uncles. Therefore, the cross-generational impacts experienced by
the Sansei do not follow linearly from the Nisei only. Rather, the Sansei's
exposure to the internment has also come from contacts with grand-
parents and other extended family. Grandparents can play an important
role in communicating information about past traumas to the third
generation even when parents are reluctant to do so (Miller & Miller,
1991), and there were Sansei interviewees who were influenced by their
grandparents' internment memories.
One should also note that the present investigation provides only
one approach to studying the cross-generational effects of the intern-
ment. Without the inclusion of the Nisei and Issei, we cannot fully
und erstand the intergenerational processes triggered by this event. It
would especially useful to examine multiple generations (e.g., Issei,
Nisei, Sansei, and Yonsei) of single families to conduct a more fine-
grained analysis of communicational and interactional patterns.
Finally, it would be incorrect to assurne that the internment did not
touch the lives of Sansei families who had no relatives interned. All
Japanese Americans were made painfully aware of the precariousness of
their rights during those years, and even individuals who moved away
from the exclusion areas to avoid the internment suffered numerous
hardships in doing so.

Implications for Understanding Traumatic

Stress and Injustice

Ti'aumatic Stress, Culture, and Ethnicity

The present cross-generational study of the internment demon-

strates the importance of investigating both the poststress factors in the
lives of trauma survivors and the factors in the lives of their offspring
that may mediate the long-term impact of traumatic stress. At the same
212 Chapter12

time, cultural factors must be considered in assessing the effects of the

internment. The role of ethnicity in mediating reactions to traumatic
stress has been noted in past literature. Parsan (1985), for example,
indicated that ethnic minorities who have lived a life of "cumulative
trauma" stemming from racism and the "generalized climate of institu-
tional neglect, discrimination, and systemic exclusion" (p. 318) may
have a "stress-primed" life orientation that increases their vulnerability
to the negative effects of traumatic stress. From this perspective, one
might expect the Issei and Nisei to have shown greater negative reactions
to the internment. The Nisei and their Issei parents experienced years of
prewar discrimination and racism, and the internment significantly
added to this. However, it is also possible that this cumulative trauma
may have served to decrease rather than increase their vulnerability to
the internment itself. Internment represented another, albeit drastic,
step along a continuum of racism. Previous research has shown that
perceptions of vulnerability to victimization can playa critical role in
increasing or decreasing one's ability to cape with misfortune. The
victims in one published study who feIt least vulnerable prior to being
victimized expressed the most difficulty in coping with negative life
events. In contrast, those who feIt most vulnerable had the least diffi-
culty coping with their victimization (Perloff, 1983). The Nisei's already
established sense of vulnerability may have similarly increased their
resilience to the trauma of internment and combined with ]apanese
cultural strengths to enhance coping abilities.
The fact that most Sansei perceived their parents as having coped
successfully with their trauma suggests that despite the range of negative
internment effects, ]apanese Americans have developed impressive pos-
itive responses as weIl. The persistence of the ]apanese American com-
munity has been attributed to the flexibility of social relationships
within the traditianal ]apanese culture (Fugita & O'Brien, 1991). In
addition, flexible coping strategies are associated with better adaptation
to stress (Tennen & Affleck, 1990). Therefore, ]apanese cultural values
may partially account for the Nisei's adoption of successful coping
strategies.
Precisely how cultural factars affected the internment's effects is
unclear. The Sansei themselves wondered if and how cultural values
influenced their parents' responses to the camps. Did the silence signify
a negative coping reaction of denial and repression or a positive coping
response shaped by ]apanese cultural values and norms that emphasize
the internalization of emotions? The implications for this distinction are
especially intriguing in light of the preliminary findings regarding the
relatively high numbers of interned Nisei fathers who died before the age
of 60. Nondisclosure of trauma has been seen as a potential cause of ill
Overview and Implications 213

health (see Chapter 8), although it is not clear whether this relationship
is mediated by cultural values. For example, if the ]apanese culture
values "gaman" and actually encourages internalizing emotions, per-
haps individuals from that culture do not experience negative health
effects from nondisclosure. The current data suggest this was not the
case following the internment. However, because the Nisei are second-
generation Japanese Americans, it is possible that the adaptive function
of such a coping style was diminished by the stress of balancing both
]apanese and Caucasian American values and acculturation. Further
research comparing the physical impact of nondisclosure between ]apa-
nese Americans and ]apanese would be useful in exploring this issue.
The distinction between definitions of adaptive versus maladaptive
cultural responses to trauma is further complicated by the fact that
experiences of racism and discrimination also influenced parents' be-
haviors. Many characterizations of ]apanese Americans are explained by
two opposing views, "either as a result of ]apanese culture or of racial
oppression" (Ima, 1982, p. 291). However, in reality their behaviors,
including their reactions to the internment, are the products of an
interaction between the two sets of factors.
We have also seen that although the internment was a historical
event that took place during a circumscribed period of time, the intern-
ment was also a "psychological event" that has taken, and continues to
take, varying forms of significance for ]apanese Americans. Multigenera-
tional researchers note that generational roles evolve over time. Re-
searchers are increasingly aware of the need to conceptualize victimiza-
tion, coping, and adaptation using a life-span developmental perspective.
Newberger and DeVos (1988), for example, point out that the conse-
quences of victimization or abuse are a function of multiple factors
including the nature of the abuse; individual differences in one's cogni-
tive appraisal of the victimization; the responsiveness of the environ-
ment to the trauma and the survivor; and the lifelong development of the
individual over time. The present data illustrate the changing signifi-
cance of the internment for the Nisei and Sansei as they have moved
through different developmental stages. Through the years the Nisei,
many now grandparents and retired, have moved toward increasing
public expression and personal reflection about their experience. Their
progression illustrates how responses to traumatic events can change
over time (Green & Grace, 1988). Interestingly, although literature sug-
gests that trauma survivors may actually be at greater risk to experience
severe posttraumatic stress symptoms later in life (Lipton & Schaffer,
1988; Lyons & McClendon, 1980, as cited in Lyons, 1991), many Nisei
appear to have transformed their increased sensitivity to the internment
into a positive coping strategy through the redress movement.
214 Chapter12

Cultural influences affect the Sansei as well. While it is impossible

to determine precisely the degree to which Japanese cultural values and
norms are held by the third generation, the present data do not reflect the
cross-generational impact of trauma in isolation. Rather, they reflect the
impact of these effects as they have been filtered through the Sansei's
unique cultural position. Immigration scholar Marcus Lee Hansen noted
that while the second generation of an immigrant group tends to reject
their cultural heritage, the third generation often attempts to recapture
their ethnic past (Hansen, 1938, as cited in Daniels, 1986a). From this
perspective, the Sansei's interest in the internment may reflect a more
general tendency for the third generation to regain ties with their
heritage. Findings from the Sansei Research Project, however, suggest
that the internment represents much more than an interesting part of the
Sansei's ethnic heritage; it is a powerful reminder of their sense of ethnic
identity. Culturally based traumatic events such as the internment or the
Holocaust are especially important, for they "potentially serve as the
axial point for group and generational self-understanding.... [T]hey
define the parameters of communal conversations, thus providing the
components from which collective identity is built" (Miller & Miller,
1991, p. 36).
Just as Nisei reactions to the internment have changed over the
years, so have Sansei reactions. Now adults and parents themselves,
many Sansei have progressed from experiencing anger and frustration
toward their parents' silence to becoming more understanding of this
phenomenon. Similar developmental changes in the interactions be-
tween Holocaust survivors and their children have been observed
(Klein-Parker, 1988). In their role as parents, the Sansei are also increas-
ingly aware of the need to educate their own children about the intern-
ment. As is the case with the children of Holocaust survivors (Prince,
1985), the Sansei wish to pass on information about the internment to
subsequent generations, keeping the event "alive" in the conscience of
future Japanese Americans. Multigenerational issues change over the
life span, and the data presented here can reflect only what the Sansei
have experienced up to this point in time. As their lives and the lives of
their parents and children continue to evolve, there will be additional
information that will amend what is reported here.

Implicaüons for the Study of Injusüce

The interplay between acculturation and response to injustice rep-

resents an important theme in this project. We have seen that the
Overview and Implications 215

responses to the internment were greatly influenced by the social con-

text of each generation. Blatant discrimination and a closer tie to Japa-
nese cultural values influenced the Nisei reactions to the internment. A
different set of factars shaped their children's responses. With increased
inclusion and acculturation into the moral community of the white,
mainstream society, and with the advent of the civil rights movement,
the Sansei have been more vocal about their reactions to the internment
(Nagata, 1990b). Further research examining the influences of accultura-
tion on reactions to victimization is needed to understand the inter-
generational transmission of injustice.
The documented noncommunication surrounding the camps with-
in Japanese American families and the length of time it took Japanese
Americans to seek redress provide a fascinating example of silence in
the face of injustice. Cohen's (1990) discussion of justice, voice, and
silence points to the important rale that silence can play in perceptions
of injustice. As noted in Chapter 11, multiple factars contributed to the
public and private silence of Nisei during the postinternment years.
However, although silence in the public arena may have been interpreted
by same as "an acceptance or endorsement of the injustice suffered"
(Soltan, 1986, as cited in Cohen, 1990), the Sansei clearly did not share
this view. The silence of their parents signified the presence of a pain
that could not be directly expressed. Hence, silence that follows in-
stances of massive and/or severe injustices can actually communicate
the extensiveness of injustice rather than an acceptance of it.
Although the Sansei, who had strang emotional ties with their
mothers and fathers, perceived their parents' silence as communicating
suffering and injustice, non-Japanese Americans who were distanced
from the internment were more likely to interpret the silence as a sign
that either Japanese Americans accepted their fate, were not sufficiently
traumatized by the event to voice a cancern, or had coped weIl enough
with the trauma such that there was no need to voice a cancern about
what had happened. Contextual factars, then, may influence both the
conditions under which silence is most likely to occur and the inter-
pretations of that silence when it is present.
Results from the study also demonstrate that severe injustices pra-
duce radiating effects that extend far heyond the individuals who expe-
rienced the unjust event. The internment serves as a constant reminder
to the Sansei that Japanese Americans suffered a grave wrangdoing. As a
result, many feel re&ponsihle for preventing injustices in their own
warld. Their cancern focuses not only on redressing the injustice of the
internment hut also on larger issues of racism, discrimination, and the
civil rights of all individuals. Same chose specific careers as lawyers or
216 Chapter12

activists to respond to the legacy of injustice on a sodetallevel; others

chose more personal ways by completing the unfulfilled goals of their
parents.
The concern about redress and the potential for a future internment
shows that the need for public acknowledgment of past injustices does
not diminish once the victimized group has made economic and sodal
advances. Although the Sansei in the present study were, by and large,
successful in terms of their educational and personal income levels, they
did not deny the suffering caused by the internment. Their strong
support for the redress effort further confirms the continued importance
of the past injustice a generation after the internment.

