INHERITED SILENCES, AMPLIFIED VOICES: SANSEI AND YONSEI REINTERPRETATIONS OF THE JAPANESE AMERICAN INCARCERATION, 1995-2022

Abstract

The 1940s Japanese American incarceration echoes across time to impact Americans today. On its most fundamental level, this dissertation considers how Japanese Americans living today, specifically members of the third-generation Sansei and fourth-generation Yonsei, explore and make meaning from that lingering impact. Four unique case studies are considered over the course of this dissertation: (1) the photographs created and curated by Sansei Paul Kitagaki, Jr. for the exhibition Gambatte! Legacy of an Enduring Spirit, Triumphing over Adversity; (2) a series of films (The Orange Story, Strawberry Fields, and Seppuku) directed or produced by Sansei and Yonsei; (3) the evolution of Japanese American cultural institution Densho over time from oral history project to activist organization; and (4) the creation and early activities of activities of the online-oriented activist organization Tsuru for Solidarity, examined in conjunction with another online-oriented activist organization that emerged under very similar circumstances, Never Again Action. I argue that each of these case studies reveal unique enactments of what I term restorative amplification, a dynamic that operates on three fronts: reclaiming the agency of ancestors who had once been incarcerated by breaking historical silences, amplifying the lived resonance of generational trauma, and extending the political reach of incarceration memory by deploying it in contemporary social-justice struggles.