Monica Sone’s Nisei Daughter: Internment and Psychoracial Development

Abstract

The Japanese internment was the legitimate, political, and material manifestation of racism the American government inflicted on Japanese Americans. As the institutionalized form of racism, the internment is the main wound that causes the collective silence of Japanese Americans to be formed. The collective silence of Japanese Americans is getting more complicated as the internees live with the desire to be accepted into mainstream society and encounter their constant refusal. Hence, to examine the nature of their silence is to examine its relation to the racism inflicted on the Japanese Americans. My exploration of Sone’s Nisei Daughter focuses on the process of the young narrator's psychoracial development. Exploring the process of her racial awakening, this paper examines the constructing process of the collective silence of the Japanese internees and deals with the psychological interactions of the internees with American racism, assimilation, and their Japaneseness. Drawing on psychoanalysis and trauma studies, this paper will provide crucial insights into the psychological responses of the internees towards their Yankee and Japanese ideals.