Introduction

        Scientists define memory as a function of the brain in response to cognitive stimulants such as attention, visual perception, recollection of events and details, and more, observed through variances in stimuli (physical brain response) and oral responses between individuals. A recent study has shown that cognitive processes such as information recollection, attention, visual perception, recollection of events and details, and memory storage vary by culture, showcasing just how much collective memory can impact our brain function.1 Examining memory on a technical level, scientists say that it is more than the measurable accuracy with which one can recall events and details and that it can also be other forms of cognitive processes beyond just recalling events and details.2

On the other hand, a humanities approach to memory looks at how memory is passed down through communities over generations, and how memory shapes those communities of people and identity. This approach pays attention to experiences that people ‘‘remember’’ only by means of the stories, and through images and behaviors among which they grew up.3 Both scientific and humanities fields examine memory as a form of reception and remembrance of information, whether or not one has directly been affected by that information.

While people define memory in different ways and look at it through different lenses, we are going to define memory as the capacity of knowledge or feeling that is a part of someone by way of being passed down from people in generations before them. We are interested in the collective, generational memory that arises from this, such as groups inheriting memory from their ancestors, cultural relatives, and communities, and how these groups pass on or reinvent those inherited memories to younger generations.

We want to highlight specific, modern examples of this in the United States across cultural groups. There are different shared ideas of memory as a collective, and different communities have used it differently to name experiences. We will examine different types of collective memory that emerge within different cultural groups, including postmemory, countermemory, and oral histories, and trace these types of memory through different communities. We believe these forms of memory present themselves poignantly across cultures, and also serve to embody the collective, generational memory that we are focusing on. While these types of memory exist across cultural groups, we decided to locate particular identities per example in order to be as specific and clear as possible.

Jewish diaspora in America and “postmemory” following the holocaust

When looking at the Jewish diaspora in America, a specific type of memory underscores the experience of the generation after the holocaust called “postmemory.” Marianne Hirsch, a current professor at Columbia University who is one of the founders of postmemory as a field of study writes that postmemory “describes the relationship that the ‘generation after’ bears to the personal, collective and cultural trauma of those who came before—to experiences they ‘‘remember’’ only by means of the stories, images and behaviors among which they grew up. [However,] these experiences were transmitted to them so deeply and affectively as to seem to constitute memories in their own right. Postmemory’s connection to the past is thus actually mediated not by recall but by imaginative investment, projection and creation.”4 Hirsch’s writing is referenced in an article written by Stephen Frosh, a professor in Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck, University of London. Frosh’s article focuses on the postmemory literature and creations of second generation Holocaust literature, and argues that postmemory and the work that comes from it can be used as a mode of traumatic identification and a way of “working through.”5

Author Judith Harris, Ph.D. also responds to Hirsch’s definition of postmemory in regards to second generation Jews after the holocaust. Harris examines different lines of communication as mediums of transgenerational transmission of trauma between Holocaust survivors and their children. The trauma of one’s parents as a result of conflict, war, or persecution are passed on to children, and Harris writes that the massive, organized, and simply horrific scale of the Holocaust lead to its aftermath imprinting Jewish identity from within.6 Harris applies postmemory to a therapeutic, clinical context, to suggest that, for second-generation Jewish children, learning about the history of the Holocaust and integrating that history through self-expression is uniquely important for the healthy development o those children Postmemory is so pertinent here because in both clinical and personal perspectives, there is a direct route in which the children unconsciously absorb traumatic experiences that go on to influence their processes of individuation. Postmemory, then, literally shapes an individual’s personal lens and sense of the world through, in this case, the trauma of that individual’s parents. This can show up explicitly through narratives that parents tell their children, or implicitly through patterns of behavior that are symptomatic of people who underwent traumatic upheavals.7 Postmemory inherited and experienced by the children of Holocaust survivors is supported by clinical findings that followed family members, and actually, though it may seem obvious, can bring generations closer to each other.