A Comprehensive Look at the Sansei

If we wish to paint a more comprehensive picture of the Sansei and

their reactions to the internment, what do we see? The concept of sodal
identity (Hogg & Abrams, 1988; Tajfel & Turner, 1986) noted in earlier
chapters is key in developing this picture and in understanding the third
generation. As the children of American citizens, born and raised in the
United States, the Sansei demonstrate a high degree of structural assimi-
lation into the dominant Caucasian American culture and appear to
show relatively little behavioral evidence of their Japanese heritage. Yet
their identifications with the Caucasian and Japanese American aspects
of their world are much more complex than this. Two levels of sodal
identification processes appear to have affected the Sansei's responses to
the internment. One level is reflected in the intergenerational effects of
the trauma itself. Although the Sansei may retain stronger ties to their
ethnic community than third-generation offspring from other ethnic
groups (Fugita & O'Brien, 1991), the internment has shaped these ties in
important ways. The fact that Sansei who had both parents interned
expressed significantly greater preference for assodating with other
Japanese Americans than Sansei whose parents were not in camp sug-
gests that the internment may have increased their Japanese American
identification. Additional internment effects also accentuated Japanese
cultural values. An emphasis on educational achievement and on not
"rocking the boat" illustrated Japanese values that partidpants feIt
became even more pronounced because of their parents' camp experi-
ences (Nagata, 1991).
At the same time, however, the trauma of internment led to an
increased identification with the dominant Caucasian American cul-
ture. This identification included the postwar emphasis on assimilation,
Overview and Implications 217

on encouragement to become "super-Americans," and on the minimiza-

tion of the Japanese language and cultural practices. The Sansei cannot
look entirely to the dominant Caucasian American society nor to Japan
to define their sense of self. Project interviewees who had visited Japan
saw how much they differed from Japanese nationals. They also, how-
ever, perceived links between themselves and the Japanese. In the case of
one individual, the interface between Japanese culture and the effects of
the internment did not become clear until she experienced these sim-
ilarities firsthand:
The less you stand out the better. I don't know if that's real ... maybe it's just
made stronger by the experience of the camps and wanting to just kind of
blend in and be invisible . . . or just a ]apanese trait. Because when I
remember being in Tokyo one time on a train, there was an American group
acting really obnoxious. They were starting to bother people and everyone's
reaction was [to] put their heads down and pretend nothing was happen-
ing.... Everyone was doing that and I thought, "ah-ha" this is the way we
were raised and everybody does this here!

Social identification processes can also vary at a second level

within the Sansei generation, according to their geographical region of
residence. For example, individuals who grew up on the East Coast,
where there are relatively few Japanese Americans, not only associated
more with Caucasian Americans but reported significantly greater sad-
ness and anger about the internment and greater levels of perceived
internment-related suffering among Japanese Americans. Results also
show that they would be significantly more likely to resist a future
internment than their Californian peers who associated more frequently
with Japanese Americans. Greater identification with the Caucasian
American world, which encourages the expression of emotion and
individualistic assertiveness, may have led the East Coast Sansei to
report stronger reactions to the internment. However, it is important to
note that we cannot know whether the East Coast Sansei actually
experienced a greater sense of injustice or whether their reactions
represent differences in their willingness to report strong emotions.
Although there may be regional differences within the third genera-
tion in terms of the degree to which they identify or associate with the
dominant Caucasian American culture, most Sansei live day to day in a
social environment driven by Western values and standards. In fact, the
majority of Sansei reported feeling more ''American'' than "Japanese."
This overall identification has important implications for understand-
ing the Sansei's vocal reactions to the internment. They identify more
strongly with the Caucasian American culture than with the Nisei, but
this has not led them to, in Crosby's (1982) terms, deny the personal
218 Chapter 12

disadvantage suffered by their parents. The Sansei could have avoided

personally discomforting comparisons by acknowledging the severity of
the internment but seeing their parents as suffering less than most other
internees. However, this clearly was not the case, and respondents saw
their parents as suffering as much as most other Japanese Americans.
It is in part because the Sansei so fully perceive the hardships
caused by the camp experience that they can express their reactions. We
have seen how Cohen's (1990) ideas of silence and voice help to explain
the Nisei's responses during and after internment. His ideas also help in
understanding the Sansei, whose participation in the redress movement
and camp pilgrimages reflects their more outspoken stance. One might
say that the silence of the Nisei helped form the voice of the Sansei. The
absence of outrage and emotion in their parents signified the magnitude
of the injustice and mobilized the third generation to speak out. In turn,
the vocalness of the Sansei supported the Nisei in breaking their silence.
Silence and voice, then, have interacted between the generations.
Sansei participation also helped the successful passage of the re-
dress bill. Procedural justice research suggests that individuals are more
likely to be satisfied with judicial process when they have had the
opportunity to participate in the proceedings (Lind & Tyler, 1988). The
present study indicates the importance of the redress movement within
the Sansei generation. For them, it was not simply the internment
decision that was being investigated by the commission: It was also how
that decision created a legacy of aftereffects within the lives of all
Japanese Americans. The extent to which the Sansei have truly feIt
satisfaction from the redress movement is not yet known. A second
survey has been sent to a subset of Sansei Research Project participants,
asking them to indicate the degree to which the successful passage of the
redress bill has provided emotional relief and/or a greater sense of
confidence in American justice. These findings should help to address
this question and further expand our understanding of the Sansei
generation and their continued reactions to the internment.
 CHAPTER 13

Questions for the Future

In the fall of 1990, the eldest of the surviving internees received the first
redress checks. The full impact of the long-awaited payments is unclear
and many questions remain. Will redress alleviate the Sansei's concerns
about their rights? And what role will the internment have in the
Sansei's lives as they continue thraugh the life span? Most believe that
the internment should never be forgotten, that it should be kept "alive"
for future generations. Yet once the Nisei have died, how will the Sansei
pass on the legacy of the camps to their own children? Will the fourth
generation (Yonsei) also experience crass-generational impacts? How
will the increasingly high rates of outmarriage affect this pracess?
At a more global level, questions remain regarding the causes of
unjust events and the ways in which future injustices can be prevented.
The raots of the internment can be traced to centuries of raeist ideology
(Hirabayashi & Hirabayashi, 1984). Since its beginning, the United States
has implemented a policy of colonizing the Indians, African Americans,
Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, East Indians, Chicanos, Latinos, and more
recent Asian immigrants. American raeial nativism underlay the intern-
ment as weIl as the forced relocation of American Indians during the
19th century and African Americans during the 18th and 19th centuries
(Smith, 1986). In fact, there are many paralleis between the government's
relocation of American Indians and the relocation of Japanese Ameri-
cans (Joe, 1986-1987). The injustices perpetrated against American
Indians have spanned a greater period of time and have differed in
extensiveness and type from those suffered by Japanese Americans.
Nonetheless, comparisons between these two graups would be informa-
tive. For example, how do the responses of American Indians to injustice
compare with those of Japanese Americans? Has silence occurred be-
tween generations of American Indians as weIl, and in what ways have
their cultural values influenced their responses to injustice? Similar

219
220 Chapter13

questions need to be explored in relation to African Americans and

other historically victimized groups in this country.
What can be done to prevent future injustices? The detection of
exclusion, encouragement of pluralism, and support for dissent are
potential deterrents to the process of moral exclusion (Opotow, 1990b).
However, as Hirabayashi and Hirabayashi (1984) have noted, "raeist
ideology has been present since the founding of the country; it affected
World War 11 deeision making, and it remains an active force in the
minds of some of the national leaders even today" (p. 103). Prevention of
a future internment requires more than vigilance and the acceptance of
diversity. It requires the overwhelming task of actively combating deeply
ingrained patterns of raeism in American soeiety. The skeptism about
one's rights expressed by Sansei whose parents were interned reflects
this harsh realization, and their sensitivity to the unjust treatment of
others represents one important element in preventing future injustices.
However, the burden of prevention lies not only with previously vic-
timized groups but also with the majority group whose numbers can also
affect change. Bystanders can play an important role in deterring moral
exclusion (Staub, 1990). Therefore, it is critical that we increase the
awareness and activism of members from nonexcluded groups in speak-
ing out against injustice.
The research efforts of soeial seientists can also help combat soeial
injustice by connecting isolated victims to others who have shared
similar experiences of unjust treatment and allowing them to see com-
monalities in their experiences (Kidder & Fine, 1986). Over half of the
respondents in the Sansei Research Project wrote additional comments
(sometimes several pages long) after completing the ZO-page question-
naire. Many expressed gratitude that the research was being conducted
and noted that prior to partieipating in the study, they thought they were
alone in their reactions to the internment. Feelings of catharsis and
confirrnation were common. Clearly, although not done intentionally,
the Project validated the questions and emotions of many Sansei.
Unfortunately, racism continues to exist. In November 1990, the
president of the JACL in Arizona received death threats at his horne and
office following a television appearance in which he commented on the
issuance of the first redress checks for surviving internees. A swastika
and the words White Supreme were spray-painted on the JACL office
(Arizona JACL, 1990). The redress money, awarded in recognition of the
injustice of the concentration camps, elicited the kind of racist re-
sponses that had led to the creation of the camps 50 years earlier.
Current economic relations between the United States and Japan
have further increased interraeial tensions. As Japan assurnes economic
Questions for the Future 221

power, incidents of "Japan-bashing" have increased, as have the reported

number of incidents of anti-Asian violence in this country (Wong, 1986).
Especially frightening to Japanese Americans is the fact that so many
people confuse different Asian groups and continue to confuse Asian
Americans and Asians. Recent anti-Asian violence documents the va-
lidity of these fears. In 1982, Vincent Chin, a Chinese American, was
beaten to death with a baseball bat after a scuffle with two white auto
workers who reportedly called hirn a "Jap" and blamed people like hirn
for the unemployment in this country (Daniels, 1988; Takaki, 1989).
Chin's father was an American veteran. In 1989, a Japanese student in
Wisconsin was accosted by a group of white men venting their anger
toward Hmong refugees ("Wisconsin hate law," 1990), and in 1990, a
Korean-Chinese American student was called derogatory Asian names
by a group of white men who commented on Asian people coming over,
buying up things, and taking away jobs ("Six men," 1990). Sadly, the
descriptions of these and other recent anti-Asian and anti-Japanese
incidents echo those of the past.
Fifty years after the issuance of Executive Order 9066, the legacy of
the internment continues. As heirs to this legacy, the Sansei feel outrage
at what happened, pride in the resilience of their parents, and a sense of
responsibility to prevent future injustices. Regardless of their level of
structural acculturation into the dominant society, they remain con-
nected to the concentration camp experience. Reminders of this connec-
tion occur in their families' silence, with each anniversary of Pearl
Harbor, and with each new report of anti-Asian violence. It is hoped that
over time the vigilance and concern for racism experienced by ]apanese
Americans will be shared by greater numbers of non-Japanese Ameri-
cans through public education about the internment. Only when racism
and injustice are seen as problems affecting all of society, not just
victims, can we fully understand the significance of the camps. In the
words of a former internee, "We need to leave our legacy to our children.
And also to America, from our tears, what we learned" (Tsukamoto, in
Tateishi, 1984, p. 15).
 Appendix A

Sansei Research Project Survey

Instructions

Please read and answer oll questions. Do not skip any items unless
specifically instructed to do so.
It is important that you complete all parts of the survey by yourself,
without discussing your answers with anyone else.
Every effort has been made to make this survey as brief and simple
to complete as possible. In most cases, you need only circle your answer.

All responses will remain anonymous.

Now, please begin by turning the page and starting with Question 1.

The wording and presentation of the Sansei Research Project Survey were altered for this
volume but the content is essentially the same as that of the original survey. So me of the
attitude statements appear twice-this served as a reliability check.

223
224 Appendix A

Seetion 1

Background Information

Please begin by completing the following questions about your background.

