Relationship between religion and redress relief among Japanese American World War II incarceration survivors.

Abstract

Soon after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and the United States entered World War II, more than 110,000 Japanese Americans (two-thirds U.S. citizens) were rounded up and ordered into desolate incarceration (internment) camps based only on their ethnic heritage. More than 40 years later, the U.S. government acknowledged that the Japanese American incarceration was unjustified and provided a formal apology and monetary award to surviving incarcerees. The present study investigates the relationship between religious affiliation (Buddhist and Christian) and subsequent perceptions of relief associated with the government's belated redress. Based on a national sample of U.S.-born Japanese American former incarcerees (N = 454), Buddhist incarcerees reported greater relief from receiving redress than Christians. Across religious affiliations, older incarcerees and those with lower income reported more relief. Both Buddhist and Christian respondents who perceived more Japanese American incarcerationrelated physical suffering, and those who believed in a just world, experienced greater relief. In addition, Buddhists who more strongly believed their lives are controlled by unpredictable fate/ fortune, and Christians who more strongly believed their lives were controlled by powerful others experienced greater redress relief. Findings suggest the role of religious frameworks in shaping the restorative capacity of belated reparative acts following historical racial trauma.