論 文Japanese American’s Cultural Trauma and Identity

朝

倉

政

要

旨

映

（日系アメリカ人のカルチュラル・トラウマとアイデンティティ）
アメリカと日本という二つの国の狭間で、歴史的に被害者となってしまった日系アメリカ人。その日系人の歴史をひもとくきっかけとなったのは、ハワイ大学留学時代、著者が日系アメリカ人に対して感じた「違和感」だった。日本という、他国に比べて言語的にも民族的にも単一国家で生まれ育ったため、異なる国の人と接触する際、その言葉と文化、アイデンティティを国籍と同一視していた。しかしながら、見た目は自分と同じ日本人、それなのに話す言語は英語、そして国籍をたずねるとアメリカ人だと答える。一方で仏教精神にもとづくお盆の風習や年末のもちつきなどの文化を大切にしていたりする、そんな日系アメリカ人たちは、現代の日本で生きる日本人よりも「日本人」ら
しいのかもしれない。第二次世界大戦以前からの、なぜ彼らがアメリカに渡り移民として定着することになったのか、世界大戦中、そして戦後、アメリカという国でどんな立場で生きてきたのかなどの歴史的背景を踏まえながら、日系アメリカ人が、文化、言語、歴史などの観点から自分たちのアイデンティティをどう捉えているのか、それらをいくつかの文献の理論にあてはめて分析した研究論文である。
Keywords: Nikkei（日系人），Japanese American（日系アメリカ人），Hawaii（ハワイ），
Cultural Trauma（カルチュラル・トラウマ），Identity（アイデンティティ・― 17 ―

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自己同一性），World War II（第二次世界大戦），Acculturation（文化適合），
Minority（少数派）

Introduction   When I first went to Hawaii as an exchange student, I noticed that there weremany people with Asian faces, and I found it a little uncomfortable because they
belonged to Americans. I was also unsettled by people who had Japanese names.
They all looked like Japanese, which made me feel a sense of closeness, but they did
not speak Japanese and they behaved differently from the people I had known inJapan. These Japanese-Americans are known as the Nikkei. Nikkei originally means
Japanese diasporas who immigrated from Japan and their descendants to other partsof the world (Nozaki, 2007). Since the Nikkei are one of the major ethnic groups ofthe islands of Hawaii, I had many opportunities to interact with them.
   The main reason I am interested in the Nikkei people in Hawaii is thatinteracting with these people forces me to think about ethnic identity in a way I
never had to when I was in Japan. The environment where I grew up in Japan islinguistically and culturally homogeneous compared with other nations, and I have
not had many opportunities to contact people of different cultures. Because of this,it was not until I travelled outside of my county at the age of 19 that I started tothink about my ethnic identity by seeing people who had different colors of skin,hair, and eyes than me and those I knew back in Japan. It is clear now that I assumed
people’s identity was only based on their ethnicity. I categorized people based on
which countries they were from, their personal appearance, their ethnicity, or theirlanguage. However, my classification system did not work on the Nikkei people andI had to rethink how I viewed people’s identities.
   I have travelled to other countries and viewed different groups of people before,
but it was my experience with the Nikkei that really forced me to reassess how I
categorize people. I think it is because they are very like the Japanese I know fromJapan, and yet so very different. On the one hand, the Nikkei cannot speak Japaneseand they are very American in the way they act, despite their Asian appearance. On― 18 ―

Japanese American’s Cultural Trauma and Identity
the other hand, even though they are Americans, I can see a large amount of Japanesecultural and linguistic aspects in them.
   For example, the Nikkei have Japanese traditions which Japanese people inJapan hardly observed today. One such tradition is the mochi pounding at the end ofa year. Another tradition is the bon-dance, which is a Buddhist custom to honor the
departed spirits of ancestors. This custom came from the Buddhist belief that the
sprits of ancestors return to the ancestral family during a short period of summer
holidays and has been cerebrated for more than 500 years in Japan. Although mostof Nikkei people consider themselves Christians, it seems that they still have a greatvalue on Japanese culture and habits. Yet these practices are rarely practiced in Japan
which I think is very sad. Thus, Nikkei people in Hawaii are not very Japanese tosome extent, but on the other hand, they are very “Japanese,” and they are sometimes
more “Japanese” than people in Japan.

