Uchida, Yoshiko, 1921-1992.
Biography TR3a
Yoshiko Uchida was born in Alameda, California in 1921, the second daughter of Takashi ("Dwight") and Iku Umegaki Uchida. Dwight Uchida immigrated to the United States from Japan in 1903 and worked for the San Francisco offices of Mitsui and Company, where he eventually became a manager. Iku Umegaki, the eldest daughter of a prefectural governor of Japan, immigrated to the U.S. in 1916 to marry Dwight Uchida. Both were graduates of Doshisha University, one of the early Christian universities of Japan, and were early and active members of the Sycamore Congregational Church in El Cerrito, Calif.
Uchida and her older sister, Keiko ("Kay"), grew up in Berkeley, Calif. By Uchida's own account, her family was close-knit and supportive. The written word was very important to Uchida's parents: her mother wrote poetry, the thirty-one syllable Japanese tanka, and her father was a prolific correspondent. Uchida's own interest in writing began early. At the age of ten, she wrote stories such as "Jimmy Chipmunk and His Friends" and "Willie the Squirrel" on brown wrapping paper. Uchida attended Longfellow School in Berkeley and University High School in Oakland. She graduated with honors from the University of California in 1942, with a B.A. in English, Philosophy, and History.
Uchida, however, was unable to attend her graduation ceremonies. After Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and the United States entered World War II, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, forcing the removal of all persons of Japanese descent (both American citizens and non-citizens) living on the western coast of the United States into centralized detention camps. Dwight Uchida was arrested, detained, and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp in Missoula, Montana. Uchida and her mother and sister had only ten days to pack all their possessions and vacate the house where they had lived for fifteen years. In May 1942, they were removed to the Tanforan Racetrack Relocation Center, where Yoshiko received her university diploma in the horse stall that served as temporary barracks for the evacuees.
Eventually, Dwight Uchida was allowed to join his family at Tanforan, and in September 1942, the Uchida family was transferred to the Topaz Relocation Camp in the Utah desert. In May 1943, both Yoshiko and Kay were able to leave the relocation camp. Kay, who had a degree in child development, left to work in the nursery school of the Department of Education of Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. Yoshiko, with the help of the National Student Relocation Council, left to attend Smith College in Northampton, Mass., where she was awarded a graduate fellowship and received a Masters in Education. Dwight and Iku Uchida were eventually sponsored to leave Topaz for Salt Lake City, and finally settled in Philadelphia before the end of the war.After graduation from Smith College, Uchida taught elementary school at a small Quaker school on the outskirts of Philadelphia. She soon found that she had no time to devote to writing and also became ill with mononucleosis. She moved to New York City, where her sister was teaching in a private school, and worked as a secretary during the day to keep her evenings free for writing. Uchida wrote short stories and submitted them to magazines, but met with little success until she discovered her niche as a children's author. In 1949, her first book, The Dancing Kettle, was published, followed in 1951 by New Friends for Susan.
In 1952, Uchida was awarded a Ford Foundation Foreign Study and Research Fellowship to Japan. While there, Uchida learned about Japanese folk art from the three prominent men who founded the Japanese Folk Art Movement: the philosopher, Soetsu Yanagi, and master potters, Shoji Hamada and Kanjiro Kawai. Uchida wrote a series of feature articles about the Folk Art Movement for the Nippon Times, as well as a monograph about Kanjiro Kawai. On her return to the U.S., she served as the west coast correspondent for Craft Horizons magazine.
After Uchida returned from Japan, she settled in Oakland, Calif., to care for her parents, who were both in poor health. Iku Uchida died in 1966, and Dwight Uchida followed in 1971. After her father's death, Uchida moved into her own apartment in Berkeley, where she lived and worked for the remainder of her life.
Over the course of her career, Uchida wrote more than forty published works. Her books include Journey to Topaz, Journey Home, and Desert Exile, which draw on her experiences during World War II; The Dancing Kettle, The Magic Listening Cap, and The Sea of Gold, which are compilations of folktales that she collected as a child and while in Japan; an autobiography, The Invisible Thread; and the adult novel, Picture Bride. In addition to writing, Uchida made personal appearances, gave talks and speeches, and answered the many letters from her fans.
