Remembering the Incarceration of Japanese Americans, and a Look at the Lasting Health Effects
Key takeaways:
On February 19, 1942, the U.S. government forcibly removed over 110,000 Japanese Americans from their homes and sent them to internment camps, where they were imprisoned for years.
Health facilities were inadequate in the camps, which led to communicable disease, malnourishment, respiratory problems, and even preventable death.
The negative health effects of Japanese American internment (imprisonment) have been long-lasting and passed down intergenerationally.
Table of contents
February 19 is marked as the Day of Remembrance for the Japanese American Internment during World War II.
In 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which gave the U.S. government the right to remove over 110,000 Japanese Americans from their homes and imprison them. The majority of them were U.S. citizens. This happened with no due process and despite the fact that there was no evidence of espionage.
Today, we honor the survivors of the Japanese American imprisonment, as well as their families. And we acknowledge the long-lasting health effects of their hardship. We asked survivors what conditions were like in the prison camps and how the camps affected their health and the health of their descendants.
Note about language: Although this event is commonly known as the “Japanese American internment,” this is an inaccurate and biased term. “Internment” is used to describe the confinement of “enemies” during a war. Over 70% of Japanese Americans who were sent to camps were American citizens. And those who were not U.S. citizens were not enemies. Therefore, we use the term “imprisonment” or “incarceration” in this article, which more adequately describes what happened to Japanese Americans.
Why were Japanese Americans sent to prison camps?
Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, suspicion against Japanese Americans, including those who were born in the U.S., was rampant. The U.S. military suspected and accused Japanese Americans of being spies or saboteurs working for the Japanese government, without any evidence. This added to long-term racism and discrimination against Asian immigrants that had been present in the U.S.
What were health conditions like in Japanese prison camps?
Japanese Americans were forced to live in unsanitary conditions, especially in the temporary assembly centers. Before they were sent to the permanent prison camps, Japanese American people were taken to these hastily constructed centers — many of which were held in horse stables.
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In addition, diseases like typhoid and dysentery quickly spread because so many people were forced together in close quarters. Tuberculosis accounted for over 10% of the recorded deaths at the prison camps.
There were also many reports of food poisoning due to untrained food staff and improper handling of food. And the food provided by the military was often lacking in proper nutrients, which sometimes led to malnourishment.
These factors often led to preventable deaths, especially of the very old and the very young.
Dr. Satsuki Ina was born in the prison camps. She has dedicated her career as a psychotherapist, writer, and activist to working with people who are impacted by the prison camps and other forms of community trauma.
She told us about the negative health effects on her family:
“My mother had two babies in camp. She was pregnant when she was first removed from her home in San Francisco and suffered long-term health consequences from being held in horse stables during her pregnancy. She struggled with related kidney problems for most of her life afterwards.”
Because many of the camps were built in the high desert, dust storms were another big issue, Dr. Satsuki says. Those at the camps developed long-term respiratory issues, like asthma and allergies. Coccidioidomycosis, a fungal infection that can cause pneumonia, was also a serious issue in many of the camps due to dust.
What kind of healthcare access did Japanese Americans have in the prison camps?
At the temporary assembly centers, there were no hospitals. Physicians focused on vaccinating as many people as possible against communicable disease, like typhoid, smallpox, and others.
Mary Murakami, now a retired microbiologist, was 14 years old when her family was forced into the camps. She and her family spent 3 years at the camp in Topaz.
Mrs. Murakami recalls:
“They pulled people who were too sick to get on the buses and put them in hospitals. But they did not let the family know where the people were going to be placed … That was the first time it struck us that we were really going to lose any freedom.”
In the process, many families were separated.
Stepping up as a community
Healthcare at the prison camps was mostly provided by incarcerated Japanese Americans themselves (although the army also supplied doctors).
Japanese American physicians were paid an extremely small stipend — $25 a month — to provide medical care for the camps. There were hospitals and infirmaries at the camps, but many of them were not constructed until months after people had been incarcerated there.
On top of that, physicians often did not have access to sanitary or appropriate medical tools, devices, facilities, or staff in order to provide adequate healthcare.
Mrs. Murakami tells us that she, along with most other teenage girls at the camp, volunteered at the hospital giving injections. “They would give us an orange and a syringe to practice [giving injections] on the fruit,” she remembers. She also recalls the first birth at camp, in which the attending physician needed to use a wooden bread box as the newborn’s bassinet due to a lack of supplies.
Despite these harsh conditions, Japanese American incarcerated physicians took on the enormous task of providing healthcare to their communities. However, at some camps (like Topaz, where Ms. Murakami and her family were imprisoned), Japanese American doctors were allowed to leave if they had a job or got into school.
Mrs. Murakami remembers the doctors who decided to stay with gratitude. She says:
“Finally the internees got together and decided that for the Issei (first-generation Japanese Americans) it would be too difficult if there weren’t any Japanese-speaking doctors. Every family contributed money to supplement the salaries of the doctors. It wasn’t very much money, but they accepted [it]. We were very grateful they were staying in camp.”
Thanks to the incarcerated Japanese American physicians and nurses who selflessly provided medical care, the community was able to have some healthcare access.