Historical background of Nikkei in Hawaii   In 2008, 25% of the people in Hawaii were ethnically Japanese or had roots inJapan. These people are known as the Nikkei. At one time the Nikkei made up morethan 30% of people of Hawaii (Yoshida, 2008). These large numbers of Japanese in
the Islands of Hawaii can be traced back to 1886, when Japanese immigrants cameto Hawaii as contract laborers for sugar canes and pineapple plantations for the firsttime. They were called Gannen-mono, which means people who left for Hawaii atthe beginning of the Meiji era in Japan. Back in those days, Japanese immigrants
planned to go back to Japan with their family after making a certain amount ofmoney. However, for many of them they were never able to return because of thestarting of the World War between Japan and the U.S.
   Language has always been an important part of education of Nikkei people. In
1890, worrying about the increasing Americanization of their US-born children,
Japanese immigrants set up the first Japanese language school with the purpose ofpreserving language and culture. By 1920, 98% of all Japanese children in Hawaii
attended Japanese schools. It is reported that the number of Japanese schools were
163 before the World War II. (Tamura, 1994) During the World War II, they were all
closed down because teaching Japanese was considered the act of betrayal during the― 19 ―

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war. After the World War II, some Japanese language schools reopened. However, theconflicts between Japan and the U.S. came to be disadvantageous to the situation ofJapanese language schools. For the 1st and 2nd generations, they were planning to go
back to Japan, and they were eager to learn and keep their native language andculture. Even though 2nd generations were born in the U.S., they could have theaccess to the native language and culture from their parents. However, for 3rd andafter generations, they were born in Hawaii and they grew up as an American citizen.
Besides, during and after the World War II, those pressures of the U.S. society
pushed them to insist that they were American, not Japanese. In fact, they consideredthemselves American citizens and tried hard to show their loyalty for the U.S. Nikkei
people that I can currently see in Hawaii, are mostly 3rd, 4th, and 5th generations.
They all look like Japanese, but their native language is English which makes me feeldifferent. Even though they have the same kind of faces as me, they cannot evenspeak Japanese and they go to a church on Sundays. They are American, notJapanese. However, Nikkei people still hold traditional Japanese customs and beliefs.
In addition, some of them still go to a Japanese language school on weekends. These
are the reasons why I became interested in Nikkei people in Hawaii.

Japanese American’s cultural Trauma and identity   During the World War II, being Japanese American (Nikkei people) meant
being suspected of betrayal as the United States and Japan were at war (Yasui, 2007).
The reasoning behind this suspicion was basically physical: the Japanese Americans
had a Japanese face. In reality, the Japanese Issei (first generation) parents who wereborn in Japan did have a strong attachment to their homeland. (Watanabe, 2001).
However, those Nisei children who were born in U.S. and grew up as U.S. citizens,
while they felt close kingship with Japan also called the United States home. Even so,they were still regarded as a hostile spy or “tekikoku gaijin” (potential enemy). They
found themselves in the difficult situation of being between their Japanese parents
and American selves. This tension of identity was a major reason why a lot of Nisei
joined the military as a soldier or as a language translator to show their loyalty to the
U.S. (Watanabe, 2001)   In the wake of Imperial Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, approximately 110,000― 20 ―

