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Mitsuye Yamada (1923- |
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Mitsuye Yamada (1923- |
| Biography: |
| 1923- Born in July 5 in Fukuoka, Japan, daughter of Jack
Kaichiro (an interpreter) and Hide Shiraki Yasutake.
Parents were U.S. residents at the time of her birth. Mitsuye was born in Japan when her parents went for a short visit. |
| 1926- Immigrated to United States. |
| 1942- Mitsuye and her family incarcerated at the relocation camp in Idaho. |
| 1944- Went to University of Cincinnati. |
| 1947- New York University, B.A. |
| 1950- Married Yoshikazu Yamada a research chemist. |
| 1953- University of Chicago, M.A. Further graduate study at University of California. |
| 1955- Naturalized Citizen of United States. |
| ? Mother of Jeni, Stephen, Douglas, and Hedi. |
| 1981- Yamada and Nellie Wong created a biographical documentary
on public
Television. "Mitsuye and Nellie: Two Asian-American Woman Poets." |
| Career: |
| 1966-69 An instructor at Fullerton College, Fullerton, California. |
| 1969-76 An associate professor of English. |
| 1975- Lecturer at workshops and women’s conferences. |
| 1976- Coordinator of women’s program. |
| Works by the author: |
| 1976- Camp notes and other poems |
| 1976- Anthologized in Poetry from Violence. |
| 1976- Lighthouse. |
| 1976- The Japanese-American Anthology. |
| 1989- Desert Run: Poems and stories. |
| 1992- Camp notes and other poems, 2nd edition. |
| Quotations from Yamada: |
| “Poetry to me means making connections. Poetry simply tells what is happening. I can express in poetry what is happening to me better than any other genre, because what is happening now is invariably closely linked with what has happened in the past. Poetry is then a continuous process of making connections as I live my life. It holds my life together. It keeps me connected to the people and events around me” http://voices.cla.umn.edu/authors/mitsuyeyamada.html). |
| “I find myself, as I get older, assuming a more political
stance in my writings. I have moved from writing intensely personal
poetry to writing essays on social and political issues. The reason
for this progression in my writings is that my identity as an Asian American
and my identity as a woman is just beginning to
merge within me as a singular identity and I am feeling a missionary zeal to let others know about it.” (http://voices.cla.umn. edu/authors/mitsuyeyamada.html). |
| Third World women “are expected to move, charm or entertain, but not to educate in ways that are threatening to our audiences” ("Asian American Women and Feminism" in Kolmar 318). |
| “Asian women are of course traditionally not attuned to being political, as if most other women are; or that Asian women are too happily bound to their traditional roles as mothers and wives, as if the same cannot be said of a great number of white American women among us” (Kolmar 318) |
| “I have thought of myself as a feminist first, but my ethnicity cannot be separated from my feminism” (Kolmar 319). |
| “A movement that fights sexism in the social structure must deal with racism, and we had hoped the leaders in the women’s movement would be able to see the parallels in the lives of the women of color and themselves, and would ‘join’ us in our struggle and give us ‘input’” (Kolmar 319). |
| White sisters “should be able to see that political views held by women of color are often misconstrued as being personal rather than ideological. Views critical of the system held by a person in an out group are often seen as expressions of personal angers against the dominant society” (Kolmar 319). |
| Works about the Author: |
| Cooper, Helen, Adriene Munich, and Susan Squier, eds. Arms & the Woman: War, Gender, and Literary Representation. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 1989. |
| Jaskoski, Helen. “A MELUS Interview: Mitsuye Yamada.”
Melus 15 91988): 97-108. Los Angeles: Society for
the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States. |
| Light, Allie & Irving Saraf. "Mitsuye & Nellie". Women make movies. 1981. 58min. |
| Ng, Franglin eds. The Asian American Encyclopedia. New York: Maushall Cavendish. 1995 |
| Schweik, Susan. “A needle with Maura’s Voices: Mitsuye Yamada’s Camp Notes and the American Canon of War Poetry.” A Gulf So Deeply Cut. Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press. 1991. |
| Who’s Who Among Asian Americans 1994/95. Detroit: Gale Research. 1994. |
| Bibliography: |
| Kolmar, Wendy, and Bartkowski, Frances. Feminist
Theory A Reader. California: Mayfield Publishing
Company, 1999. |
| Locher, Frances, ed. Contemporary Authors. Michigan: Gale Research Company, 1992. |
| Yamada, Mitsuye. Camp Notes. Shameless Hussy Press, 1976. |
| Websites: |
| http://voices.cla.umn.edu/authors/mitsuyeyamada.html |
| http://www.library.csustan.edu/pcrawfrod/asianlit/index.html |
 
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