UC Irvine

Ten weeks after the 1941 Japanese military attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, the U.S. government authorized the removal of more than 110,000 Japanese American men, women, and children from their homes in Western portions of the country to incarceration camps in desolate areas of the United States. The mass incarceration was portrayed as necessary to protect the country from potential acts of espionage or sabotage that might be committed by someone of Japanese ancestry. However, an extensive government review initiated in 1980 found no evidence of military necessity to support the removal decision and concluded that the incarceration was a grave injustice fueled by racism and war hysteria. The Japanese American wartime experience represents a powerful case example of race-based historical trauma. This article describes the consequences of the incarceration for Japanese Americans during and after their unjust imprisonment, their coping responses and healing strategies, as well as the impacts of receiving governmental redress more than four decades after the war's end. Examination of this specific event provides a perspective for understanding the long-term, radiating effects of racial trauma and the process of healing, over a broad arc of time and across social contexts. Current relevance of the Japanese American incarceration and implications for the field of psychology are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).