1. What is your sex?

Male
Female
2. What is your age? _ _ Years
3. Where were you born? _ _ _--,-_ _ _ _ _ _ _...,.--_ _ __
CITY STATE

Where do you currently live? _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __

CITY STATE

4. What is your marital status? (Check one)

Single, never married
Divorced
Separated
Widowed
Divorced/widowed and remarried
Married-If married, please also answer:
a) What is your spouse's age? _ _ Years
b) What is your spouse's ethnic background (e.g., Japanese Ameri-
can, Chinese, Caucasian, etc.)? _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __
5. Do you have children?
No
Yes-If yes, please list the ages of your children.
Sons Daughters
1. 3. 1. 3.
2. 4. 2. 4.
6. What has been your primary religious affiliation?
Buddhist
Protestant
Roman Catholic
No religious affiliation
Other. Please explain: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __
Appendix A 225

7. Areyou currently active (Le., attend regular services) in this religion?

_ _ Yes _ _ No
8. What was your father's birthplace?

CITY STATE COUNTRY

Your mother's birthplace?

CITY STATE COUNTRY

9. What is the ethnic background for each of your parents (e.g., ]apanese
American, ]apanese, Chinese, Caucasian, etc.)?
Father:
If your father is/was ]apanese American, what generation is/was he?
a) Issei b) Kibei c) Nisei d) Sansei e) Yonsei
Mother:
If your mother is/was ]apanese American, what generation is/was she?
a) Issei b) Kibei c) Nisei d) Sansei e) Yonsei
10. What are your parents' ages? (If deceased, please indicate age at time of death
and answer all remaining survey questions based upon time during which
parent(s) were alive.)
Father's age: _ _ Is father deceased? _ _ Yes _ _ No
Mother's age: _ _ Is mother deceased? _ _ Yes _ _ No
11. Please indicate the ages of any brothers or sisters you have in your family.
(Add more spaces if necessary.)
Brother(s) Sister(s)
1. 3. 1. 3.
2. 4. 2. 4.
12. Rank order the three labels that you would most likely use to identify
yourself.
(1 = most likely, 2 = second most likely, and 3 = third most likely)
]apanese American Nipponese
]apanese Oriental
Asian Sansei
Asian American Yonsei
Nikkei Other (please explain)
226 Appendix A

Section 2

Communicaüon about the Internment

Your parents may or may not have been in camps during the war. Yet,
regardless of whether your parents personally experienced the internment, you
have undoubtedly come to know about the camps. The following questions ask
you to think about the ways in which you Iearned about the camps. Although
your memories about the following items may seem vague, please try to answer
each question as best you can.
First, I would like you to stop aminute and think about your earliest
recollection of the internment camps. This earliest memory should be the first
moments you can remember hearing or seeing anything about the internment,
even if your understanding of this event was incorrect or incomplete at that time.
Now, please answer the following:

13. Approximately how old were you when you first recall hearing/seeing any
reference to camp? (Remember, this should be based on your earliest recol-
lections about the internment, even if you did not fully und erstand what you
heard or saw.)
Less than 5 years old
5-10 years old
10-15 years old
15-20 years old
More than 20 years old
14. How did you first Iearn about the camps? (Please check the one source that
best reflects how you first became aware of the camps.)
Parents told you about camps
By asking parents questions
Overhearing parents discuss camps with others
Reading books
At school
Other. Please explain:

15. Since first finding out about the internment camps, where have you gained
the most information about them? Please rank order the following sources of
information, putting a "1" next to the source from which you have Iearned
most, a "2" beside the second most informative source, a "3" beside the third
source, etc.
Appendix A 227

Information from parent( s)

Information from relative(s)
Information from books
Information from school
Other. Please explain:

16. In what ways have YOUf parents talked about the internment? Rank order the
following.
(1 = the most likely way, to 3 = the least likely way)
As an incidental topic in passing (e.g., "We knew her from camp")
As a reference point in time (e.g., "That was before camp or after
camp")
As a central topic in itself (e.g., a discussion about camp)
17. YOUf level of interest in the camps may have changed over the years. For
example, although you may not have been interested in the camps as a young
child, you may have become interested as an adult. For each of the time
periods below, please circle the extent to which you have been interested in
knowing more about the internment.

Not Extremely
Interested Interested
A. Elementary school years 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
B. Junior high school years 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
C. High school years 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
D. Young adulthood (18-25) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
E. Now (answer only if you are 26 years or 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
older)
18. Approximately how many times in YOUf life have you talked (even very
briefly) about the internment with YOUf parents?
1 time
2-5 times
5-10 times
> 10 times
228 AppendixA

19. On the average, how long would conversations about camp last with your
parents?
Less than 5 minutes
5-15 minutes
15 minutes to % hour
% hour to 1 hour
More than 1 hour
20. In the time you have discussed the camps with your parents, how often
would you say your parents brought the topic up first?
Every time
More than half the time
About half the time
Less than half the time
Never
21. Which of your parents has discussed the internment with you more fre-
quently?
Father
Mother
Hoth equally often
22. Generally, how comfortable have you been in discussing the internment
with:

Not Extremely
Comfortable Comfortable
Your parents 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Other Japanese Americans 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Non-Japanese Americans who are minority 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Non-Japanese Americans who are Caucasian 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
23. How many books, magazines, etc. on the internment did your parents have
in the horne while you were growing up?
None
1
2-3
3-4
More than 4
AppendixA 229

24. At about what age do you think it is best to tell today's Japanese American
children about the camps?
At about _ _ years of age.
25. Were you or any of your relatives in internment or prison camps during
World War II?
No-If no, skip to Section 3.
Yes-If yes, please place acheck beside ALL relatives who were in
the camp:
Yourself Paternal grandfather
Father Paternal grandmother
Mother Maternal grandfather
Aunt(s) Maternal grandmother
Uncle(s) Sister(s)
Brother(s)
26. If you, your father, or your mother was in camp, what was the name of that
camp and where was it located?
Name of Camp Location
Father
Mother
Self
How confident do you feel about recalling this information?
(Circle the number that best reflects YOur confidence level.)
Not Confident Extremely Confident
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
27. Based upon your own knowledge, about how long would you say your
parent(s) were in camp?

Father Mother
Not applicable Not applicable
Less than 1 year Less than 1 year
1 year 1 year
2 years 2 years
3 years 3 years
4 years 4 years
230 AppendixA

How confident do you feel about recalling this information?

(Cirde the number that best reflects your confidence level.)
Not Confident Extremely Confident
1 2 345 6 7
28. Approximately how old was your father when he went to camp?
Not applicable
Less than 5 years old
5-10 years old
10-15 years old
15-20 years old
20-30 years old
30-40 years old
More than 40 years old
29. Approximately how old was your mother when she went to camp?
Not applicable
Less than 5 years old
5-10 years old
10-15 years old
15-20 years old
20-30 years old
30-40 years old
More than 40 years old

How confident do you feel about recalling this information about the age of
your parent(s) during camp?
Not Confident Extremely Confident
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
30. If you were in camp yourself, how old were you at that time?
_ _ Years old _ _ Not applicable

How long did you stay in camp?

Not applicable 2 years
Less than 1 year 3 years
1 year 4 years
Appendix A 231

Seetion 3

Sansei Attitudes

In the following section you are given aseries of statements. Please read each
of these statements and indicate, by circling the appropriate number, the degree
to which you agree with each statement.
Rate your first impressions and work as quickly as possible. Some items may
seem repetitive. However, it is very important that you rate ALL the statements
below.

(1 = Strongly Disagree; 2 = Moderately Disagree; 3 = Slightly Disagree; 4 =

Undecided; 5 = Slightly Agree; 6 = Moderately Agree; 7 = Strongly Agree)
1. In order to protect me, my parents did not
discuss the topic of the camps with me as
much as they might have. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
2. I feel more at ease with Japanese Americans
than Caucasians. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
3. I should know more about the internment than
I do. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
4. I have been more interested in the camps since
hearing about the redress/reparations move-
ment. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
5. It is my responsibility to ask about the camps
if I want to know about them. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
6. Relations between the United States and Japan
concern me more than the average American. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
7. The Nisei should have more actively resisted
the relocation during World War 11. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
8. All things being equal, I would prefer to go to a
Japanese American for professional services
over a Caucasian American. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
9. I don't know much about my parents' lives
during the years of World War II. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
10. I should know more about the internment than
I do. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
11. My mother has been (was) open to discussing
the camps with me. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
12. The United States government should pay
monetary compensation to those Japanese
Americans who were in camps. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
232 AppendixA

13. It is my responsibility to ask about the camps

if I want to know about them. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
14. In order to protect me, my parents did not
discuss the topic of the camps with me as
much as they might have. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
15. I am confident that my rights as an American
citizen would not be violated in this country. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
16. I feel more American than Japanese. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
17. When Caucasians talk about Pearl Harbor, I
fee I uneasy. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
18. At times my parents seemed ashamed to talk
about the internment. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

19. I have often been the target of racial slurs and

discrimination. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
20. The Nisei are more like the Issei than the
Sansei. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
21. Relations between the United States and Japan
concern me more than the average American. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
22. In general, Japanese Americans are more trust-
worthy than Caucasian Americans. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
23. I feel uneasy when I sing the "Star Spangled
Banner." 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
24. I fee I more at ease with Japanese Americans
than Caucasians. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
25. At times my parents seemed ashamed to talk
about the internment. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
26. My parents have been more interested/willing
to discuss the camps since the redressl
reparations movement. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
27. My father has been (was) open to discussing
the camps with me. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
28. I feel more American than Japanese. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
29. It is possible that Japanese Americans could be
interned again in this country if war were
declared against Japan. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
30. The Nisei should have more actively resisted
the relocation during World War 11. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
31. When Caucasians talk about Pearl Harbor, I
feel uneasy. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Appendix A 233

32. If Japanese Americans were ordered into re-

location camps today, I would actively resist
going. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
33. I am comfortable bringing up the topic of the
camps with my mother. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
34. I know very little about my parents' lives in
general. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
35. If Japanese Americans were ordered into re-
location camps by the U. S. government today,
most Sansei would actively resist going. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
36. My father has been (was) open to discussing
the camps with me. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
37. It is my parents' responsibility to tell me about
the camps, even if I don't ask. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
38. The Nisei are more like the Issei than the
Sansei. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
39. My mother has been (was) open to discussing
the camps with me. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
40. I am confident that my rights as an American
citizen would not be violated in this country. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Lf Neither of your parents was interned in a camp, skip to Seetion 4.

Lf One or Both of yout parents was interned, please also rate the following
statements before going on to the next seetion.