Uchida was honored with many awards, including the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award, two Commonwealth Club of California Juvenile Book Award Medals, the University of Oregon Distinguished Service Award, the California Japanese Alumni Association Award, the California Reading Association Award, the Japanese American of the Biennium Award, the Japanese American Citizen's League Award, the Nikkei in Education Award, and the Morris S. Rosenblatt Award from the Utah State Historical Society.
Uchida suffered from ill health during the later years of her life, which curtailed her writing and her public appearances. She died in Berkeley on June 21, 1992.
http://www.clarion.edu/edu-humn/libsci/buchanancoursesyl/uchida2.htm
http://www.clarion.edu/edu-humn/libsci/buchanancoursesyl/uchida.htm
http://www.isop.ucla.edu/shenzhen/2002ncta/workman/eaaw/eaaw_japanese/uchida_yoshiko.htm
https://www.angelfire.com/anime2/100import/uchida.html
I apologize; I couldn't find a lot of information about Yoshiko Uchida's life, but I did get some on her books. She was born in Alameda, California, in 1922. When she was 12 years old, she visited Japan to see what some of her culture was like, for she was Japanese-American. However, once there, she didn't feel at home and didn't totally belong to their culture or the American culture. She was confused about how to feel. Then, during World War II, she was taken from the University of Berkeley in her senior year and sent to a Japanese-American internment camp where she suffered because of bigotry and racism. This was because Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese at the start of America's entrance into the war, and the United States simply didn't feel comfortable with people of Japanese lineage living freely in the United States with Japanese lineage. Because of her experiences, Yoshiko found it in herself to write books for children, usually about the Japanese-American experience.In 1971, Yoshiko published Journey to Topaz. It was called Journey to Topaz because it concerns a Japanese family's experiences and conclusions at an internment camp in Topaz, Utah. In the novel, a young girl, Yuki, has to deal with feelings about the Japanese's bombing of Pearl Harbor and whether she is really American or Japanese. In the end, Yuki discovers that she's really truly both American and Japanese.
In 1982, Yoshiko published another book, this one called A Jar of Dreams. This book is about a girl, Rinki, and her relationship with her Aunt from Japan. Rinki has to deal with rascist attitudes against her father from some white men. In the end, her father confronts the men who had said the insults, and the white man ends up backing down. This novel was highly praised for its discussion of the Depression's integration problems.
Yoshiko's 1982 Desert Exile contained experiences and information on the interment camps that existed. Here are some pictures of hers that were in Desert Exile:
Yoshiko died in 1992, about 70 years old.
Yoshiko Uchida was born in Califonia. During World War II, she and her family were sent to an internment camp along with other Japanese Americans. Uchida was eventually allowed to leave the camp to study at Smith College. In 1952 she received a fellowship to go to Japan and collect folk tales. Her travels deepened her respect for her ancestors' culture. Picture Bride portrays what many Japanese women might have experienced when they first arrived in America in the early 20th century.
End of Innocence
by Yoshiko Uchida, Class of 1942THE WORLD was such a different place in the '40s, going to college then was a carefree experience, possibly comprising some of our happiest days.
The Japanese Men's and Women's Student Clubs were the center of all our social activities and gave the Nisei a sense of community we couldn't find elsewhere. We enjoyed frequent dances and other social functions, and like the rest of the student body, most of us had little awareness of the world beyond the campus. But Pearl Harbor put an abrupt end to our "days of innocence" and instead of attending the Cal Commencement, I received my diploma from the mailman in my horse stall at Tanforan — a prisoner of my own country.
Editors note: Yoshiko Uchida wrote about the WWII concentration camp experience for youngsters in her books Jouney to Topaz and Journey Home. Her adult book on the subject is Desert Exile. She also wrote about the Issei pioneer spirit in Samurai Gold Hill and Picture Bride. Her last book before she passed away in 1992 is a personal memoir entitled The Invisible Thread
Web English Teacher: Yoshida Uchida
A Jar of Dreams: Teacher Cyberguide
Journey Home (TeacherVision.com)
A Journey to Topaz; a literature-based approach
Picture Bride (a teaching unit)
(a study guide)Yoshiko Uchida Teaching Unit
Publications:
The Best Bad Thing
Bracelet
Dancing Kettle
Desert Exile
The Forever Christmas Tree
The Happiest Ending
The Invisible Thread: An Autobiographyby Yoshiko Uchida
Beech Tree Books, 1995A Jar of Dreams 1981
Journey Home
Journey to Topaz 1971
Picture Bride
