Japanese-Americans who lived through the incarceration or whose parents were in the camps say the negative rhetoric about Muslims and immigrants today reminds them of the racism they encountered decades ago and how damaging the experience was to the health and well-being of their community.

Japanese-Americans worry immigrants and Muslims could suffer from the same lasting effects their incarceration had on them and their descendants.

“A lot of the reactions were defense mechanisms — repression, denial, rationalization,” Mass said in an email. “It was also our Japanese American upbringing to suppress emotion and downplay feelings of shame and humiliation.”

“The reason that the healing has been so delayed is because the government wasn’t owning up to it and people who were victims themselves went along with that narrative that said what you experienced wasn’t that bad, but it was an abuse of power,” Ina said. “It affected deep psychological sense of self and anxiety about being victims of racism.”

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