Sansei Statements for Those Whose Parent(s) Were in Camp

(1 = Strongly Disagree; 2 = Moderately Disagree; 3 = Slightly Disagree; 4 =
Undecided; 5 = Slightly Agree; 6 = Moderately Agree; 7 = Strongly Agree)
1. When I was a child I first thought that "camp"
referred to a fun summer camp my parent(s)
attended. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
2. The internment experience of my parent(s) has
created distance between my parent(s) and
myself. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
3. I feel angry when I think of my parent(s) hav-
ing been in camp. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
4. My parent(s) experience during the camp years
has made them extraprotective of raising me. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
234 AppendixA

5. My parent(s) camp experience has brought us

doser together as a family. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
6. I wish my parent(s) had shared more about the
camp experience with me. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
7. My parent(s) have adjusted to life after the
camps better than I would have. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
8. My parent(s) have expressed a dislike for cer-
tain food, places, or objects because they are a
reminder of camp. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
9. I feel sad when I think of my parents having
been in the internment camps. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
10. I feel angry when I think of my parent(s) hav-
ing been in the internment camps. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
11. My parent(s) have shared some positive mem-
ories of the camp experience. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
12. In general, how much do you feel the Japanese Americans suffered from the
internment?
(Girde the appropriate number)
Very Little A Great Deal
1 2 345
13. In comparison with most interned Japanese American families, how much
do you feel your parents suffered (economically and/or psychologically)
from the internment experience?
Did your parent(s) suffer? (Girde the appropriate number.)
1 2 3 4 5
Much Less Slightly About the Slightly Much More
than Most Less than Same as More than than Most
Most Most Most
14. In general, how weIl do you feel Japanese Americans have coped with the
internment experience? (Girde the appropriate number.)
Very Poorly Very WeIl
1 2 3 4 5
15. Now, in comparison with most interned Japanese American families, how
weIl do you feel your parent(s) coped with the internment experience?
(Girde the appropriate number.)
1 2 3 4 5
Much Worse Slightly Aboutthe Slightly Much Better
than Most Worse than Same as Better than than Most
Most Most Most
AppendixA 235

Seetion 4

RedresslReparations

Recently, there have been movements requesting that the United States
government officially apologize for interning the ]apanese Americans and pay
monetary compensation to those who were in camps. These movements have
been referred to as redress or reparation movements.

1. How much knowledge do you have about the redress/reparations move-

ments?
(Circle your response)
Very Little A Great Deal
1 2 3 4 5
2. How active have you been in the movement for redress?
Not at All A Great Deal
1 2 3 4 5
3. Did you attend any of the commission hearings?
No
Yes
4. Did either or both of your parents attend any of the hearings?
No
Yes Father only
Mother only
Both parents
5. Have you discussed the issue of redress/reparations with your parents?
No
Yes With father only
With mother only
With both parents
6. What would you say are your parents' views about seeking monetary com-
pensation for the ]apanese Americans who were in camps?
Father
Favors monetary compensation
Opposes monetary compensation
Undecided/no opinion
Don't know father's view on this
236 AppendixA

Mother
Favors monetary compensation
Opposes monetary compensation
Undecided/no opinion
Don't know mother's view on this
7. What are your own views about seeking monetary compensation?
I favor monetary compensation.
I oppose monetary compensation.
I am undecided/have no opinion.

Seetion 5

Knowledge 0/ Intemment
The following questions are designed to assess the level of specific knowl-
edge Sansei have about the internment and the circumstances surrounding it.
Some of the questions may seem obvious, while others may seem quite difficult.
Most people will not know a number of the answers.
If you do not know the answer to a question, do not look it up or ask some-
one else. Instead, just make your best guess and move on to the next question. Be
sure to answer or guess all questions

1. On what date did the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor?

MONTII DAY YEAR

2. Approximately how many Japanese Americans were interned during World

War II?
3. What proportion of those in camp were U.S. citizens?
4. How many camps, total, were there?
5. What were the names of these camps and where were they located?
(List as many names and locations as you can.)
AppendixA 237

6. What do the initials WRA stand for?

7. What was the number of the Executive Order that allowed for the incarcera-
tion of the Japanese Americans? _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __
8. Which president of the Dnited States signed this Executive Order?

9. How long, on the average, were Japanese Americans in the camps?

10. Were Japanese Americans in Hawaii placed in internment camps similar to

Japanese Americans on the D.S. mainland?
Yes__ No _ _

Seetion 6

Final Background Information

1. What was your father's primary occupation:

a) Prior to World War II?

Don't know
Not applicable (e.g., father too young)
b) Since World War II?

And what was your mother's primary occupation:

a) Prior to World War II?

Don't know
Not applicable (e.g., mother too young)
b) Since World War II?

2. Grandparents' occupations before World War II?

a) Paternal grandfather: Don't know
b) Paternal grandmother: Don't know
c) Maternal grandfather: Don't know
d) Maternal grandmother: Don't know
238 AppendixA

3. For the most part, would you say you grew up in a neighborhood(s) that was
(check the best answer):
Mostly Caucasian Americans
Mostly ]apanese Americans
Mostly non-]apanese Asian Americans (e.g., Chinese Americans, etc.)
Mostly Black Americans
Mostly Hispanic Americans
Other. Please explain:

4. What is your current occupation? (Fill in below. If you are a student, please
write that down.)

5. Please place acheck to the left of the range that includes your approximate
annual income:
Less than $10,000 $30,000-34,000
$10,000-14,000 $35,000-39,000
$15,000-19,000 $40,000-44,000
$20,000-24,000 $45,000-49,000
$25,000-29,000 Greater than $50,000
6. What was the highest grade you completed in school?
Less than high school diploma
Completed high school diploma
Less than 4 years of college
Completed 4 years of college-bachelor's degree
Some graduate/professional school, but not completed
Completed graduate/professional school degree
7. If you have gone beyond high school, please answer the following questions.

If not, go on to Question 9.

Please indicate the number of years you attended any college or professional
schools, your major field, and any degrees attained.
Name of school Major Years attended Degree
1. ________________________
2. ________________________
3. ______________________
4. ________________________
AppendixA 239

8. Have you taken any Asian American courses?

No
_ _ Yes. If yes, how many courses have you taken?
9. What is the highest level of education completed by each of your parents?
(Check one level for each parent.)
Father: Less than high school diploma
Completed high school diploma
Less than 4 years of college
Completed 4 years of college-bachelor's degree
Some graduate/professional school, but not completed
Completed graduate/professional school
Mother: Less than high school diploma
Completed high school diploma
Less than 4 years of college
Completed 4 years of college-bachelor's degree
Some graduate/professional school, but not completed
Completed graduate/professional school
10. Currently, do you socialize with mostly (check one):
Japanese Americans
Non-Japanese Asian Americans (e.g., Chinese American, etc.)
Caucasian Americans
Black or Hispanic Americans
About equal numbers of Japanese Americans and non-Japanese
Americans-if so, please specify which non-Japanese American
groups (e.g., Caucasian, Chinese American, etc.)

Other. Please explain:

11. In high school, did you socialize with mostly (check one):
Japanese Americans
Non-Japanese Asian Americans (e.g., Chinese American, etc.)
Caucasian Americans
Black or Hispanic Americans
240 AppendixA

About equal numbers of Japanese Americans and non-Japanese

Americans-if so, please specify which non-Japanese American
groups (e.g., Caucasian, Chinese American, etc.)

_ _ Other. Please explain:

12. In grade school, did you socialize with mostly (check one):
Japanese Americans
Non-Japanese Asian Americans (e.g., Chinese American, etc.)
Caucasian Americans
Black or Hispanic Americans
About equal numbers of Japanese Americans and non-Japanese
Americans-if so, please specify which non-Japanese American
groups (e.g., Caucasian, Chinese American, etc.)

_ _ Other. Please explain:

13. When you were growing up, would you say that your parents tended to
encourage you to associate more with Caucasians or Japanese Americans?
(Check one.)
Greater encouragement to associate with Caucasians
Greater encouragement to associate with ]apanese Americans
About equal encouragement to associate with Caucasian and Japa-
nese Americans
14. With respect to dating, to what degree did/do each of your parents prefer for
you to date another Japanese American? (Circle the number that reflects
their preference.)
a) Father preferred you to date:
Only Only
Non-Japanese No Japanese
Americans Preference Americans
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
b) Mother preferred you to date:
Only Only
Non-Japanese No Japanese
Americans Preference Americans
1 2 345 6 7
Appendix A 241

15. What were your parents' views on rnarriage? To what degree did/do each of
your parents prefer that you rnarry a Japanese Arnerican?
a) Father preferred you to rnarry:
Only Only
Non-Japanese No Japanese
Arnericans Preference Arnericans
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

a) Mother preferred you to rnarry:

Only Only
Non-Japanese No Japanese
Arnericans Preference Arnericans
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
16. Looking back at your own dating history, have you dated (check one):
Only Japanese Arnericans
Mostly Japanese Arnericans
Mostly non-Japanese Asian Arnericans
Mostly Caucasian Arnericans
Mostly black or Hispanic Arnericans
About equal nurnbers of Japanese Arnericans and non-Japanese
Arnericans. If so, please specify which non-Japanese Arnerican
groups:

_ _ Other. Please explain:

17. How often was Japanese spoken in your horne while you were growing up?
Never
1-20% of the time
20-40% of the time
40-60% of the time
60-80% of the time
80-100% of the time
18. Was Japanese spoken directly to you by your parents in the horne?
Yes
No
242 AppendixA

19. How weIl are you able to understand ]apanese?

Very weIl
Pretty weIl
Only a little
Not at aIl
20. Do you currently belong to any organizations that are primarily ]apanese
Ameriean in membership (e.g., ]ACL, ehureh groups, sodal groups, politieal
organizations, eommunity groups, ete.)
No
Yes. If yes, please list these organizations.

21. Have you been a member of primarily ]apanese Ameriean organizations in

the past?
No
Yes. If yes, please list these organizations.
 Appendix B

Sansei Research Project

Interview Questions

1. What is your name and when were you born?

2. Please tell me where you were born and where you grew up. (De-
scribe the ethnic composition of the neighborhoods you lived in.)
3. What schools have you attended? If you attended college, what was
your major? What postgraduate training, if any, have you received?
4. What is your current occupation? Can you tell me a little about how
you came upon that occupation?
5. To what degree do you currently associate with other Japanese
Americans? To what degree have you associated with Japanese
Americans in the past?
6. What have been your father's (mother's) attitudes toward dating/
marrying someone who is non-Japanese American (non-Asian
American)?
7. What Japanese American organizations/community groups, if any,
are you a member of? To what extent are you active in this (these)
group(s)?
8. Please tell me a little about each of your parents: where and when
they were born, and what they did for a living.
9. Can you tell me the same information about your grandparents?
10. Where were each of your parents at the time of Pearl Harbor? During
the internment? Can you describe what happened to each of them
during those times?
11. Can you tell me the name(s) of the camp where your parent(s) were
interned?
12. Where did your parents go after the camps?
13. What is your earliest memory of learning about the internment?
How did you learn about it? What was your reaction?

243
244 Appendix B

14. Where were you most likely to gain further information about the
internment?
15. How often has your father (mother) discussed the topic of "camp"
with you? Please describe the circumstances when this would
occur. What did he (she) discuss?
16. Please describe the manner in which your father (mother) would
typically discuss the internment. What were your reactions to your
father's (mother's) mann er of communication?
17. Has either of your parents (i.e., father versus mother) been more
likely to discuss the internment than the other?
18. In what ways do you feel the internment has influenced your father
(mother)?
19. In what ways do you feel the internment has affected your own life?
In what ways do you feel your father's (mother's) internment experi-
ence has affected your own life?
20. Do you think a future internment of ]apanese Americans is possible?
Why or why not?
21. What are your views about the recent re dress/reparations move-
ment? Please explain.
22. Have you discussed the issue of redress with your parents?
23. What are your parents' views about redress?
24. How likely do you feeI it is that the redress movement will be
successful? Please explain.
25. Is there anything else you would like to add?
 Appendix C

Summary of Results by Sansei

and Parent Characteristics

This appendix summarizes the Project's survey results according to

characteristics of the Sansei and their parents. Characteristics among the
Sansei that might significantly affect their responses included age,
gender, geographicallocation of residence, and educational and income
level. Characteristics of the parents that were of interest included the age
of the parent at the time of the internment, the length of the parent's
incarceration, and the gen der of the interned parent. Significance levels
are not presented here, since they are included in earlier chapters. Also,
it should be noted that the statistically significant correlations discussed
here are quite low (typically between .09 and .15). Therefore, caution
must be taken in interpreting their significance.