Japanese American’s Cultural Trauma and Identity
Japanese nationals and Nikkei people were forced to live in a concentration camp
known as the “War Relocation Camp”. This internment of them was applied
unequally throughout U.S., as Japanese Americans residing on the West Coast of theUnited States were all interned, whereas in Hawaii, where the 150,000 Nikkei people
composed nearly a third of that territory’s population, only 1,200 to 1,800 Japanesenationals Nikkei people were interned. Of those interned in Hawaii, 62% were U.S.
citizens (Yasui, 2007). During this period, they had to give up anything that linked
them to Japan and the Japanese emperor, forcing them to give up most of their
physical belongings and even activities that represented Japanese culture.
   There are many examples of Nikkei people’s cultural trauma and theirambiguous feeling (especially Nisei and Kibei Nisei). Nisei and Kibei Nisei havetotally different backgrounds when it comes to culture and language, although they
are the same generation. Because the Kibei were sent to Japan and received educationin Japan, they grew up in a different environment and experienced the language
differently than the Nisei. However, both groups had a strong attachment to Japan,
because it was their parents’ homeland. Both groups grew up with Japanese food,language and customs and had direct access to their parents, who lived with them in
the United States. Also for both groups discrimination was very harsh due to the war
situation and also general discrimination in the United States against Japanese during
this time period (Watanabe, 2001). Much of this discrimination was due to the factthat Japan was an emerging world superpower, and many felt threatened. If Japan
had been a weak country, Americans’ anxiety over the future control of the territory
would likely have been much less dramatic, but Japan’s visibly growing militarystrength and aggressive foreign policy, and especially the large size of Japanese
population in Hawaii caused many of the Caucasians in the country to feel a great
deal of anxiety (Tamura, 1994). Under those situations, their identity formation canbe seen from the perspective of Becker’s Terror Management Theory.
   Terror management theory (TMT) emerged from the field of the social
psychology and was supported by Solomon, Greenberg, and Pyszczynski, while
Ernest Becker linked the theory to empirical science. This theory is concerned with
the implicit emotional reactions of people when confronted with the psychologicalterror of knowing that they will eventually die. It also could be described as anawareness of mortality; a trait unique to humans. There are two hypotheses included― 21 ―

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No. 26in the TMT research: the mortality salience hypothesis and the anxiety buffer
hypothesis. The mortality salience hypothesis says that if cultural worldviews andself-esteem provide protection from the fear of death, then reminding people of theroot of that fear will increase the needs of individuals to value their own cultural
worldview and self-esteem. On the other hand, the anxiety buffer hypothesis provides
the rationale that self-esteem is a buffer which serves to escape humans from the fearof death. TMT is a psychological framework that explains how we as human beings
defend against anxiety and existential terror with having those two hypotheses(Salzman, 2001).
   This theory suggests that there are two factors which the individual must sustain
in order to maintain psychological calmness and composure. The first is “culture”.
People can buffer anxiety by giving themselves up entirely to their cultural system ofvalues and to the meaning that exists in their culture. This absorption in a culture
with a worldview actually helps to buffer an existing terror. Therefore, culture is an
important aspect of human beings which could provide a potential buffer against theterror (Salzman, 2001). The other is “Self-esteem”. Self-esteem are culturally related
feelings which could be obtained by satisfying its cultural standard. People combine
themselves with the achievement of those cultural standards, which actually leads toself-esteem. Then, it in turn leads to lower anxiety and positive adaptive behavior.
Therefore, in Terror Management Theory, existing terror and fear against deathmotivate people to commit and sharpen their egos to a cultural standard. To put it
another way, culture can diminish people’s psychological terror by providing
meaning, organization and continuity to their lives. In addition, compliance with
cultural values enhances one’s feeling of security and self-esteem, provided that theindividual is capable of living in accordance with whatever particular cultural
standards apply to him or her (Salzman, 2001).
   Applying this theory to the Nissei during World War II, it is clear that theJapanese Americans, in the process of shaping their national identity at that time,
were always affected by an external terror. Political power and oppression forced
them to form a national identity. The more the political power tried to control
Japanese Americans, the more energetic the Issei and Nissei people tried looked totheir own value, culture and language for support and consistency. “Ironically,
prejudice against the Japanese helped sustain Issei loyalty to Japan and encouraged― 22 ―