How the trauma of Japanese American imprisonment affected survivors physically
Research conducted by Dr. Gwendolyn Jensen has found that California Nisei (second-generation Japanese Americans) died approximately 1.6 years younger than Hawaiian Niseis of the same age (Japanese Americans were not imprisoned in Hawaii).
People who were imprisoned also had a 2.1 times higher likelihood of having cardiovascular disease.
Mental health effects and trauma
The psychological effects of the imprisonment have been profound as well. People who were imprisoned understandably had a much higher risk of post-traumatic stress symptoms like disturbing flashbacks. One study found that over a third of Japanese Americans presented with post-traumatic stress disorder within 6 months after being released.
In addition, death by suicide for Japanese Americans was double that of the national population. That was a four-fold increase compared with pre-incarceration suicide rates for this population.
Mrs. Murakami recalls that it was only after she left the camp that she realized how much hostility had been brewing toward Japanese Americans. Most imprisoned people lost their entire lives, and many (like Mrs. Murakami and her husband) had to leave the American West to escape the racism and discrimination that was targeted toward Japanese Americans — an experience that compounded the trauma.
Mrs. Murakami states, “Mental health issues were a common thing. Because you’re deprived of everything.”
Dr. Ina has also personally experienced these effects. Her parents placed immense pressure on her to excel — to be the “model minority.” She says that anxiety is a common experience among younger descendants.
Dr. Ina explains, “Anxiety about how to stay safe, from my parents’ point of view, was based on how much security you could create for yourself. And having that legitimate status from the white community. That meant grades, jobs, neighborhood, spouses you chose to be with — which is a normal thing [for parents to worry about], but [in the case of Japanese Americans] it was based on survival, and not preference.”
How Japanese Americans cope with trauma from incarceration
Both Mrs. Murakami and Dr. Ina, as well as many other survivors, say that Japanese cultural concepts helped them and their families cope with the trauma of the imprisonment.
Gaman (perseverance) and Shikataganai (radical acceptance)
Mrs. Murakami explains:
“If you’re raised in a Japanese family, you’re taught: gaman. If something doesn’t go right, they tell you: shikataganai. So you find another way. I think that’s what’s got us through. Because we were all strong … It’s hard to describe. [...] there isn’t any straight explanation of those words in English.”
Research has found that Japanese cultural concepts may have helped Issei Japanese. But Nisei Japanese Americans didn’t have the same connection to these concepts, which often made coping more difficult.
In Dr. Jensen’s research, younger detainees reported more symptoms of post-traumatic stress, like disturbing flashbacks, than older (or Issei) detainees — which may be a sign that these cultural attitudes weren’t passed down to newer generations.
Processing grief through community groups
Today, there are community groups that help detainees and their descendants cope with the aftermath of the imprisonment. Dr. Ina runs a group named “Let’s Talk” with older Japanese American adults to encourage them to talk about their experiences.
“[In the Let’s Talkgroup], we talk about the camp experience, which many people feel they can’t talk about because people don’t understand what it’s like. Much of it is examining internalized oppression and the language that was used by the authorities to distort our experience. I try to help them sort out incongruences between what they were told [by the authorities] it was like [in the camps] and their actual experience,” Dr. Ina explains.
Mrs. Murakami agrees that talking about the camp experience is important. But it was very difficult for her to talk about at first.
“There are many people who won’t speak about camp life because it was so difficult,” she says. “But my feeling was: But then no one’s going to know. And things like this will happen to other groups.”
What has the U.S. done to make things right with Japanese Americans who went through imprisonment?
The Redress Movement was a political movement, which started in the 1960s, to obtain an apology, civil rights, and/or monetary compensation for Japanese Americans after their imprisonment.
After many years of fighting for reparations — led by various groups, including the National Council for Japanese American Redress and the National Coalition for Redress/Reparations — President Ronald Reagan signed The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 into law. This act granted each living survivor of imprisonment $20,000 in compensation.
Over 82,200 survivors were paid.
The bottom line
The Japanese American imprisonment was a grave injustice that led to significant and long-lasting health consequences, including post-traumatic stress, cardiovascular disease, and premature death.
This event should never have happened. But Japanese Americans, then and now, have persevered together through the hardships and stepped up to serve their community.
Perhaps Mrs. Murakami said it best: “It’s funny, because we were in camp because of our ancestry. But [our ancestry] did also help us get through it.”
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References
Densho. (2019). Thieving guards, mass food poisoning, and other facts of life in Fresno Assembly Center.
Densho Encyclopedia. (2020). Medical care in camp.
Jensen, G. M. (1998). The experience of injustice: Health consequences of the Japanese American internment. Dissertation Abstracts International.
National Archives. (2022). Executive Order 9066: Resulting in Japanese-American incarceration (1942).
Potts, M. K. (1994). Long-term effects of trauma: Post-traumatic stress among civilian internees of the Japanese during World War II. Journal of Clinical Psychology.
The National Archives. (2022). Japanese American and the war: Internment camps.
Yamato, S. (2020). Civil Liberties Act of 1988. Densho Encyclopedia.