Sansei Characteristics

Age

Although the frequency and length of conversations with parents

about the internment were unrelated to Sansei age, age was positively
correlated with inhibited communications about the camps. Older San-
sei reported greater barriers to such discussions and found their parents
to be less likely to raise the topic of the internment than younger Sansei.
In addition, older Sansei experienced greater emotional distance within
their families. One possible explanation for these results is that the
parents of older Sansei had greater reservations about discussing the
internment than parents of younger Sansei, perhaps because they expe-
rienced greater distress during that period of time as a function of their
age. The greater barriers mayaiso stern from the older Nisei parents
245
246 Appendix C

being less communicative in general than younger Nisei. Interestingly,

while older Sansei reported greater communication barriers in their
families, they also reported being more comfortable talking about the
internment with other ]apanese Americans, other minority group mem-
bers, and Caucasian Americans than did younger Sansei, a finding that
may reflect the greater maturity of older Sansei in interacting with
individuals outside the family.
Sansei age was also positively correlated with a greater interest in and
knowledge of the internment, greater knowledge about the redress move-
ment, greater activity in the redress effort, and a higher number of member-
ships in ]apanese American organizations. Older Sansei may feel a greater
connection with the internment than do younger Sansei, since they were
born closer in time to that event. In addition, Sansei in their 40s are
developmentally at a point in life where they may be more inclined to
participate in community activities. The greater interest and activity in
internment-related issues mayaiso be linked to the fact that older Sansei
reported greater levels of anger and sadness about their parent's internment
than younger Sansei and perceived their parents as suffering more and
coping less weIl. That older Sansei perceived greater suffering and less
coping in their parents is not surprising, since research has noted that
older internees appeared to have suffered more than those who were young
while in camp, and older Sansei were likely to have had older parents.
What is interesting here, however, is that it appears these older Sansei also
channeled their negative emotions about the internment into social activ-
ism, as evidenced in their higher levels of activity in the redress movement.

Gen der

Results of the present study did not reveal a consistent pattern of

Sansei gender differences in response to a parent's internment. Males
and females did not differ in the degree to which they perceived there
to be barriers in communicating with parents about the camps, in their
level of factual knowledge about the internment, in the degree of comfort
they feIt in discussing the internment with others, in the emotional
distance they feIt in their families, or in their perceptions of coping and
suffering among ]apanese Americans or their parents following the
internment. Significant gen der differences among the Sansei children of
former internees did occur with respect to ethnic preferences, the
average length of time spent discussing the internment with parents,
and the level of interest held about the internment in the past.
Sansei females reported having had longer conversations with their
Appendix C 247

parents ab out the internment than males. This might be seen as reflect-
ing the fact that they were more comfortable talking with their parent(s).
However, no significant Sansei gender differences were found in their
reported level of comfort in discussing the internment with parents or
others outside the family, or in their perceived barriers to communica-
tion. In addition, males and females did not differ in their perceptions of
the internment having created distance within their families. Another
possibility is that the parent(s) themselves feIt more comfortable dis-
cussing the camps for longer periods of time with their daughters,
although the current survey data did not allow for an analysis of this
hypothesis.
Ethnic preference data indicated that male Sansei had a higher
preference for interacting with Japanese Americans over Caucasian
Americans than did Sansei females. This result paralleis previous find-
ings indicating that Japanese American males are also less likely to
outmarry than females (Kitano, Yeung, Chai, & Hatanaka, 1984). How-
ever, overall outmarriage rates for the entire sampie and the outmarriage
rates for the Two-Parent and Father-Only camp groups did not differ
significantly for males and females. Only within the Mother-Only group
were females significantly more likely to outmarry. Another interpreta-
tion is that the ethnic preference reported by males in this study differs
from the type of preference reflected in outmarriage. This seems plau-
sible given that the questions related to the general attitude Ethnic
Preference factor focused on preferences not related to dating or mar-
riage but rather to more global perceptions of trustworthiness and
comfort.
Finally, data on attitudes toward seeking monetary payments for
surviving interne es indicated that the Sansei in the study were unified
in their support for the redress movement. While Sansei males reported
knowing more about redress than females, there were no gen der differ-
ences in the level of their activity in the redress movement or in their
support for it. The gender difference in redress knowledge may reflect an
2actual difference in knowledge. However, it is also possible that it
reflects a more general gender difference in willingness to acknowledge
a level of expertise.

Edueuüon und [neome Level

Both the education and income levels of the Sansei sampie were
quite high, restricting the ranges for each of these variables. Nonethe-
less, several correlations between Sansei education and income level
248 AppendixC

and the dependent variables studied were noted. First, the educational
level of the Sansei respondents was significantly and positively related
to taking greater numbers of Asian American courses, higher total
knowledge scores in the objective section of the survey, and greater
knowledge or and activity in the redress movement. These results are not
surprising given that higher educationallevels increase the likelihood
that a Sansei would have taken an Asian American studies course or
maintained an interest in internment issues.
Educationallevel was unrelated to Sansei ratings of communication
variables, ethnic preference, the likelihood of resisting a future intern-
ment, and degree of comfort discussing the internment with parents,
other Japanese Americans, minority group members, and Caucasian
Americans. It was also uncorrelated with perceptions of the suffering
and coping resulting from the internment among parents and Japanese
Americans, the strength with which a Sansei respondent endorsed the
idea of redress, or their current level of interest in the internment.
However, educationallevel was negatively correlated with the Sense of
Confidence and the Positive Impacts factors. Those Sansei with higher
educational levels reported feeling less secure about their rights and
experienced less positive familial impacts from their parents' intern-
ment experience. This result is in contrast with findings reported by
Fugita and O'Brien (1991), who found that Nisei and Sansei with higher
levels of education reported greater levels of confidence when interact-
ing with members of the dominant society. However, given the differ-
ences in methodology and sampling between the Sansei Research Proj-
ect and the Fugita and O'Brien study, additional research is needed to
explain this discrepancy.
Sansei income was uncorrelated with all general attitude and family
impact factors, although significant positive correlations occurred be-
tween income and knowledge about the internment, communication
variables, redress knowledge and activity, and current level of activity in
Japanese American groups. Interest in the internment was negatively
correlated with income. Those Sansei earning high incomes were more
knowledgeable about and active in the redress movement yet reported
less interest in the internment than Sansei with lower incomes. This
raises the possibility that some Sansei may be quite attuned to the
current issues of redress but be less focused on the internment per se.
Income was unrelated to the Sansei's degree of comfort discussing the
internment with parents or others outside the family but did have a
significant positive correlation with perceptions of parental suffering:
the higher the income, the more likely the Sansei were to see their
parents as having suffered more. This again supports the more general
Appendix C 249

findings presented in Chapter 11 that indicated that Sansei did not

engage in the denial of their parents' suffering. Even those Sansei who
were doing weIl financially remained attuned to their parents' hardships
stemming from the camps.

Religious Background and Birth Order

Religious background and birth order had little impact on the
perception and behaviors of the Sansei. One instance where a signifi-
cant difference did emerge between Buddhist and Christian respon-
dents occurred in relation to the Likelihood to Resist factor, where
Buddhist Sansei indicated they would be significantly less likely to
resist a future internment than Christian Sansei. Birth order effects were
virtually nonexistent.

Geographical Location 0/ Residence

Sansei from different regions of the country (California, the North-
west, the Midwest, and the East Coast) did not differ significantly from
each other in their reported levels of comfort communicating with
parents about the internment or in their comfort discussing the intern-
ment with other ]apanese Americans or other minority group members.
Significant regional differences did occur in terms of comfort with
Caucasian Americans. Midwest Sansei were most comfortable discuss-
ing the internment with Caucasian Americans, while Northwest Sansei
were least comfortable. Midwest Sansei also had the lowest preference
for ]apanese Americans over Caucasian Americans, were most likely to
socialize with non-]apanese Americans, were most likely to have dated
non-]apanese Americans, currently socialize with non-]apanese Ameri-
cans, and had the lowest ability to understand the ]apanese language.
However, they reported greater activity in the redress movement than
both the Northwest and California Sansei. Hence, despite having rela-
tively less contact with other ]apanese Americans than the Sansei from
other geographical areas, the Midwest Sansei remained actively in-
volved in internment-related redress efforts.
As might be expected given the demographic composition of their
state, the California Sansei were higher in their stated preference for
Japanese Americans over Caucasian Americans than the East and Mid-
west Sansei, had the lowest rate of outmarriage, currently socialize with
other ]apanese/Asian Americans more frequently than the Midwest or
250 Appendix C

East Co ast Sansei, and reported the highest membership in ]apanese

American groups of all the regions. Interestingly, however, despite the
evidence that Califomia Sansei were more socially involved with ]apanese
Americans than Sansei from other regions, they reported being least likely
to resist a future intemment. Being part of a larger ]apanese American
community, it would seem, does not necessarily lead to a greater sense of
confidence that Sansei would resist another intemment.
Northwest Sansei were the least comfortable discussing the intem-
ment with Caucasian Americans and had the lowest involvement in
]apanese American arganizations, the lowest total knowledge scores
about the intemment, and the lowest activity level in the redress move-
ment. At the same time, they reparted the highest degree of confidence
in their rights and the highest outmarriage rates. Overall, in comparison
with the other regional groups, the Narthwest Sansei appeared to be
least involved in intemment-related activities, although it is not clear
why this would be the case.
In contrast with the confidence ratings of the Narthwest Sansei, the
East Coast Sansei reported the greatest level of perceived racial discrimi-
nation, the lowest Confidence ratings, and the highest total knowledge
scores. They also saw themselves most likely to actively resist a future
intemment and, along with the Midwest Sansei, reparted being more
active in the redress movement than either the Califomia ar Northwest
Sansei.
It is difficult to draw clear-cut conclusions from the geographical
analyses far several reasons. First, the regional groups were not compa-
rable. While the Califomia region included a single state, the East Coast
and Midwest regions included several states. A problem with such a
grouping, aside from the heterogeneity of states within groups, is the fact
that Califomia is treated as one region when in fact there is much
diversity within that state. The present regional analyses, far example,
do not reflect differences that might exist between residents of narthem
and southem California, or between rural versus urban residents. In
addition, the number of respondents from the East Coast was signifi-
cantly lower than the numbers from other regions.
The data do, however, suggest several points. Generally they suggest
that ]apanese Americans, including the Sansei, should not be treated as a
completely homogeneous group. Clearly there are differences within the
generation that should be studied in relation to the intemment's impact.
At a mare specific level, the findings far the Califomia Sansei suggest
that being involved with other ]apanese Americans does not necessarily
lead to greater vigilance about one's rights or a greater belief that one
Appendix C 251

would resist a future internment. In fact, California Sansei were lowest

in their ratings on the Likelihood to Resist factor, and second highest in
their ratings on the Sense of Confidence factor. Additionally, data from
the East Coast Sansei suggest that although this group lives far from the
original exclusion areas during the war, they remain affected by the
internment. These Sansei reported the highest total knowledge scores on
the survey, the lowest Sense of Confidence scores, and, along with the
Midwest Sansei, the highest redress activity ratings. Hence, the density
of interactions with other Japanese Americans may not necessarily
predict the degree to which Sansei maintain their interest in the intern-
ment.

