Asian American Research Journal

Trauma is primarily understood as a personal experience in which an event occurs andleaves long-term psychological distress. However, historical trauma exposes that trauma does notexist in isolation. Historical trauma is defined as “distressing or life-threatening events whichmembers of a group with a shared social identity experience together and pass on to theirdescendants”. This shift from direct survivor to descendant is very nuanced because it can 1manifest in genetic and psychological ways. Historical trauma has been studied in Holocaust 2survivors and Indigenous communities in North America, yet research is lacking AsianAmerican experiences. In this paper, I study historical and intergenerational trauma from the 3Japanese Incarceration Camps and the Khmer Rouge Genocide. This paper does not aim toequate or compare these two dissimilar experiences, but rather, learn from their differingcircumstances. In particular, I focus on the interactions between survivors of these traumaticperiods and their descendants in the United States, using these two perspectives to explorepathways to intergenerational healing.

To contextualize these experiences, I synthesized several sources regarding the Japanese American and Cambodian American experiences. For the Japanese American experience, Iinterviewed Evelyn Tanaka (real name omitted for confidentiality), who is a Yonsei(fourth-generation) Japanese American woman and social worker in the Bay Area. To capturethe Cambodian American experience, I utilized Afterparties by Anthony Veasna So, a collection.

By exploring these two ethnicities’ nuanced experiences, I seek to investigate howdifferent generations can build compassionate relationships through emotional understanding. Iask, How can the development of emotional literacy between survivors and descendants helpcommunities rediscover their identities and relationships with one another, within and beyond thecontext of their trauma? How can Asian Americans heal in community with one another?