Description
In 1942, Nikkei alongside the West Coast of the United States were uprooted from their homes and placed into incarceration camps ranging along the West. After the 1941 attacks made on Pearl Harbor created an imminent threat of another Japanese attack, paranoia increased. President Franklin D. Roosevelt enacted Executive Order 9066 in February of 1942. This executive order called for the placement of all 120,000 Nikkei along the West Coast, where 112,000 lived, to be relocated into "internment camps" to prevent espionage from any Japanese on American soil. The process of relocation took full-effect in spring of 1942, removing all Nikkei, a term for all of Japanese descent, from their homes and placing them into different assembly centers, relocation centers, and internment camps. The incarceration of Nikkei psychologically traumatized the young children during incarceration, creating insecurity and subjugation to racism at young, developing ages, as well as leaving young children to seek outlets to cope with incarceration through exploring agency within the camps. Although some children experienced trauma, the exploration of agency by children influenced participation in activities within the camps, such as sports and youth groups. The experiences throughout the duration of incarceration influenced these children's identities later in adulthood, both positively and negatively. With little scholarship done on the lasting psychological effects left on these children survivors, this thesis will uncover how these children have lived with their experiences of childhood incarceration against their will, how they internalized the inflicted racism they experienced, and how these events shaped their development into adulthood. This project aims to add psychological methodologies to understanding how the incarceration of roughly 25, 000 Nikkei children affected these children's perceptions of themselves, their identities, and their development into adult years.