Outmarriage

Sansei who married non-Japanese Americans (outmarried) scored

significantly high er on the Barriers to Communication factor than San-
sei who married other Japanese Americans, although there were no
significant differences with respect to the number or length of conversa-
tions with parents about the internment. Marginally significant differ-
ences indicated that Sansei who outmarried were less likely to express a
preference for Japanese Americans over Caucasian Americans and were
less likely to report positive impacts stemming from a parent's intern-
ment. Levels of comfort in discussing the internment with others and
interest in the internment did not differ significantly between outmar-
ried and nonoutmarried Sansei, although those who married other
Japanese Americans received higher knowledge scores about the intern-
ment than those who did not marry Japanese Americans. A marginally
significant difference was also found in the numbers of Asian American
courses taken by Sansei, with outmarried Sansei reporting having taken
fewer such courses.
While outmarriage did not significantly affect the degree to which
Sansei supported the idea of monetary redress or their level of activity in
the redress movement, outmarried Sansei did report having signifi-
cantly less knowledge ab out the redress movement than Sansei married
to Japanese Americans. Finally, outmarried Sansei reported current
membership in fewer Japanese American groups than nonoutmarried
Sansei. Overall, these findings indicate that although outmarried Sansei
shared a concern about redress with Sansei who married Japanese
Americans, they were gene rally less involved in Japanese American
community groups.
252 Appendix C

Parent Characteristics

Gender 0/ the Interned Parent

Much of the concentration camp experience was shared by all those

interned. Other aspects affected men and warnen differently (Matsu-
moto, 1984). Hence, the gen der of an interned parent may have affected
the Sansei experience. Ta evaluate the impact of having a father versus a
mother interned, the Father-Only and Mother-Only groups were com-
pared in the project sampie. Results indicated that the Sansei with only a
father interned may have experienced particularly severe effects from
their father's internment. Fathers in this group were seen by their Sansei
children as being especially unlikely to discuss their camp experiences.
The Sansei in the Father-Only group also had the lowest degree of
confidence in their rights in relation to the other camp groups and were
least likely to report positive impacts from their father's internment.
In addition, Father-Only Sansei had a much higher outmarriage rate
than the other grau ps. High Sansei outmarriage rates for the Father-Only
group might have been influenced by the possibility that their fathers
themselves had outmarried to a greater extent than Two-Parent or
Mother-Only parents. By definition, if a Sansei had both parents in-
terned, both were of Japanese ancestry. On the other hand, fathers in the
Father-Only group and mothers in the Mother-Only group could have
married non-Japanese Americans. The data did indicate that a higher
percentage of fathers in the Father-Only group (20%) had outmarried
than mothers in the Mother-Only group (10%). However, one would also
need to know wh ether Father-Only Sansei who had a non-Japanese
American mother were significantly more likely to outmarry than
Father-Only Sansei with a Japanese American mother. Although the
numbers are tao small to be reliable, an examination ofthe Sansei within
the Father-Only group revealed that 12 out of 18 with Japanese American
mothers had outmarried. By camparison, three out of four of those with
non-Japanese mothers had done so. The differences da not appear large
enough to suggest that outmarriage was attributable to parental outmar-
riage, although clearly more research would be needed to clarify this
possibility.
A second interpretation regarding the outmarriage rates for the
Father-Only group is that the outmarriage reflects the impact of having
only a father interned. Indeed, the Father-Only group emerged as the
camp group that differed most from the Two-Parent and Mother-Only
groups. Sansei with only fathers interned had, in addition to higher
outmarriage rates, the lowest confidence levels and the least number of
AppendixC 253

positive impacts. These Sansei also reported having had the least num-
ber of conversations with parents about the camps.
Finally, the data showed that fathers who were interned may have
been especially prone to ill health effects following the war. Although
highly exploratory at this point, preliminary results from Chapter 8
indicated that a much higher percentage of fathers who were interned
were reported by their Sansei children to have died before the age of 60
than fathers who were not interned.
The Father-Only group appeared to have fared the worst in this
sampie. This may have been due to the fact that fathers were less
communicative than mothers about the internment. In families where
only the mother was interned or where both a mother and a father were
interned, Sansei had relatively greater opportunities to hear about the
camps. This decreased level of communication might have created
greater family tension for Father-Only Sansei, contributing to negative
consequences such as the lower level of positive impacts attributed to
the internment.
It is also possible that the consequences of the internment were
especially severe for fathers who married a noninterned spouse. The
absence of a wife who shared the internment experience may have led
these fathers to internalize to a greater degree the negative emotions
resulting from the camps (Kahana, Harel, & Kahana, 1988).

Father's Age and Length 0/ Internment

Literature cited in Chapter 3 suggested that the age at which a parent
was interned might affect the range of consequences observed in Sansei
children. The data indicated that when the effects for Sansei age were
partialed out, a father's age at the time of the internment was signifi-
cantly related to the perceived degree of suffering in the Sansei's parents
stemming from the internment and the degree of comfort Sansei had
discussing the internment with parents. The older a father was at the
time of his internment, the less comfortable Sansei were discussing the
internment with their parents and the more they perceived their parents
to have suffered from the internment.
Age of a father while in camp was also significantly correlated with
the Ethnic Preference, Family Distance, and Positive Impacts factors.
Sansei with older fathers in camp reported a greater preference for
]apanese Americans over Caucasian Americans and greater family dis-
tance in their families. However, they also reported more positive im-
pacts resulting from their parents' internment.
254 AppendixC

One way to operationalize the extensiveness of trauma suffered by a

parent was to use length of internment as an independent variable.
Bearing in mind that the length of time interned was based on the
Sansei's recollections of their parent's history and may not necessarily
be related to the parent's actual degree of experienced trauma or suffer-
ing, it is nonetheless interesting to note that the length of a father's
internment was positively correlated with the Sansei's family coping
ratings, their perceived family barriers to communicating about the
internment, and their degree of negative emotions. The longer a father
was in camp, the worse Sansei perceived their families to have coped
after the internment and the greater their expression of sadness and
anger about the fact that their parents were interned. On the other hand,
it did not appear that length of a father's internment interfered with
communicating about the internment, since the Barriers to Communica-
tion factor was negatively related to father's time spent in camp.

Mother's Age and Length o/Internment

As was the case with fathers, it appeared that a mother's age while in
camp was more likely to be correlated with the dependent variables
under study than her length of internment, although characteristics of a
mother's experience in camp, overall, demonstrated less relationship to
communication, coping and suffering, and redress questions than char-
acteristics of a father's experience. Again, when the effects of Sansei age
are partialed out, a mother's age while in camp was significantly related
only to Sansei perceptions of parental suffering and knowledge of the
redress movement. The older a mother was while in camp, the greater the
Sansei's perceptions of parental suffering and the greater their reported
level of knowledge about redress. All other correlations were nonsignifi-
cant. A mother's length of time in camp was unrelated to all dependent
variables assessed.
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 Index

Acculturation. See Assimilation Asian Americans, violence toward, 220-

Achievement, as internment response, 221
138-139 Asian American studies coursework
Age, of Sansei Research Project educational factors correlation, 248
participants, 57-58, 61-62 knowledge of internment correlation,
Age distribution, of Japanese American 106,112-113
population, 4-5 Assembly centers, 1, 7
Age factors Assimilation
in communication about internment, as internment response, 53-54, 137-
82, 84-85, 92, 93, 95, 245-246 138, 151-152, 176-177, 216-217
in ethnic preference, 246, 247 Japanese culturellanguage loss and,
in familial distance, 146 176-179
in interest in internment, 103-104, 113 of Nisei, 33
in Japanese American organizations pre-World War 11,29
membership, 180, 246 redress movement attitudes and, 203
in knowledge of internment, 111 response to injustice and, 214-215
in negative affect, 148
in perception of suffering and coping, Belief in a Just World theory, 188
158-159, 162, 246 Biddle, Francis, 3
in redress movement involvement, Birth order
246 of Holocaust survivors' children, 49
Aggression, of Holocaust survivors' of Sansei Research Project participants,
children, 43, 44 249
Aggressor, identification with, 33 Black, Lloyd 1., 23
Agricultural holdings, of Japanese Buddhism, 29-30
Americans, 5, 18-19 Buddhists
Alien Land Laws, 18 attitudes toward internment resistance,
American Indians, relocation, 219 132-133
"American Promise" document, 191 outmarriage/intermarriage rates, 173-174
Anger. See also Negative affect Bush, George, 185
as response to parental internment, 148,
149,154 Career choices, of Sansei Research Project
Armed forces, Japanese Americans in, 12, participants, 182, 183-184, 215-216
13 Carter, Jimmy, 186, 191
Armenian genocide survivors, 99-100, Caucasian Americans
114 attitudes toward, 97

