Victimized Twice 3 of 4

Victimized Twice:

Part 3 of 4:  Tule Lake; Stockholm Syndrome

Many of the workshops in the 2009 Tule Lake Pilgrimage were highly emotional and very informative, not just about what had happened during the forced removal and illegal incarceration nearly seventy years before, but as to how these traumas were still affecting people, families, and communities today.  During one break-out session, I sat and listened to several elderly Japanese Americans tell their stories.  Suddenly two middle-aged Japanese Americans were yelling at each other.  One of the gentlemen was a leader in the Japanese American Citizen League (JACL) and the other was from a family whose members had been out-spoken draft-resisters during the incarceration.  Yes, the Japanese American soldiers who served with valor during WWII while their families were in concentration camps deserved lauding and recognition.  And these soldiers’ actions provided numerous examples of how and why Japanese American were “full-fledged” American.  But the point is, this is America-- where people are innocent until proved guilty.  In 1942, the federal government declared all Japanese Americans guilty of being unworthy of American citizenship with no other evidence than a racist distaste for the Japanese.  It took as much courage to fight for the rights of yourself and your family in a concentration camp as it did to fight in the battlefield.  There is nothing more American than the right to protest, dissent, and practice civil disobedience when faced with institutionalized injustices.

Why did the JACL and other hyper-loyal elements of the Japanese American community buy into the federal government racist bullshit? There is a very disturbing undertone here that no one has ever had the courage to look at.  I suspect that the position taken by the JACL and by many people who went through the American concentration camp experience (and even for some of those watching the trauma from outside) can only be describe as the result of Stockholm syndrome victimization.  The Stockholm syndrome plays a key component of this narrative and deserves a closer look: 

From Wikipedia-

Stockholm syndrome, or capture–bonding, is a psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending them. These feelings are generally considered irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims, who essentially mistake a lack of abuse from their captors for an act of kindness. The FBI Hostage Barricade Database System shows that roughly 27% of victims show evidence of Stockholm syndrome.

Stockholm syndrome can be seen as a form of traumatic bonding, which does not necessarily require a hostage scenario, but which describes “strong emotional ties that develop between two persons where one person intermittently harasses, beats, threatens, abuses, or intimidates the other.” One commonly used hypothesis to explain the effect of Stockholm syndrome is based on Freudian theory. It suggests that the bonding is the individual’s response to trauma in becoming a victim. Identifying with the aggressor is one way that the ego defends itself. When a victim believes the same values as the aggressor, they no longer become a threat.

Inferred in the definition above, but not clearly stated in the concept is that the Stockholm syndrome produces a degree of self-hatred on the part of the victim.  This self-hatred is very clear in some of the absurd stands the JACL took in the 1940’s (like suggesting Japanese Americans should be allowed to take the role of suicide troops for the American military).  This stance clearly shows an “identification” of the victims (the Japanese Americans) with their “captors” (the racist-elements of the American government). This “identification” reflects and reiterates position the federal government posited at that time by describing Japanese Americans as not quite qualified for American citizenship by nature of their ethnic origin.  Let’s not mince words here or buy-into the US government rhetoric.  One-hundred and ten thousand people of Japanese ancestry, both American citizens and resident aliens were institutionally victimized, abused, and held hostage by the US federal government during WWII.  Nowhere was this crime more egregious than at Tule Lake.

Chad Montreaux

Newell, CA