Asian American Countermemory

Memory underlies the existence of the pan ethnic “imagined community” of Asian Americans, which began in 1968 with the coining of the term “Asian American”.8 Important to the study of Asian American collective memory is the term “countermemory”. Countermemory is considered oppositional memory, the memory of those who have been marginalized, in the face of mainstream narratives.Americans have historically excluded Asian immigrants in American history. For instance, the photographs of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad did not include the thousands of Chinese workers who were crucial in building it. To counter this, Asian American memory is created through personal narratives and story telling.. Laura Bieger writes that “one can think of storytelling as a spatial form and practice”, allowing it to function as an imaginative process whilst also creating a sense of belonging and attachment to a space.9 Storytelling allows those living in diaspora to position themselves and their homelands whilst acknowledging their history and displacement. Additionally, the communal aspect of storytelling creates a shared sense of belonging in a new and unfamiliar space, demonstrating the intertwinement of storytelling and collective memory. Carole Martin stresses the importance of written storytelling to Vietnamese American culture due to the fear that forgetting stories and memories in old age is often associated with losing the homeland all over again. This entanglement of remembering and writing is essential to the upkeep of “countermemory”, and enables generations to pass their own narrative and history down to other generations.

The collective memory of storytelling in Asian American diaspora can be seen clearly through family memoirs and autobiographies. Manuela Costantino and Susanna Egen’s work details the importance of family memoirs: “The auto/biographer who situates herself as storyteller in the midst of past and future generations is both embedding herself in her extended family and asking questions about her own sense of identity.”10 This allows for a nuanced and personal narrative that acts as a product of countermemory by countering mainstream histories. A key difference in the creation of Asian American autobiographies and Western autobiographies is the emphasis on the individual. The emphasis placed on storytelling as a vehicle of memory and connection with cultural history by Asian American authors contrasts with Western authors who focus more on the individual perspective. David Parker refers to this process as a “dialogic or interlocutive ethics of recognition” as opposed to an “individualistic ethics of authenticity” typified by traditional Western forms of autobiography.11  As a result, this allows the Asian American community to form their own specific manner of writing and storytelling, which serves as a form of countermemory.

Japanese Interment, post memory and art

Painting made by Japanese internee Henry Sugimoto while interned, (When Can We Go Home?, 1943, left) and painting made by Roger Shimomura whose grandmother was interned (December 12, 1941, 1980, right)

Reprinted in: Kuramitsu, Kristine C. “Internment and Identity in Japanese American Art.” American Quarterly 47, no. 4 (1995): 619–58. https://doi.org/10.2307/2713369.

Postmemory also shows up in the Japanese American experience, notably marked by the history of Japanese internment. Kristine Kuramitsu, a graduate student in the Art History department at the University of California, Los Angeles, sheds light on how memory shapes the expressions of the children and grandchildren of internees, and how memory can work to heal generational trauma. Kuramitsu examines artwork from different exhibits that were created to commemorate the internment, one called The View from Within that displayed artwork made by internees during their internment, and one called Relocations and Revisions: The Japanese Interment Reconsidered that displayed art focused on the work of contemporary Japanese American artists responding to the interment fifty years after the fact. Each show provides a different presentation of Japanese American artwork. Kuramitsu argues that the personal histories in the artwork about internment can be thought of as a wound that had been hidden for years, and whereas dismembering is to fragment a body and its memory, remembering is to make that body whole.12  As the present day artists come to terms with their histories through art, they begin to dig up bodies of the past that hold repressed memories, and present a perspective that their parents could not. By acknowledging their collective past of internment, these contemporary Japanese American artists forge a continuity with their community’s past.

Above, we see a painting made by a Japanese internee named Henry Sugimoto while interned (left), and a painting made by the grandson of an internee years after Japanese internment named Roger Shimomura (right). When looking at these two specific pieces, the Sugimoto painting, titled When Can We Go Home?, made in 1944, displays what life is actually like inside the internment camp, and shows a montage of images swirling around a mother and a child. Some of the montage shows the outside world and some of it shows the internment. There is a flower which represents the resilience of the internees, and also a rattlesnake to show the conditions of the internment. The work illustrates the human condition rather than specifically condemning the government. In the Shimomura painting, titled Diary: December 12, 1941, made in 1980, a Japanese woman is deep in thought, sitting in a room at a table. The room appears to be Japanese style, and only parts of her body are on display. Superman appears to be behind the wall, standing upright with his hands at his hips, symbolizing “the American way.”13 His presence feels oppressive and confining to the woman. She stays inside her room, and the presence of the Superman connects with the justifications behind the internment, as it was in order to “protect” Japanese Americans from hostility in America, and furthermore, Superman represents American superiority. Both of these paintings contribute to and expand our thinking about memory because it shows how memory can be used to articulate a connection to an unspoken past in a collective fashion, and also how memory can be used actively to re-present pasts. The children and grandchildren of the internees present a pain and a perspective that their forefathers could not, and help to process and heal from generationally traumatic experiences.