Japanese American’s Cultural Trauma and Identity
Nisei to view Japan as a place of refuge from racial and social discrimination”(Tamura, 1994). As TMT implies, Japanese American people, especially the Issei
parents and the parts of the younger Nesei generation followed its psychologicalframe work in which those existing terror and mortality motivated people to beloyalty to Japan. During these difficult times they looked to their own culture todiminish the psychological terrors by providing meaning, organization andcontinuity to their lives. As a result, it encouraged them to view Japan better thanthe United States “as a place of refuge from racial and social discrimination” (Tamura,1994).
   However, some of Nisei started to hate or deny their own culture and ethnicroots when they faced discrimination against “those Japs”. Official prejudice anddiscrimination ruined the careers of many young Japanese Nisei who were “honorable
enough to admit that she loved the country from which her parents came” (Tamura,1994). This tendency was more evident among a lot to Japanese American in themainland, because Japanese in Hawaii were one of majority groups of this island(Yasui, 2007). Their large numbers and importance in the workforce meant that, earlyin the war, they didn’t really experience the harsh discrimination those in thecontinental United States had to face. However, much of this changed with thebombing at Pearl Harbor, which deepened the fear and outrage against the JapaneseAmericans and weakened their position in the U.S. society (Yasui, 2007). During theinternment period in the concentration camps, the Japanese Americans were treatedlike spies, and though some Issei parents encouraged Nisei to keep their loyalty to
Japan, most of the parents didn’t do so. Instead, they encouraged their Nisei children
to adopt American practices to be seen as loyal, and even to enlist as volunteers in
the military and fight against their parents’ homeland. Many of the Issei saw this as
the only way for their Nisei to improve their social position after the war.

U.S. Reaction to Japanese American during WWII   Without a doubt, one of the most significant events affecting Nikkei people’s
identity was the American government reaction to Imperial Japan’s attack on Pearl
Harbor and the subsequent war. The later experiences of the Issei and Nesei in theInternment camps and even in battle against their ancestral country provoked many
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different responses.
   Nozaki referenced four negative images of the Japanese prior to and during
WWII: that the Japanese were (1) Highly un-American, (2) Inferior citizens,(3) Sexually aggressive, and (4) An international menace. These stereotypes may
come as some surprise, however, when viewed in light of the manner that the Nikkei
seemed to accept the internments and other travesties to them without much trouble.
Most of the people at a concentration camp were Issei parents, their kids Nisei, andKibei Nisei. Nearly all these people grew up immersed in Japanese culture andlanguage at home, especially Kibei Nisei were educated in Japan. One would assume
that these Japanese Americans would have many of the same traits as those Japanesestill back in Japan. However, most of the perspectives given by Sansei today mention
totally opposite characteristics of Japanese people to Nozaki’s stereotypes; instead of
aggression and menacing behavior the Nikkei at that time were often known as thevery opposite. In fact, Sansei Nikkei are now wondering why their Nisei parents
entered into concentration camps without any resistance, even though they were U.S.
citizens. Their very constitutional rights were trampled on, as the action used onthem was against the ideal of freedom and equality of the United States Constitution(Nozaki, 2007). Some reason the Japanese American went so quietly into theconcentration camps was due to the fact that they were amenable, mild-manneredand quiet (Nozaki, 2007).
   I still remember that I was very shocked to watch the movie Do the Right Thing(Lee, 1989) for the first time in a seminar class while I studied at Aichi University.
The movie documents very aggressive and hateful action of people with each other.
Before seeing this movie I had never seen and experienced conflicts between different
races and social classes. I didn’t even know that there was such serious discriminationin the U.S. society, although I did know that slavery was considered acceptable at
one time in the past. I had learned that the United States was a multiethnic country
in high school, but I never knew conflicts between races still exist in the U.S. society.
I felt sorry for the black people of the film, because physical appearance such as colorof skin is not something a person can chose. I have never experienced the difficultyof being discriminated against because of my skin color in Japan, and I was struck
speechless when I realized it happened in the United States and still occurs in someways even to this day.
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Japanese American’s Cultural Trauma and Identity   Yet, the same type of thing actually happened to Nikkei people during WWII,
and we can see the visible racial discrimination in the U.S. society that occurred with
the Japanese internment camps. What is ironic here is that the United States claimed
to be a country of freedom and equality, yet this was a case of blatant discrimination
against one particular group of people based entirely on their race. Most agree that
sending those Japanese Americans to the concentration camps is a tarnish on thehistory of the United States. (Yasui, 2007). When I thought about those two facts I
even felt anger at the U.S. society which at times is only saying itself officially as acountry of freedom and equality, but it was actually acting as a country dominatedby only one type of people.
   Though most of the Issei planned on returning to Japan, there were several
factors that made them stay in the United States. John Ogbu (1978) mentions two
kinds of minority groups: Immigrant minorities and involuntary minorities.
Minority groups have been placed into their various societies either voluntarily or
involuntarily. Those who have been incorporated voluntarily are immigrants, andthose who were brought into their present society through slavery, conquest orcolonization have been considered involuntary minorities. Nikkei people best fallunder the involuntary immigrants’ classification because they considered their life in
the U.S. as temporary, without plans on being actual immigrants to the UnitedStates.
   Ogbu found the two types of minority group have significantly different
attitudes toward the host society. Immigrant minorities generally moved to theirpresent societies because they believed that the move would lead to more economic
well-being, better overall opportunities or greater political freedom. These highexpectations continually influenced the way they perceived and responded totreatment by members of the dominant group. This is similar to these early Nikkei
people; however, these parents to the Issei didn’t diffuse into the U.S. society greatly.
On the other hand, involuntary minorities usually resent the loss of their former
freedom and they perceive the social, political and economic barriers against them aspart of their underserved oppression, as was the case for many of these early Nikkei.
One reason among many was the California Alien Land of Law which prohibited“aliens ineligible for citizenship” (Watanabe, 2001). The Nikkei saw such laws as
economic oppression by the white majority who were worried about financial success― 25 ―

