Nagata, D.K., & Takeshita, Y.J. (1998). Coping and Resilience Across Generations: Japanese Americans and the World War II Internment. Psychoanalytic Review, 85, 587-613.

Summary

Examines cultural and societal factors that helped promote positive coping and resilience among 2nd-generation Japanese Americans (Nisei) who were imprisoned and lived in internment camps following the Japanese military bombing of Pearl Harbor, and 3rd-generation Japanese Americans (Sansei) born after the war. Themes of internment-related Nisei coping and resilience were taken from in-depth interviews conducted in 1996 with 30 Nisei former internees as part of a larger Nisei Research Project. Perspectives on Sansei coping and resilience were based on earlier work exploring the intergenerational effects of the internment (D. K. Nagata, 1990, 1993). Discussion addresses several main questions: (1) What types of internment-related stressors did internees face? (2) How did internees cope with these stressors during the war? (3) How have they remained resilient? (4) In what ways have their coping strategies and perspectives on the internment changed after the war? and (5) How has their internment experience affected the coping and resilience of their Sansei offspring? (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)