Oral History and Oral Traditions

For many non-Western cultures, oral history and other forms of oral tradition act as the main vessels for memory transmission and preservation. From storytelling to ceremony and song lyrics, oral history helps preserve the memories and truths that are often erased or silenced by those in power, and left out of mainstream books, media, written accounts, or historical records. Oral history stands in contrast to Western forms of memory, holding memory within books, academia, and institutions, and is heavily influenced and dictated by the status quo.

One such example of oral tradition is the traditional Ikelap song from the Carolinian Seafarers of the Polowat Atol in the Central Carolines. The seafarers sing this traditional song while fishing. The lyrics contain navigational guidance and fishing instructions. However, the song itself is deeply significant to Carolinian culture, passing on thousands of years of ancestral knowledge and cultural tradition. According to the “No Island Is an Island” chapter by Vicente Diaz in the Native Studies Keywords textbook, “This ‘surface’ level or meaning also expresses a range of historical, cultural, and political truths contained in oral traditions involving indigenous technologies of travel.” Beyond fishing instructions, the song itself preserves the Carolinian spiritual origin story, migration, and movement. The Ikelap song shows how centuries of knowledge, social movement, cultural inheritance, and resistance can be preserved orally through story and song lyric, as opposed to books and academic institutions.14

Another example of oral tradition as the main vessel of memory is through the poetry, prose, and truth-telling within African American Hip-hop. According to the “Hip-Hop” chapter within the “Keywords for African American Studies” textbook, hip-hop is a form of knowledge and truth that contrasts with mainstream culture or ideas, centering on the experiences, history, and empowerment of Black and African Americans. Musical lyrics preserved African American memory and culture that was otherwise left out of mainstream books and media, in a similar mechanism to oral tradition within the Ojibwe Nation, as told by Anton Treuer. In this way, the lyrics and poetics within Hip-hop offer “mental and material liberation to the oppressed… a counterhegemonic body of knowledge,” empowering Black social movements and preserving the memory of African Americans (Keywords for African American Studies). African American memory, history, tradition, and truth were preserved orally through lyric and poetics within the community, which soon culminated into musical genres such as rap and hip-hop.

Dr. Anton Treuer, an Ojibwe Scholar and Historian, specializes in studying Oral Tradition and its importance to the Ojibwe nation’s history, tradition, and culture. In the video below, he shares how Oral History and other forms of Oral Tradition are oftentimes more reliable and less influenced by the status quo than Western memory.

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[Video: Anton Treuer. Oral History: Preserving Indigenous Voices and Cultural Memory].15

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Treuer argues that oral history has extreme value and merit, and hands power and weight to historically marginalized voices. An argument often used against oral history is that, as the facts, information, ceremonies, legends, and cultural traditions are passed down orally through the generations, they could get distorted from individual to individual and invalidate the accuracy of such oral history, much like a game of telephone. Treuer debunks this analogy by sharing how, because oral history is told publicly and known by each community member, any omission or distortion to the history would be called out and corrected by the community. Collectivity and community remembering are important to preserving and upkeeping the memory of events and histories. As such, oral history is repeatedly corrected and reinforced and is reliable.

Treuer also shares how oral history offers the “best evidence and perspectives of what Native people were thinking at the time” due to this mechanism of telling and preserving the history. Western methods of history and memory, such as written accounts, primary sources, and books or texts, are often subjective, distorted, extremely biased, and up to the discretion of groups in power, such as White army officers or White settlers. Because of this, anthropologists and classical historians often leave out marginalized voices such as Ojibwe Native Americans in the American colonial era. Their perspectives are not reflected in written texts, but rather passed down through family members. Treuer shares an example of how missing historical information on the Red Lake Ojibwe Assassination was found in the oral histories of Ojibwe descendants, solving a historical mystery that written accounts left out.

Treuer shows how non-White memory can be more than honoring and remembering the atrocities, genocides, and oppressive systems committed against marginalized groups of people. That memory includes culture, community, and connectivity as preserved through oral tradition in non-Western settings. Additionally, the format of the video itself is important to demonstrating oral history as memory. The video emulates a 1:1 conversation, modeling a recitation of oral history and memory. It is conversational, easy to grasp, and heavily informed by the community. It contrasts with written academic sources or other video presentations on the subject.