267
268
Caucasian Americans (Cont.)
discussion of internment with, 94-95
identification with, 216-218. See also
Assimilation
socialization with, 120-121
educational factors, 123
ethnic preference correlation, 123
geographical residence factors, 175-
176
interest in internment correlation,
105
as intergenerational communication
barrier, 92-93
sense of confidence correlation, 129
Children of the Great Depression (EIder),
37-38
Chin, Vincent, 221
Citizenship, Japanese Americans'
renunciation of, 13-14
Citizenship rights, Sansei Research
Project participants' confidence
regarding, 125, 129-131
Civil Liberties Act, 193
Civil rights movement, 131, 132
Collectivism, as cultural value, 54
Colonization, 26-27, 219
Commission on Wartime Relocation and
Internment of Civilians (CWRIC), 11.
creation of, 186, 191-192
See also Redress movement
Communication, intergenerational
about Armenian genocide, 99-100, 114
about Holocaust, 45, 48-49, 99-100,
153-154
about Japanese American internment,
53, 38-93, 75-102, 215
age factors, 82, 84-85, 92, 93, 95,
245-246
barriers to, 83-84, 91-95, 99-102,
120,160,162,245-246
with Caucasian Americans, 94-95
children's reluctance regarding, 83-84
communication styles, 85-19, 101
cultural values and, 101
ethnic preference correlation, 97
"food stories," 87-88
frequency of conversations, 80-81,
86, 99, 208
geographical residence factor, 81, 94-
95, 250
Index
Communication, intergenerational (Cont.)
about Japanese American internment
(Cont.)
impact of communication level, 96-99
knowledge of internment correlation,
97
length of conversations, 80, 81-82,
99, 208
parental gender factor, 80, 81
parental initiation of, 82-83, 84-85
parental reluctance regarding, 89-91,
93, 99-102, 208
about redress movement, 202-203
Community activism. See also Japanese
American organizations
Sansei Reseach Project participants'
involvement, 181, 182
Company K, 13
Concentration camps. See Internment
camps
Confidence, sense of, 120, 121, 122, 123,
125-131
about citizenship rights, 125, 129-131
educational factors, 127, 248
ethnic neighborhood residence factor,
129
ethnic preference correlation, 128
about future internment, 125-126
geographical residence factor, 125, 128-
129,250,251
outmarriage correlation, 129
parental gender factor, 127-128, 208
perception of coping and suffering
correlation, 160, 162, 163
post-World War 11, 189
sex factors, 127-128
social identity theory of, 129
Congressmen, Japanese American, 188,
189, 191, 193
Coping, perception of, 67-68, 155-165
age factors, 158-159, 162, 246
intergenerational communication
correlation, 97
internment length correlation, 254
redress movement attitudes correlation,
201
sense of confidence correlation, 160,
162, 163
Coping strategies, cultural values in, 212-
213
Index
Crime, against Japanese Americans, 4
Cultural values, 21-22, 211-214
collectivism as, 54
as communication barrier, 101
in coping strategies, 212-213
effect of internment on, 29
intergenerational transmission of, 39
as redress movement motivation, 187
social identity and, 216
in suffering and coping, 165
Curfew violations, 22-24, 193
Dating history, of Sansei Research Project
participants, 167-168
Days of Remembrance for the Internment,
1, 189, 191, 192
Defense mechanisms, of Nisei internees,
32-34
Denial
as defense mechanism, 33
of personal disadvantage, 156, 163-164
Developmental stages, as multigenerational
research factor, 40-42
implications for internment responses,
96,213,214
of Nisei male internees, 142-143
perception of parental suffering and,
159
redress movement involvement and,
204
See also Age factors
DeWitt, John 1., 25
racist attitudes of, 2-3
"voluntary" resettlement program of, 6-
7, 8
Discrimination, toward Japanese
Americans
behavioral effects, 213
as cumulative trauma, 212
economic factors, 18
generational differences, 54
as internment factor, 2-3, 4-6, 192,
212,219
model of governance and, 26-27
following Pearl Harbor, 5-6
prevalence, 134-135
pre-World War 11,4-5
as redress movement motivation, 191
as redress movement obstacle, 187, 188,
197,205
269
Discrimination, toward Japanese
Americans (Cant.)
regional differences, 128-129
sense of confidence and, 134-135
social stigmatization and, 152
Draft resistance, 13, 28
Drug abuse, 140
Economic impact, of internment, 17-20,
141, 143
Education, as internment response, 138-
139, 182-183
Educational factors
in knowledge of internment, 248
in outmarriage rates, 172
in positive impact of internment, 150
in redress movement involvementl
knowledge, 248
in sense of confidence, 127, 248
in socialization patterns, 123
Educational goals, of Sansei Research
Project participants, 182-183
Educational level, of Sansei Research
Project participants, 59, 61, 247-248
Educational policy, of internment camps,
11,14-15
Emergency Detention Act, Title 11, repeal,
189-190
Emmons, Delos, 3-4
Emotions. See also Negative affect
internalization of, 101, 165, 212-213,
253
Employment, of internees, 11, 14-15
Endo, Mitsuye, 22, 24-25
Epidemics, in internment camps, 11
Equity theory, of self-esteem, 152
Ethnic groups, model of governance of,
26-27
Ethnic identity, 53-54, 67, 139-140, 152-
153, 214, 216-217. See also Social
identity theory
Ethnic neighborhood residence
ethnic preference correlation, 122, 134
resistance to future internment
correlation, 123
sense of confidence correlation, 129
socialization pattern correlation, 176
Ethnic preference, 115, 116-117, 120-124,
134,168
age factors, 246, 247
270
Ethnic preference (Cont.)
ethnic neighborhood residence factor,
122, 134
future internment resistance
correlation, 133
geographical residence factor, 117, 120-
123, 249-250
intergenerational communication
correlation, 97
marriage pattern correlation, 124, 172,
251
parental age at internment correlation,
124
perception of coping and suffering
correlation, 160, 162, 163
redress movement involvement
correlation, 200
sense of confidence correlation, 128
sex factors, 117, 121, 246, 247
Evacuation process, 6-13
"voluntary" resettlement program of, 6-
7, 8
Executive Order 9066, 1, 4
Committee on Wartime Relocation and
Internment of Civilians review of,
192
rationale for, 3
rescindment of, 191
Sansei Research Project participants'
knowledge of, 110
Supreme Court reviews of, 22-25, 193,
203
Expatriation, of ]apanese Americans, 14
Familial distance, 144, 146-147
age factors, 146
communication level correlation, 98
perception of suffering and coping
correlation, 160, 162, 163
Family impacts, of internment, 137-154
achievement, 138-139
assimilation, 53-54, 137-138, 151-152,
176-177, 209, 214-217
familial distance, 144, 146-147, 160,
162, 163
negative affect, 144, 146, 147, 148-149,
154
parental health problems, 141-143,
153-154
parental insecurity, 140-141
Index
Family impacts, of internment (Cont.)
positive impacts, 140, 144, 146, 147,
149-151, 154, 185
self-esteemlself-identity, 53-54, 67,
139-140, 152-153, 214, 216-217
Family myths, 39
Family relationships, intergenerational
basis of, 39
Fatalism, as cultural value, 101
Fathers
age during internment, 253
and communication barrier, 93
perception of parental suffering
correlation, 160, 162-163
positive impact correlation, 150-151
redress movement knowledge
correlation, 201
attitudes toward children's
outmarriages, 174, 175
communication about internment, 89-
91, 93, 94, 208, 253
educational goals, 182-183
length of internment, 254
negative affect correlation, 148-149
perception of parental suffering
correlation, 160, 162-163
premature deaths of, 141-143, 153-154,
208, 212, 253
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 2, 6
"Food stories," of internees, 87-88
Ford, Gerald, 191
442nd Regimental Combat Team, 13
Future internment
resistance to, 120, 131-133, 135
ethnic neighborhood residence factor,
123
ethnic preference correlation, 133
geographical residence factor, 122,
250-251
perception of coping and suffering
correlation, 160, 162, 163
socialization pattern correlation, 123
sense of confidence regarding, 125-
126
Gaman, 101, 165, 213
Gender factors. See Sex factors
General attitudes, of Sansei Research
Project participants, 67
assessment procedure for, 115-116
Index
General attitudes, of Sansei Research
Project participants (Cont.)
ethnic neighborhood residence factor,
123
geographical residence factor, 122
perception of coping correlation, 160
Gentlemen's Agreement, 4-5
Geographic residence, of Sansei Research
Project participants, 58-59, 63-65
Geographical residence factor, 249-251
in communication about internment,
81, 94-95, 250
in dating his tory, 168
in ethnic preference, 117, 120-123,
249-250
in future internment resistance, 122,
250-251
in general attitudes, 122
in ]apanese American organization
membership, 180-181, 249-250
in ]apanese language proficiency, 177-
178, 249
in knowledge of internment, 110-111
in negative affect, 147, 148, 217
in outmarriage, 171-172, 173, 249
in perception of suffering and coping,
157-158, 217
in positive impact of internment, 150
in redress movement attitudes, 194, 195
in redress movement involvement, 199-
200, 249, 250, 251
resettlement-related, 210
in sense of confidence, 125, 128-129,
250,251
in social identification, 217
in socialization, 175-176
Grandparents, internment memories of,
211
Great Depression, cross-generational
effects of, 37-38
Grower-Shipper Vegetable Association,
18
Gullion, Allen w., 2 Inouye, Daniel, 189
Hawaiian ]apanese Americans
assimilation, 138
age distribution, 61-62
internment, 3-4, 72, 210
Sansei, 125, 167-168
sense of confidence, 125
271
Hawaiian ]apanese Americans (Cont.)
social behavior, 167-168
during World War 11, 3-4, 72, 110,
210
Hazukashi, 31-32
Health problems, internment-related, 141-
143,153-154
Hirabayashi, Gordon, 22, 24, 25, 193
Hmong refugees, 221
Hohri, William, 192
Holocaust survivors
children of
ethnic identification, 45-46, 51
ethnic preferences, 124
knowledge of Holocaust, 114
outmarriage, 124
psychological disorders, 42-45
sense of responsibility, 203
cross-generational studies of, 42-51
discussion of Holocaust by, 45, 48-49,
99-100, 153-154
emotional disclosure, 153-154
familial relationships, 42-49
Hoover, J. Edgar, 3
HR442, 193
Immigrants, attitudes toward cultural
heritage, 214
Immigration Act of 1924, 4
Immigration policy, 4-5
Income levels, of Sansei Research Project
participants, 61, 62, 182
outmarriage rate correlation, 172
perception of coping and suffering
correlation, 159, 162
Income tax records, of ]apanese American
internees, 19
Informers, in internment camps, 28
Injustice
assimilation and, 214-215
silence as response to, 187-188, 215,
218
Insecurity. See also Confidence, sense of
as internment response, 139, 140-141,
152
Intelligence services, pre-World War 11
monitoring of ]apanese Americans, 3
Intermarriage, 169-174, 183. See also
Outmarriage
272
Internment
adjustment to, 151
economic impact, 17-20, 141, 143
interest in, 66, 103-106, 113
age factors, 103-104, 113
perception of coping and suffering
correlation, 159, 162
sex factors, 246
judieial significance, 20-25
Justice Department's response, 22-
25
knowledge of, 66-67, 75-80,106-114
age factors, 111
age of first memory, 75-77
Asian American studies coursework
correlation, 106, 112-113
educational factors, 248
geographical residence factor, 110-111
intergenerational communication
correlation, 97
perception of coping correlation, 159
soeial context, 113-114
sources of information for, 77-80, 99
physical effects, 141-143, 153-154
physical reminders, 151
possibility of recurrence. See Future
internment
positive effects, 140, 144, 146, 149-151,
154,160,162,185,209
positive experiences during, 87
protective nature of, 188
psychological effects, 26-35
as redress movement obstade, 187
public attitudes toward, 5-6
public awareness of, 188, 192
raeism as factor in, 2-3,4-6,192,212,219
reparations for. See Redress movement
soeial effects, 26-35
Internment camps
educational policy in, 11, 14-15
employment in, 11, 14-15
informers in, 28
intragroup conflicts in, 28
living conditions in, 9-11
medical care in, 10-11
pilgrimages to, 189, 190, 191
Sansei Research Project partieipants'
knowledge of, 108-109
Issei. See also Grandparents
effect of internment on, 29-30
Index
Japan
military victories of, 2
public attitudes toward, 191
relations with United States, 131, 220-
221
Japanese American Citizens League
UACL), 21, 28
members' outmarriage/intermarriage
patterns, 174
raeist activities against, 220
redress movement partieipation, 189,
190, 191
Sansei Research Project partieipation,
58,59,210
Japanese American organizations
