Donna K. Nagata

Asian values and perceptions of intergenerational family conflict among Asian American students.

This investigation explores the perceptions of intergenerational family conflict among 93 Asian American college students from immigrant families in relation to reported discrepancies in Asian values with their parents, behavioral acculturation, gender, and ethnicity (Chinese and Korean). The study is unique in its examination of parent gender and specific dimensions of Asian values as predictors of perceived parent-child conflict. The findings indicated that as discrepancies in Asian values with either parent increased, reports of parent-child conflict also increased. Values discrepancies, but not behavioral acculturation, were significantly associated with perceived family conflicts. Independent hierarchical regression models revealed a significant association between conflict ratings and values discrepancies with mothers on the dimension of Conforming to Family Norms, and with fathers on the dimension of Education/Career Issues. However, interaction effects within a combined model to test beta coefficients differences between parents were not significant. Results also suggest that intergenerational conflict may be associated with discrepancy on Respecting Elders. Implications and limitations of these findings are discussed.

Legacy of injustice : exploring the cross-generational impact of the Japanese American internment

Historical Background. The Consequences of Injustice. Using a CrossGenerational Approach. The Sansei Research Project. Communication Patterns. Interest and Knowledge in the Internment. Ethnic Preference, Confidence in Ones Rights, and the Possibility of a Future Internment. Perceptions of Personal and Family Impact. Perceptions of Suffering and Coping. Impact on Behaviors. Redressing Injustice. Overview and Implications of Findings. Questions for the Future. Index.

Intergenerational Communication of Race‐Related Trauma by Japanese American Former Internees

The present study investigated the intergenerational communications between Japanese Americans who were unjustly ordered into U.S. concentration camps during World War II and their offspring born after the war. Survey data were collected from 450 2nd-generation (Nisei) Japanese American former internees to assess patterns of communication with their children about the internment. The study and its results are discussed in relation to racial socialization and the influence of ethnicity on reactions to traumatic stress.

Intergenerational Effects of the Japanese American Internment

February 19 is called the Day of Remembrance for Japanese Americans throughout the United States. On that date in 1942, just 10 weeks after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 authorizing the exclusion of all persons of Japanese ancestry from “prescribed military areas.” The order led to the removal and incarceration of more than 110,000 individuals, over 90% of the Japanese American mainland population. The military considered the action necessary. Internment was presumably a precaution against the actions of any potentially disloyal Japanese near the Pacific. As a result, Japanese Americans living along the West Coast and portions of Arizona were ordered to leave their homes and move to concentration camps in desolate areas of the interior. Neither citizenship nor demonstrated loyalty mattered. Two-thirds of the interned were U.S. citizens. Surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards, the Japanese Americans were held in camps for an average of 2–3 years. The intergenerational effects of their ordeal are the focus of this chapter.

Explanatory style, family expressiveness, and self-esteem among Asian American and European American college students.

Fifty-nine Asian American and 40 European American college students completed questionnaires measuring explanatory style, family expressiveness, and self-esteem. In both groups, a global explanatory style correlated with low self-esteem, but only among European Americans was an internal style associated with low self-esteem. The two groups differed in reported styles of family expressiveness, with Asian Americans indicating more emotional restraint. The participants who reported more negative submissiveness had a more global explanatory style, whereas those who reported more positive dominance had a less global explanatory style. An additional measure developed to assess attribution to collectivities did not distinguish the two groups. Results were discussed in terms of the cross-cultural generality of the learned helplessness reformulation.

In Search of Cultural Diversity, Revisited: Recent Publication Trends in Cross-Cultural and Ethnic Minority Psychology

Given the increasing proportion of ethnic minority individuals in the United States and psychologys historical reliance on theories derived from Euro American populations, it is important to monitor the status of cultural diversity research. We conducted a 10-year follow-up to Hall and Marambas (2001) report of cross-cultural (CC) and ethnic minority (EM) publication trends. Comparing data from 1993–1999 and 2003–2009, we found that research on CC and EM issues continues to be underrepresented in the literature, particularly in top-tier journals. The American Psychological Association and Association for Psychological Science journals mirrored this discouraging trend, and the absence of top CC and EM authors on their editorial boards may point to a structural barrier to broader inclusion of cultural diversity research. We also found that fewer top CC and EM researchers are employed in psychology departments than one might hope, reflecting predominant attitudes within psychology of CC and EM research as peripheral to the larger field. Although clear that few gains have been made despite numerous awareness-raising efforts, the precise deficits were somewhat obscured, because the CC and EM terminology employed by Hall and Maramba (2001) did not fully capture the breadth of cultural diversity research currently underway in psychology. Thus, future attempts to assess the field would benefit from wider-reaching search terms. Additionally, we suggest that attention to reorganization within the evolving fields of cultural diversity research and to developing new categories of inquiry for research on cultural diversity that maintain focus on minority statuses in the United States may be productive routes forward for psychology as a discipline.

Potentially Harmful Therapy and Multicultural Counseling Bridging Two Disciplinary Discourses

In recent years, psychologists have been increasingly concerned about potentially harmful therapy (PHT), yet this recent discourse has not addressed issues that have long been voiced by the multicultural counseling and psychotherapy movement. We aim to begin to bring these seemingly disparate discourses of harm into greater conversation with one another, in the service of placing the discipline on a firmer foothold in its considerations of PHT. After reviewing the two discourses and exploring reasons for their divergence, we argue that they operate according to differing assumptions pertaining to the sources, objects, and scope of harm. We then argue that these differences reveal the discipline’s need to better appreciate that harm is a social construct, that psychotherapy may be inherently ethnocentric, and that strategies for collecting evidence of harm should be integrated with a social justice agenda.

Psychological reactions to redress: Diversity among Japanese Americans interned during World War II

The psychological reactions of 2nd-generation (Nisei) Japanese Americans to receiving redress from the U.S. government for the injustices of their World War II internment were investigated. The respondents, all of whom had been interned during the war, rated the degree to which the receipt of redress nearly 50 years after their incarceration was associated with 8 different areas of personal impact. Results indicated that redress was reported to be most effective in increasing faith in the government and least effective in reducing physical suffering from the internment. Women and older respondents reported more positive redress effects. In addition, lower levels of current income, an attitudinal preference for Japanese Americans, and preredress support for seeking monetary compensation each increased the prediction of positive redress effects. Findings are discussed in relation to theories of social and retributive justice.

Patterns of Communication

This Sansei describes what other Japanese American scholars have observed, a marked silence surrounding the topic of the internment within the families of internees (Hosokowa, B., 1969; Kashima, 1980; Miyoshi, 1980). Yet silence represents more than the absence of communication; silence itself may carry significant meaning (Saville-Troike, 1985). In what ways and to what extent have the Sansei experienced the silence of their parents? How was the injustice of the camps conveyed across the generations? To answer these questions, the Sansei Research Project examined the communication patterns of Sansei respondents.

Psychosocial Correlates of Self-Reported Coping Among Japanese Americans Interned During World War II

This study investigated psychosocial correlates of self-reported internment coping among Japanese Americans who were incarcerated during World War II. Economic, physical, emotional, and total coping were assessed in relation to demographics, distal internment characteristics (age interned and length of internment), proximal internment variables (internment talk with parents, negative internment communications and emotions, in-group preference and associations), and individual personality variables (self-esteem and locus of control). Although relationships with distal variables were nonsignificant, proximal variables of negative communications and emotions and preference for Japanese Americans were significantly associated with coping reports. Self-esteem, locus of control, and income were partial mediators of internment coping ratings. Findings are discussed in relation to the complexities of assessing long-term coping responses to historical trauma.