(Originally posted at
Kyoto Journal June 10, 2006)
My hope is that by sharing our experience it will serve to increase people's awareness of the traumatic consequences of ethnic prejudice and discrimination.
Stories serve to humanize what could be seen as "just another historical event." The names, faces, emotions of fellow human beings, especially children, can convey a message that no history book can. It is through this humanizing process that empathy occurs and therein hope for our humanity.
–Satsuki Ina
Trauma psychologist and award-winning filmmaker Dr. Satsuki Ina has devoted her life to healing trauma resulting from institutional discrimination.
(Ina family photo)Ina's work in healing the wounds of collective trauma springs from her early childhood experience. She was born and spent her early childhood in
Tule Lake Segregation Center, a maximum-security prison for Japanese Americans during the Second World War.
(Japanese Americans behind fence. Photo: Tule Lake Segregation Center: 1942-1946)Ina was one of over 60,000 Japanese American children incarcerated by the U.S. government. Over half of the 120,000 individuals of Japanese ancestry forced from their homes and detained without trial were under the age of 18. Infants were even taken from orphanages because of the
the belief that there was no difference between Japanese American babies and Japanese Imperial Soldiers:
One Los Angeles Times editorial noted:
"A viper is nonetheless a viper wherever the egg is hatched.... So, a Japanese American born of Japanese parents, nurtured upon Japanese traditions, living in a transplanted Japanese atmosphere and thoroughly inoculated with Japanese ...ideals, notwithstanding his nominal brand of accidental citizenship almost inevitably and with the rarest exceptions grows up to be a Japanese, and not an American..."
In a quest to heal herself and others from the profound trauma of persecution and detention, Dr. Ina has spent the rest of her life trying to understand why and how these injustices happened.
Ina's films,
Children of the Camps and
From a Silk Cocoon, focus on the Japanese American experience. However, she is not only concerned about the past suffering of Japanese Americans but also about all people who have suffered or are suffering because of historical trauma and discrimination. Her films hold broadly relevant lessons about why dominant groups are compelled to scapegoat other groups of people. They bear witness to the psychological violence of cultural and institutional racism.
(Barracks where detained Japanese American families lived. Photo: Tule Lake Segregation Center: 1942-1946)Moral philosopher Emmanuel Levinas asserted that every individual is unique, and ought not be reduced to the supposed characteristics to any group to which that person might belong. Sadly, the dominant view of multiculturalism is a collective kitsch view that equates individuals with static and reductionist cultural stereotypes. Such perception leaves no room for nuanced thought, including the idea of diversity within cultures. Levinas said that we have an ethical responsibility to keep our minds open to the reality of people as individuals and to realize that we can never know the depths of any person. Levinas also said the prophetic voice must speak for the voiceless, to express their suffering, without excuses.
Satsuki Ina is this kind of prophetic voice. Concerned that the newest manifestations of racism might create replays of the extreme ethnic profiling that she and other Japanese Americans endured, the psychologist is compelled to bring what she has learned to the largest audiences possible.
"So much of what happened to Japanese Americans stemmed from something similar to what we're looking at today, with anxiety about terrorism and looking for a scapegoat," Ina explains. "So there's a parallel that's happening. It sounds like almost the same language that was used right after Pearl Harbor was bombed. We want to prevent a violation of human rights from happening again."
Also, by helping to support those who are persecuted solely on the basis of race, Japanese Americans are "doing for others what they could not do for themselves," thereby contributing to their own healing, Ina added.
Ina emphasizes the power of dialogue in helping to heal past collective trauma, especially through "compassionate witness," listening to each other's stories, with openness.
There's something about the postwar Japanese North American experience that reminds me of people who hid their identity because of persecution, including the Crypto Jews who were forced to convert during the Spanish Inquisition and Hidden Christians who were forced to worship in secret after persecution began during the Tokugawa period (1603-1868) in Japan. I have wondered why Japanese Americans assimilated so readily to the dominant Anglo-American culture. I thought maybe people of Japanese heritage were not attached to their heritage until I saw your film. Do Japanese North Americans still fear their Japanese heritage? There is no doubt that the Japanese American WW II imprisonment experience has contributed to an accelerated level of assimilation of Japanese Americans. We have the highest outmarriage rate of any ethnic group in America at a rate of 60% and increasing.
