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In Echoes of Trauma, medical anthropologist Gwenn Jensen traces the longitudinal ramifications of racism, the chronic stress of imprisonment in concentration camps, and widespread healthcare inadequacies on the well-being of Japanese American Nisei during WWII and beyond.
Based on ninety oral history interviews conducted between 1995 and 2005, Jensen’s work uncovers long-term health impacts on former incarcerees, relating personal stories of Japanese Americans with archival corroboration of their traumatic experiences of having been made prisoners in their own land. These memories illuminate the betrayal and lifelong consequences of imprisonment not only on physical and psychological health but also including intergenerational trauma passed on to subsequent generations. Echoes of Trauma details these short- and long-term health effects and records the stories of these Americans for posterity.
In the wake of the current political climate, with echoes of this past reverberating, the reexamination of Japanese American incarceration undertaken here underscores the importance of comprehending the full fallout from incomprehensible injustice visited upon innocent and law-abiding citizens.
“Through rich oral history interviews, this book brings to vivid life the experiences of Nisei men and women—including medical staff in the WRA-run concentration camps—during and after World War II. Illuminating the profound effects of mass removal and confinement on health, this unique study brings new dimension to Japanese American history.”
—Valerie Matsumoto, University of California, Los Angeles, George and Sakaye Aratani Nikkei in the Americas Series editor
Gwenn M. Jensen is an oral historian and medical anthropologist who has written about health legacies engendered by historical events and presented her research at a number of venues, including the Oral History Association, the American Association for the History of Medicine, and the American Anthropological Association. She is coauthor, with Naomi Hirahara, of Silent Scars of Healing Hands: Oral Histories of Japanese American Doctors in World War II Detention Camps.