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The author, a member of the Interdisciplinary Research Group which studied the Japanese Americans relocated in the Chicago area, investigated by the Rorschach test immigrant Japanese Americans, called 'Issei' or 'first generation', American-born Japanese Americans called 'Nisei' or 'second generation', and a group of American-born Japanese Americans who were sent back to Japan during childhood, called 'Kibei' or 'Return to America'. He compared these groups with normal, neurotic, and schizophrenic Americans.
The psychoanalyst will find most interesting DeVos's conclusions concerning traditional Japanese culture and Japanese American acculturation. In the Issei he finds a 'lack of personality differentiation and … lack of freedom in the associative process', in accordance with the observation of Benedict and others that Japanese culture imposed rigidly defined social roles and that individual needs and personal values tended to be subordinated to expectancies of the group and the family. The characteristic records of the Issei show rigidity, a minimum of initiative, rare direct expression of negative feelings, and a striving to succeed in the face of personal defeat; many individuals show associative blocking and a depressive sense of defeat. Yet adjustment to relocation was surprisingly smooth. The continued striving to succeed seemed to be 'cast within the limitations of a constricted ego, but an ego that is directed toward endurance and the maintenance of habits of hard work. The intrapsychic difficulties probably show up more in personal and family life than in the overt social or economic sphere.
'One cannot convey through statistics the feeling gained in watching certain