I wouldn't say it is a result of the fear of being Japanese, but more the fear of being ostracized, excluded and disempowered.
However, today, even as our racial identity is slowly being diluted in the US, there is a sense of pride in our ethnic identity as Japanese Americans.
A small but growing group of young political and social activists who are "hapa" or mixed race are expressing the need to identify with their different ethnic identities rather than just blend into the mainstream.
People throughout the world seem to be starting a process of acknowledging and rectifying "race trauma," while new forms of race trauma continue to emerge. African-American historian John Hope Franklin says that "unacknowledged race trauma" is festering in the United States. I think this is true for the entire world.
I felt that you made this film as a "lesson" to the rest of the world about the tragic consequences of the collective demonization of groups of people. As a psychologist, do you have any view about why, after the Japanese American detainment, the European Holocaust, Native American forced removals, African-American slavery and oppression during the Jim Crow period, and Second World War Japanese militarist atrocities, that people haven't learned more from history?Yes, both of the documentaries I have made,
Children of the Camps and
From A Silk Cocoon were motivated by the hope that the experience of the Japanese Americans will serve as a lesson to be learned about the human consequences of race hatred, war, and the failure of political leadership.
From a social psychology perspective, when there is an ever-increasing level of societal anxiety as a result of war, economic threat, diminishing resources, etc., the way to bind that anxiety is often to find a scapegoat to direct all the fear and anger.
This process often requires that the scapegoated group be dehumanized so that inhumane treatment can be justified.
Pearl Harbor was not the beginning of anti-Japanese hostility, there is clear historic evidence that anti-Asian sentiment in America was very strong many years leading up to the war. Well, there are lots more and I could go on, but I'll just stop here.
How can we help to change history and to further healing? Will learning that there are no "races," and that we are all related, with common African ancestors, finally make a difference?There is of course no simple answer to this question, but my belief is that, rather than minimizing our differences, we must create a world community that values the richness in our differences. So many of the political blunders that our American leaders have committed is a result of their lack of understanding of the cultural, religious, and social values of the different countries we are dealing with.
This ethnocentric point of view can be changed through early education, person to person contact, and inspired leadership. One step for me is to bring the story of the Japanese American experience to the Japanese community so that we may exchange our views and experiences and have a better understanding of one another.
Has making this film helped to heal you?As a former prisoner myself, telling this story of my family and my community has been a powerful healing experience.
As a psychotherapist I often see my work as helping individuals who have suffered trauma to develop a coherent autobiographical narrative as an important part of their healing process. This applies to the individual as well as to the community.
What is the reaction among Japanese you have met regarding the experience of Japanese American detainees? Could sharing this experience be a means to counter historical forms of ethnic prejudice and discrimination in Japan?Most Japanese people that I have met did not know about the experience of the Japanese Americans. They often expressed shock and sympathy.
My hope is that by sharing our experience it will serve to increase people's awareness of the traumatic consequences of ethnic prejudice and discrimination.
Stories serve to humanize what could be seen as "just another historical event." The names, faces, emotions of fellow human beings, especially children, can convey a message that no history book can. It is through this humanizing process that empathy occurs and therein hope for our humanity.
- Jean Miyake Downey
(Half-completed military buildup housing project disrupts the skyline of a neighborhood in Guam. The contractor, Younex, is facing questions about impacts on Northern Guam water resources and its relationship with permitting agencies, including the Guam Land Use Commission, and a court decision that voided a zoning variance. The South Korean construction company halted work on these luxury condominums intended for sale to buildup carpetbaggers after the Korean government ordered banks to suspend further loans to the financially struggling main contractor, Hanil Corp., last summer. Photo: Matt Wei, Marianas Variety)
(U.S. Marines have not engaged in any amphibious assaults since World War II (except for training). Recent disembarkment of 14 Marine amphibious assault tanks on Henoko's beach damaged coral and disturbed the feeding area of the critically endangered Okinawa dugong, angering Okinawans, who consider Marine training in Okinawa an assault on their natural environment.