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No. 26that many of the Issei people were having.
   Ogbu also mentioned a dual frame which is used to compare the present
situation of minority immigrants with their former. Immigrant minorities have apositive dual frame of reference which allows them to develop or maintain an
optimistic view of their future possibilities. They think they will or can overcome
problems they are facing with the passage of the time, and they are better off in their
host society than they would be in their homeland. On the other hand, involuntaryminorities have different perception and use a different dual frame from immigrantminorities. Because they do not have “homeland” with which to compare theirpresent situation, they compare their status with that of the members of thedominant group. Involuntary minorities have a negative dual frame compared withvoluntary minorities. They cannot see their situation as temporary, and they tend tointerpret the discrimination against them as permanent and institutionalized (Ogbu,
1978).
   Based on these categories, the Issei (Nikkei 1st generation) people would havemore similarities with involuntary minorities, although there could be doubts if theymissed the life back in Japan. Those first generation Issei came to the U.S. because
they thought it easier to make money in a foreign country, not in Japan. Based on
Ogbu’s model, if Nikkei Issei are categorized into involuntary minorities, they would
also think it impossible to overcome the discriminatory situation by themselves. This
would mean they would have a negative dual frame of their status in the U.S. society.
In his research, Ogbu explores other involuntary minorities such as Blacks in
Stockton, American Indians in Utah, and other minority immigrants from Asia.
While these immigrants had their own difficulties acculturating with society in the
United States, it seems that the original Nikkei people may have felt a greater senseof inferiority. This can be claimed as it was only the Japanese immigrants that wereactually targeted by the Immigration Act of 1924 that was put in place to specifically
get rid of Japanese community from the U.S. society (Tamura, 1994). It seems that
the Nikkei had an extreme example of harsh discrimination from very early stages intheir work in the United States. Thus the Issei were not immigrants who voluntarily
went to the U.S., but they were forced to stay in the United States through socialand economic barriers and other forms of oppression.

