Trauma of Japanese American WWII incarceration lasted generations: study

A West Virginia University study has revealed that Japanese American women who were likely incarcerated in World War II detention camps as children gave birth to less healthy babies decades later, demonstrating how trauma from forced displacement can ripple across generations.

The research, published in the Journal of Public Economics in February, found that Japanese American mothers born on the West Coast before 1946 gave birth to babies weighing 81 grams less on average than babies born to Japanese American mothers from Hawaii. The study documented one additional low birth weight baby per 100 births, equivalent to a 15% increase, among mothers who had been incarcerated.

Using birth data from 1970 to 1988, researchers analyzed outcomes for women born between 1925 and 1956. Effects persisted even for Japanese American mothers born between 1947 and 1956 — a decade after camps closed — with babies 50 to 56 grams lighter. The research used Hawaii as a comparison group since only 1% of Japanese Americans there were incarcerated, compared to nearly complete imprisonment on the mainland West Coast.

The research examined the effects of President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1942 executive order that led to the forced evacuation of approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans to prison camps. Lead researcher Daniel Grossman emphasized the study’s broader implications about intergenerational trauma.

“Forced migration uproots communities,” Grossman told WVU Today. “The trauma, loss of assets and displacement have long-lasting effects … Decades after exposure to incarceration, the nutritional, psychological and economic deprivations incarcerees experienced still harm their offspring.”

The findings contribute to growing understanding of how historical injustices can affect multiple generations, potentially informing policies for current displaced populations worldwide.