Bibliography

Davis, Rocío G. “Family Memoirs in the Context of Auto/Biographical Writing: Mediating History, Promoting Collective Memory.” In Relative Histories: Mediating History in Asian American Family Memoirs, 9–30. University of Hawai’i Press, 2011. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt6wqmkt.5.

Diaz, Vicente M., “No Island is An Island” In Native Studies Keywords, edited by Stephanie Nohelani Teves, Andrea Smith, and Michelle Raheja  90-108. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2015. https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/208/edited_volume/chapter/1518389 

Frosh, Stephen. “Postmemory.” American Journal of Psychoanalysis 79, no. 2 (06, 2019): 156-173. doi:https://doi.org/10.1057/s11231-019-09185-3. https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/postmemory/docview/2241801689/se-2.

Harris, Judith. “An Inheritance of Terror: Postmemory and Transgenerational Transmission of Trauma in Second Generation Jews After the Holocaust.” American Journal of Psychoanalysis 80, no. 1 (03, 2020): 69-84. https://doi.org/10.1057/s11231-020-09233-3

Hirsch, Marianne. The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture After the Holocaust. Columbia University Press, 2012. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/hirs15652.

Kuramitsu, Kristine C. “Internment and Identity in Japanese American Art.” American Quarterly 47, no. 4 (1995): 619–58. https://doi.org/10.2307/2713369.

Leger, Krystal, and Gutchess, Angela, “Cross-Cultural Differences in Memory Specificity:

Investigation of Candidate Mechanisms.” Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition 10, no. 1 (2020): 33. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8136163/.

Martin, Carole. “‘We Had No Belonging Except Our Stories’: Storytelling and Countermemory

in Vietnamese American Refugee Literature.” Chowdhury, Touhid Ahmed (Hrsg.), Displacement, Emplacement, and Migration : an Interdisciplinary Collection of Essays, March 27, 2024, 27–40. https://doi.org/10.20378/irb-94471.

Nguyen, Viet. 2015. “Memory.” Edited by Cathy J. Schlund-Vials, K. Scott Wong, and Linda

Trinh Vo. Keywords for Asian American Studies. https://go.openathens.net/redirector/tufts.edu?url=https%3A%2F%2Faccess.infobase.com%2Farticle%2F1709325-memory%3Frak%3D1%26aid%3D99224

Sajnani, Damon, Chandru. 2018. “Hip-Hop.” In Keywords for African American Studies, by Erica R. Edwards, Roderick A. Ferguson, and Jeffrey O.G. Ogbar, 1st ed. New York University Press. https://search.credoreference.com/articles/Qm9va0FydGljbGU6NDc2OTMzMA==?aid=99224.

 Treuer, Anton. “Oral History: Preserving Indigenous Voices and Cultural Memory.” YouTube.com (2025). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7KL5r_-5WI.

Footnotes

[1] Krystal Leger and Angela Gutchess, “Cross-Cultural Differences in Memory Specificity: Investigation of Candidate Mechanisms.” Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition 10, no. 1 (2020): 23, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8136163/.

[2] Leger and Gutchess, “Cross-Cultural Differences,” 2.

[3] Stephen Frosh, “Postmemory,” American Journal of Psychoanalysis 79, no. 2 (2019): 156-173, https://doi.org/10.1057/s11231-019-09185-3.

[4] Marianne Hirssch, The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture After the Holocaust (Columbia University Press, 2012), 5. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/hirs15652.

[5] Frosh, “Postmemory,” 1.

[6] Judith Harris, “An Inheritance of Terror: Postmemory and Transgenerational Transmission of Trauma in Second Generation Jews After the Holocaust.” American Journal of Psychoanalysis 80, no.1 (2020): 69-84, https://doi.org/10.1057/s11231-020-09233-3

[7] Harris, “An Inheritance of Terror,” 71.

[8] Viet Nguyen, “Memory.” Edited by Cathy J. Schlund-Vials, K. Scott Wong, and Linda Trinh Vo. Keywords for Asian American Studies, https://go.openathens.net/redirector/tufts.edu?url=https%3A%2F%2Faccess.infobase.com%2Farticle%2F1709325-memory%3Frak%3D1%26aid%3D99224.