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Japanese American’s Cultural Trauma and Identity

To become a good “American”—Americanization and Acculturation   Before WWII, the term of democracy often can be replaced as “Americanization”.
During the war, most saw Americanization as the Nisei giving unconditional loyalty
to the United States and discarding all vestiges of Japanese culture. (Tamura, 1994)
Many Caucasian Americans took to Americanizing the Japanese people, with theresult that some of Nisei started hating their own looks, along with their cultural andethnic roots. This Americanization continued with the Nesei themselves, many ofwhom did not teach Japanese to their children, the Sansei, so that they would fit into
U.S. society better (Yasui, 2007). The Kibei Nisei were also placed in a difficult
position. Though they were born in the U.S., they were educated in Japan, and manyof them had a hard time to adjusting themselves into the U.S. society after the war.
This was due in large part to their strong national pride and identity that they gained
through the time spent in Japan. However, when they returned to the U.S., they also
saw the reality of life under discrimination (Yasui, 2007). As a result, the Kibei Nisei
also had feelings of both love and hate towards Japan. Consequently, they wereneither American nor Japanese. They had lost their social position both in Japan andthe United States, finding they did not fit in either.
   Religion provided difficulties as well. Because Japanese immigrants to Hawaii
were Buddhists, Buddhism rather than Christianity spread throughout Japanesecommunities dotting the islands of the territory (Tamura, 1994). Both Nisei andKibei Nisei were mostly Buddhists, and some claim that part of the motivation
which supported the Japanese people under the harsh working conditions of theplantation was their Buddhist belief that people attain enlightenment after they
endure hardship (Tamura, 1994). However, many of the Caucasion Americans were
Christians who rejected the “alien religion” on the grounds that Buddhism wasincompatible with American ideals (Tamura, 1994). Eventually this pressure from thedominant culture in America through the process of Americanization, many of the
Nikkei people laid aside their Buddhist beliefs and became Christian.
   However, many Buddhist practices still exist today, and I find it very strange to
see Christian Nikkei do the mochi pounding and bon dance which are from
Buddhism and Shintoism. This brought up a question: What does being Christian
actually mean for these people? Here is a perfect example. One of my friends’― 27 ―

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grandparents who is Kibei Nisei told me her story about becoming Christian late inlife. It was not a natural change for her because she grew up in Japan, where it isnormal to consider oneself a Buddhist. However, my friends’ grandmother had twosons and one daughter who were all Christian and she was concerned that it would
be a burden for kids to take care of her after she died in a Buddhist manner. In
Buddhism, people have to take care of the deceased in certain intervals such as 49
days later, 1 year later, 3 years later and so on. Though she converted she still sharedwith me that she wanted to be buried in the land of Japan after she died. This idea isa very Buddhist way of thinking; people in Japan believe that a soul and a body areseparated after they died and the soul goes back to where the borne is buried. Though
she was a Christian, she still held on to her Buddhist beliefs, and I see her decision to
be a Christian as one form of assimilation of a Nikkei to adjust to the local culture
and community.
   The Nikkei people tended to assimilate quickly into a local culture andcommunity, a stark difference to other Asian people in the same places and time
periods. One reason for this might be the cultural belief and practices that it is best
to live in harmony with other people. But more than that, the discrimination andpressure from the government against Nikkei people forced them to accelerate their
Americanization, which in turn caused much of their language and cultural heritage
to wane as subsequent generations passed.
   When it comes to discussing the Second World War, I must confess that I
always feel a little guilty. Japan made huge mistakes and enacted some or bad actions
on different countries and this makes me feel a little ashamed of my country’s history.
However, studying Nikkei’s background and their effort in its history during theWorld War II somehow awakens myself to the fact that I truly love my own country
Japan no matter what it has done in the past.

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shisousha.
Ogbu, J. (1978). Immigrant and Involuntary Minorities in Comparative Perspevtice. In O. John

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Japanese American’s Cultural Trauma and Identityand Margaret, G. (Ed.) (pp. 3–33) , Minority Status and Schooling: A Comparative Study of
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