Artful Evening: Intergenerational Impacts of the Japanese American Wartime Incarceration

In the wake of Pearl Harbor and the United States’ declaration of war on Japan, the U.S. government ordered the removal of more than 120,000 men, women, and children from their homes based on their Japanese ancestry and imprisoned them in remote incarceration camps. Two-thirds were U.S. citizens. In this talk, Dr. Donna Nagata will examine how the lasting consequences of this wartime trauma continue to shape experiences of postwar third- and fourth-generation Japanese Americans. Donna Nagata, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology in the Clinical Science Area at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She has studied the psychosocial effects of the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans for over three decades, with a particular focus on postwar multigenerational impacts.