[9] Carole Martin,“‘We Had No Belonging Except Our Stories’: Storytelling and Countermemory in Vietnamese American Refugee Literature.” Chowdhury, Touhid Ahmed (Hrsg.), Displacement, Emplacement, and Migration : an Interdisciplinary Collection of Essays (2024): 27 – 40, https://doi.org/10.20378/irb-94471.

[10] Rocío G. Davis,  “Family Memoirs in the Context of Auto/Biographical Writing: Mediating History, Promoting Collective Memory.” In Relative Histories: Mediating History in Asian American Family Memoirs, (2011): 9–30, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt6wqmkt.5.

[11] Davis, “Family Memoirs,” 14.

[12] Kristine C. Kuramitsu,  “Internment and Identity in Japanese American Art.” American Quarterly 47, no. 4 (1995): 619–58, https://doi.org/10.2307/2713369.

[13] Kuramitsu, “Internment and Identity,” 644.

[14] Vicente M. Diaz, “No Island is An Island” In Native Studies Keywords, edited by Stephanie Nohelani Teves, Andrea Smith, and Michelle Raheja, (2015): 90-108, https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/208/edited_volume/chapter/1518389 

[15] Anton Treuer, “Oral History: Preserving Indigenous Voices and Cultural Memory.” YouTube.com (2025), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7KL5r_-5WI.

  1.  Krystal Leger and Angela Gutchess, “Cross-Cultural Differences in Memory Specificity: 
    Investigation of Candidate Mechanisms.” Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition 10, no. 1 (2020): 23, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8136163/. 
    ↩︎
  2.  Leger and Gutchess, “Cross-Cultural Differences,” 2.
    ↩︎
  3.  Stephen Frosh, “Postmemory,” American Journal of Psychoanalysis 79, no. 2 (2019): 156-173, https://doi.org/10.1057/s11231-019-09185-3.
    ↩︎
  4.  Marianne Hirssch, The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture After the Holocaust (Columbia University Press, 2012), 5. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/hirs15652.
    ↩︎
  5.  Frosh, “Postmemory,” 1.
    ↩︎
  6.  Judith Harris, “An Inheritance of Terror: Postmemory and Transgenerational Transmission of Trauma in Second Generation Jews After the Holocaust.” American Journal of Psychoanalysis 80, no.1 (2020): 69-84, https://doi.org/10.1057/s11231-020-09233-3
    ↩︎
  7.  Harris, “An Inheritance of Terror,” 71.
    ↩︎
  8.  Viet Nguyen, “Memory.” Edited by Cathy J. Schlund-Vials, K. Scott Wong, and Linda Trinh Vo. Keywords for Asian American Studies, https://go.openathens.net/redirector/tufts.edu?url=https%3A%2F%2Faccess.infobase.com%2Farticle%2F1709325-memory%3Frak%3D1%26aid%3D99224.
    ↩︎
  9.  Carole Martin,“‘We Had No Belonging Except Our Stories’: Storytelling and Countermemory in Vietnamese American Refugee Literature.” Chowdhury, Touhid Ahmed (Hrsg.), Displacement, Emplacement, and Migration : an Interdisciplinary Collection of Essays (2024): 27–40, https://doi.org/10.20378/irb-94471.
    ↩︎
  10.  Davis G. Rocío, “Family Memoirs in the Context of Auto/Biographical Writing: Mediating History, Promoting Collective Memory.” In Relative Histories: Mediating History in Asian American Family Memoirs, (2011): 9–30, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt6wqmkt.5.
    ↩︎
  11.  Davis, “Family Memoirs,” 14.
    ↩︎
  12.  Kristine C. Kuramitsu,  “Internment and Identity in Japanese American Art.” American Quarterly 47, no. 4 (1995): 619–58, https://doi.org/10.2307/2713369.
    ↩︎
  13.  Kuramitsu, “Internment and Identity,” 644.
    ↩︎
  14.  Vicente M. Diaz, “No Island is An Island” In Native Studies Keywords, edited by Stephanie Nohelani Teves, Andrea Smith, and Michelle Raheja, (2015): 90-108, https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/208/edited_volume/chapter/1518389 
    ↩︎
  15.  Anton Treuer, “Oral History: Preserving Indigenous Voices and Cultural Memory.” YouTube.com (2025), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7KL5r_-5WI.
    ↩︎