members' age, 180, 246
members' geographical residence, 180-
181, 249-250
members' marriage patterns, 170-171,
174
Sansei membership, 179-182
Japanese Americans
age distribution, 4-5
FBI arrests of, 6
lower-middle dass status, 29
as model minority, 189
public attitudes toward, 27. See also
Discrimination, toward Japanese
Americans; Raeism, toward
Japanese Americans
soeial stereotypes, 27
Japanese culture. See also Cultural values
loss of, 176-179
Japanese language, loss of, 176-179
Japanese nationality, Japanese Americans'
renuneiation of, 12
Justice Department, response to
internment, 22-25
Knox, Frank, 2
Korematsu, Fred, 22, 25, 193
Loyalty, familia!, 39
Loyalty questionnaire, 11-13, 28
Manzanar internment camp, 89
Marital status, of Sansei Research Project
partieipants, 58
Marriage patterns, of Holocaust survivors'
children, 124
Index
Marriage patterns, of Sansei Research
Project partidpants, 169-175
intermarriage, 169-174, 183
of Japanese American organization
members, 170-171, 174
outmarriage, 70, 129, 169-174, 183, 199,
252-253
age factars, 247
communication barriers correlation,
251
definition, 169
ethnic preference correlation, 124,
172,251
internment knowledge correlation,
251
parental gender correlation, 252-
253
redress movement knowledge and
activity correlation, 199, 251
sense of confidence correlation, 129
sodal significance, 174
parental attitudes toward, 174-175, 183
Matsunaga, Spark, 189
McCloy, John J., 3
Medical care, in internment camps, 10-11
Military draft, 13, 28
Ministry, as Sansei career choice, 182
Miyatake, Henry, 190
Model of governance, 26-27
Mothers
age during internment, 254
as communication barrier, 93
perception of suffering correlation,
162-163
redress movement knowledge
correlation, 201
communication about internment, 89-
90, 93, 94, 208
length of internment, 254
premature deaths of, 142
Multigenerational research, 37-51
developmental perspective, 40-42
about Holocaust survivors, 42-49
methodological issues, 49-51
Multi-infancy, 40
Murphy, Frank, 25
Myths, family, 39
National Coalition for Redress and
Reparations, 192
273
National Council for Japanese American
Redress, 192
Native Americans, relocation. See
American Indians, relocation
Naval Intelligence, 2
Nazis
children of, 203
familial interactions, 102
Negative affect, 144, 146, 147, 148-149,
154, 208-209
age factars , 148
geographical residence factars, 147, 148
intergenerational communication level
correlation, 98
length of paternal internment
correlation, 148-149, 254
perception of coping correlation, 160
Nisei
characteristics, 252-254
changing attitudes toward internment,
213
defense mechanisms, 32-34
effect of internment on, 30-35
premature deaths, 141-143, 153-154
shared internment experience, 209-210
North California Civil Liberties Union, 6
100th Battalion, 13
Outmarriage, 70
age factors, 247
communication barriers correlation, 251
definition, 169
educational factars, 172
ethnic preference correlation, 124, 251
geographical residence factors, 171-172,
173, 249
by Holocaust survivors' children, 124
Japanese American organizations
membership correlation, 251
knowledge about internment
correlation, 251
parental gender correlation, 252-253
redress movement knowledge
correlation, 199, 251
sense of confidence correlation, 129
sodal significance, 174
Parental gender. See also Fathers; Mothers
intergenerational communication
correlation, 80, 81
274
Parental gender (Cont.)
sense of confidence correlation, 127-
128,208
Parents. See also Fathers; Mothers
age at internment, 124
Pearl Harbor, 2
Sansei Research Project partieipants'
knowledge of, 109, 110
Political representation, of ]apanese
Americans, 188, 189, 191, 193
Positive impacts, of internment, 140, 144,
146, 147, 149-151, 154, 185, 209
perception of coping and suffering
correlation, 160, 162
Posttraumatic stress disorder, 100, 213
Premature deaths, of internees, 141-143,
153-154
Property losses, of ]apanese American
interne es , 17-20
Psychological dis orders
of Holocaust survivors' children, 42-
45
of Sansei Research Project partieipants,
139, 209
Psychological effects, of internment, 26-
35
on Issei, 29-30
on ]apanese American community, 27-
29
on Nisei, 30-35
as redress movement obstacle, 187
on Sansei, 209
Purcell, ]ames, 24-25
Race tracks, as assembly centers and
internment camps, 9, 89
Raeism
as basis for internment, 2-3, 4-6, 192,
212,219
as motivation for internment, 4-6
as redress payment response, 220
Sansei attitudes toward, 196-197
Reagan, Ronald, 193
Redress movement, 68, 185-205
barriers to, 186-188
Bush on, 185
communication about internment
correlation, 82, 97
as coping strategy, 213
development of, 186
Index
Redress movement (Cont.)
importance to Sansei generation, 218
]apanese American organizations
membership and, 180
]apanese American opposition to, 190,
197
knowledge of internment correlation,
113,114
monetary payments of, 190, 192, 193,
194-196, 199, 219
raeist response to, 220
positive effects, 204-205
Sansei contributions to, 185-186
Sansei Research Project partieipants
attitudes toward, 193-205, 246,
247, 248
Sansei Research Project partieipants
involvement, 198, 199-200, 209,
216, 218, 246, 249, 250, 251
War Relocation Authority resettlement
policies and, 187
Religious background, of Sansei Research
Project partieipants, 59, 64-65, 249
Religous factors, in outmarriage/
intermarriage rates, 173-174
Relocation, xiii.
of American Indians, 219
effect on ]apanese American
community, 28-29
See also Internment
Reparations, for internment survivors.
See Redress movement
Repatriation, of ]apanese aliens, 12, 14
Resettlement, of ]apanese Americans, 14-
15. See also Geographical residence
factor
Roosevelt, FrankIin D., 1, 109
Sadness. See also Negative affect
Sansei
cultural values, 54
definition, 55
dual identity, 54-55, 92-93
Sansei Research Project, 53-73
data collection methodology, 55
description and methodology, 53-73
developmental perspective, 40-42
implications of findings, 207-218
of soeial identification, 216-218
for study of injustice, 214-216
Index
Sansei Research Project (Cont.)
implications of findings (Cont.)
for understanding traumatic stress,
211-214
interviews, 68-69, 243-244
analysis of, 70-71
measures, 65-68
attitudes, 67
communication patterns, 66
ethnic identity, 67
interest in internment, 66
knowledge about internment, 66-67
perception of coping and suffering,
67-68
redress attitudes, 68
methodological issues, 71-73
sample bias, 210-211
survey, 55-68
Sansei Research Project participants
born in internment camps, 140
career choices, 182, 183-184, 215-216
communication with parents about
internment. See Communication,
intergenerational, about Japanese
American internment
coping, perception of. See Coping,
perception of
demographic characteristics, 57-65
age, 57-58, 61-62
education, 59, 61, 247-248
geographical residence, 58-59, 63-
65
income levels, 61, 62, 182, 248-249
mari tal status, 58
religion, 59, 64-65, 249
educational goals, 182-183
ethnic preference. See Ethnic
preference
Hawaiian, 167-168. See also Hawaiian
Japanese Americans
sense of confidence of, 125
interest in the internment. See
Internment, interest in
Japanese American organizations
membership, 179-180
knowledge of internment. See
Internment, knowledge of
perceptions of internment's personal
and family impact, 137-154
achievement, 138-139
275
Sansei Research Project participants
(Cont.)
perceptions of internment's personal
and family impact (Cont.)
assimilation, 53-54, 137-138, 151-
152, 176-177, 203, 209, 216-
217
familial distance, 98, 144, 146-147,
160, 162, 163
negative affect, 144, 146, 147, 148-
149,154
parental health problems, 141-143,
153-154
parental insecurity, 140-141
positive impacts, 140, 144, 146, 147,
149-151,154,185
self-esteem/self-identity, 139-140,
152-153
psychopathology of, 139, 209
redress movement and. See Redress
movement
sense of confidence. See Confidence,
sense of
social behavior, 167-184
career choices, 182, 183-184
dating history, 167-168
educational goals, 182-182
Japanese American organizations
membership, 179-182
Japanese language and culture loss,
176-179
outmarriage/intermarriage, 169-174,
183
parental marriage preferences, 174-
175, 183
socialization patterns, 175-176, 183
social identity of, 216-218
suffering, perception of. See Suffering,
perception of
Sansei Research Project participants, No-
Camp, 71-72
age range, 72
dating history, 168
ethnic preferences, 116-117, 121, 207
general attitudes, 118-119, 121
interest in internment, 103-105, 113
interned relatives of, 211
Japanese Americans organizations
membership, 179-180
knowledge of internment, 108-109
276
Sansei Research Project participants, No-
Camp (Cont.)
knowledge of redress movement, 197-
198, 202
outmarriage rates, 173
sense of confidence, 125-126, 128, 131
Sansei Research Project participants,
One-Parent
dating history, 168
ethnic preferences, 116-117, 121, 124,
207
general attitudes, 118-119, 121
interest in internment, 103-105, 113
]apanese American organizations
membership, 179
]apanese language proficiency, 177, 178
knowledge of internment, 108-109
knowledge of redress movement, 197,
198, 202-203
outmarriage rates, 173
sense of confidence, 125-127
Sansei Research Project participants,
Two-Parent
characteristics, 208
dating history, 168
ethnic preferences, 116-117, 121, 124,
207
general attitudes, 118-119, 121
interest in internment, 103-105, 113
]apanese American organizations
membership, 179
]apanese language proficiency, 177, 178
knowledge of internment, 108-109
knowledge of redress movement, 197-
198, 202-203
positive impacts on, 146, 149, 154
sense of confidence, 125-126, 127
Seabrook Farms, New Jersey, 14
Seattle Evacuation Redress Committee,
190, 191, 192
Self-blame, by Nisei, 31-32
Self-esteem
comparative suffering and, 155-156
increase of, 152-153
loss of, 139-140, 152-153
Self-esteem theory, ethnicity-based, 152
Sex factors
in ethnic preference, 117, 121, 246,
247
in interest in internment, 104, 246
Index
Sex factors (Cont.)
in intergenerational communication,
246-247
in outmarriage, 172-173, 247
in positive impact of internment, 149
in redress movement knowledge, 247
in sense of confidence, 127-128
in trauma response, 143
Shi-ka-ta-ga-nai, 101
Shintoism, 29-30
Social behavior, of Sansei Research
Project participants, 167-184
career choices, 182, 183-184
dating history, 167-168
educational goals, 182-183
]apanese American organizations
membership, 179-182
]apanese language proficiency, 176-179
outmarriage/intermarriage, 169-174, 183
socialization patterns, 175-176, 183
Social comparison theory, of self-esteem,
152
Social effects, of internment, 26-35
on Issei, 29-30
on ]apanese American community, 27-29
on Nisei, 30-35
Social exchange theory, of self-esteem,
152
Social identity theory
of self-esteem, 152
of sense of confidence, 129
Socialization. See also Ethnic preference
with Caucasian Americans, 175-176
problems of, 140
Social stigmatization, effect on self-
esteem, 152-153
Spouses, non-]apanese. See also
Outmarriage
internment, 9
Stereotypes, of ]apanese Americans, 27
Stigmatization, effect on self-esteem, 152-
153
Stimson, Henry 1., 2-3
Stress, traumatic, 142
ethnicity as mediator of, 211-214
Suffering, perception of, 67-68, 155-
165
age factors, 158-159, 162, 246
ethnic preference correlation, 160, 162,
163
Index
Suffering, perception of (Cont.)
geographical residence factors, 157-
158,217
intergenerational communication level
correlation, 97
parental age correlation, 253, 254
redress movement attitudes correlation,
200-201
Supreme Court, reviews of Executive
Order 9066, 22-25
illegal basis of, 203
Tax records, of Japanese American
internees, 19
Testimony, therapeutic effects, 205
Topaz internment camp, 9
Trauma nondisclosure, by trauma
survivors, 99-100
health effects of, 153-154, 212-213
Thle Lake internment camp, 12
United States-Japanese relations
attitudes toward, 131
as interracial tension cause, 220-221
Uno, Edison, 190
277
Ventura, Mary, 22-23
Veterans
opposition to redress movement,
205
Vietnam, 130
Victimization, vulnerability to, 212
Vigilantism, toward Japanese Americans,
4
Violence
toward Asian Americans, 220-221
toward Japanese Americans, 4, 15, 220-
221
Voluntary organizations. See also
Japanese American organizations
Japanese American membership, 181-
182
War Relocation Authority (WRA), 10-11
Americanization policy of, 30
redress movement and, 187
Sansei Research Project participants'
knowledge of, 109-110
Yasui, Minoru, 22, 23, 25, 193
Young Buddhist Association, 58