Taro Yashima
Taro Yashima, born Jun Atsushi Iwamatsu in 1908 in Kagoshima, Japan, was a prominent artist and author known for his contributions to children's literature and his activism against militarism. After being expelled from the Imperial Art Academy, Yashima, along with his wife Tomoe, became involved in an antiwar artist movement, highlighting social injustices through their art. Following imprisonment due to their antiestablishment views, the couple fled Japan in 1939, eventually settling in New York City. During World War II, he served in the U.S. Army and adopted the pseudonym Taro Yashima to protect his family back home.
Yashima is celebrated for his children's books, beginning with "The Village Tree" in 1953, which drew from his own childhood experiences. His most notable works include "Crow Boy," which received a Caldecott Honor, and "The Umbrella," which further established his reputation as a distinguished illustrator. His stories often bridge cultural gaps, presenting Japanese life and universal themes of childhood. Yashima’s legacy lies in his ability to foster understanding of Japanese American experiences during a period of widespread stereotyping, and he paved the way for future Asian American authors and artists through his poignant storytelling and dedication to social justice.
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Subject Terms
Taro Yashima
Japanese-born artist and writer
- Pronunciation: TAH-roh ya-SHE-ma
- Born: September 21, 1908
- Birthplace: Kagoshima, Kyushu, Japan
- Died: June 30, 1994
- Place of death: Los Angeles, California
Best known for his spare, delicate stories of childhood and prewar Japan, Taro Yashima enjoyed a successful career as an award-winning illustrator and author of children’s literature. Drawing from his experiences in Japan, Yashima successfully captured the essence of childhood for both Japanese and Japanese American children.
Birth name: Jun Atsushi Iwamatsu
Areas of achievement: Literature, art, activism
Early Life
Taro Yashima was born Jun Atsushi Iwamatsu in the small farming village of Nejime in Kagoshima, Japan. The son of a rural physician, Iwamatsu attended school in a neighboring city and later enrolled in the Imperial Art Academy in Tokyo from 1927 to 1930. After three years, Iwamatsu was expelled for not adhering to the military requirements of the university. Around this time, he married artist Tomoe Iwamatsu, and together they became involved in an artist-activist movement that worked to highlight the plight of the common man and educate audiences about Japan’s militaristic propaganda. The couple often hosted antiwar art exhibits that included pieces ridiculing the army.
Around 1931, and despite the popularity of Iwamatsu’s work, both he and Tomoe were marked as antiestablishment dissidents and imprisoned for several months. Prisoners were starved and beaten into confessions, often for crimes they did not commit. Tomoe, who was pregnant at the time, was also the victim of beatings. She was released during the eighth month of her pregnancy and gave birth to their son Mako Iwamatsu (later a successful actor in the United States) on December 19, 1933. After providing a false confession, Iwamatsu was released from prison toward the end of 1933 as well.
In 1939, with the assistance of Tomoe’s father, the two artists fled Japan to avoid Iwamatsu’s impending draft into the army. Leaving their young son behind to live with his grandparents, they traveled to New York City with tourist visas to visit art museums. They enrolled in the Art Students’ League in New York City, where they remained until 1941. Not long after the beginning of World War II, Iwamatsu joined the US Army, serving in the Office of War Information and the Office of Strategic Services, where he rendered political cartoons aimed at Japanese soldiers fighting against the United States. Due to the nature of his work, he adopted the pseudonym Taro Yashima—his wife adopting the pseudonym Mitsu Yashima—to protect their son and family back in Japan.
In 1943, Yashima published his first book, The New Sun, a graphic novel and memoir that described his early years and imprisonment in pre–World War II Japan. Though not a huge success, the work did receive praise from literary critics and successfully humanized the Japanese experience for Americans. Three years later, he published his only other work for adults, Horizon Is Calling (1947), another graphic memoir detailing his life in Japan.
The family was able to send for their son in 1948, and a daughter, Momo, was born soon after. Around that time the Yashimas became naturalized citizens.
Life’s Work
Yashima is best known as a children’s book author and illustrator. In the early 1950s, Yashima suffered from stomach ulcers. It was during this time that his daughter was a great comfort to him. As a way to express his gratitude and preserve memories from his childhood in Japan, Yashima began to tell her stories. The Village Tree (1953), Yashima’s first children’s picture book, describes his childhood memory of a tree that grew along the bank of a stream in his village in Japan. Critics praised his sparse, delicate illustrations and his simple prose. His success led him to publish another picture book about childhood in Japan, Plenty to Watch (1954), with his wife. Around that time Yashima moved his family to California, where he and his wife established the Yashima Art Institute in Los Angeles, and where Yashima was to spend the rest of his career.
In 1955, he published Crow Boy, one of his most well-known children’s books. Based on a classmate in Japan, the book received immediate recognition from literary critics and was awarded a 1956 Caldecott Honor for distinguished illustration in an American children’s book, as well as the Child Study Association of America’s Wel-Met Children’s Book Award.
In 1958, Yashima published The Umbrella, the first of three books featuring his daughter Momo. Receiving the 1959 Caldecott Honor for illustration (and securing his career as a sought-after Japanese illustrator), The Umbrella crossed cultural barriers and portrayed for readers the universality of childhood. Yashima wrote and illustrated several more books representing Japanese culture, including another with his wife, and created artwork for many other picture books. His Seashore Story (1967) received a New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Books of the Year citation in 1967 and the 1968 Caldecott Honor.
A year later he and filmmaker Glenn L. Johnson traveled back to Yashima’s village in Japan, to visit classmates and friends whom he had not seen in over forty years. They created the short film Taro Yashima’s Golden Village (1971). Throughout his career Yashima received two Southern California Council on Literature of Children and Young People Awards, and was honored with the University of Southern Mississippi’s Silver Medallion for contributions to the field of children’s literature. Three of his books were adapted into films for educational use.
Significance
Taro Yashima produced delicate, moving portraits of Japanese life that enabled many American readers to better understand the experiences of Japanese Americans; he accomplished this during a time when Japanese artists were largely stereotyped. A strong activist for peace and social justice, Yashima used his artistic talents to illuminate the universality of the human experience in award-winning picture books for children and his work for the US government. Collectively, his efforts helped to pave the way for future Asian American children’s authors and artists.
Bibliography
Johnson, Glenn L. “Golden Village of Taro Yashima’s Books.” Horn Book Apr. 1967: 183–91. Print. Johnson describes his and Yashima’s journey to Nejime to record the film Taro Yashima’s Golden Village, which details the artist’s reunion with classmates he had not seen for over forty years.
Shibusawa, Naoko. “‘The Artist Belongs to the People’: The Odyssey of Taro Yashima.” Journal of Asian American Studies 8.3 (October 2005): 257–75. Print. Critically examines elements of Yashima’s The New Sun and describes his role with the Office of War Information and the Office of Strategic Services during World War II.
“Taro Yashima Papers.” de Grummond Collection. University of Southern Mississippi, 15 May 2002. Web. 26 Mar. 2012. Archival collection of the Yashimas’ letters, original manuscripts, and photographs.
Yashima, Taro. The New Sun. Reprint. Honolulu: U of Hawaii P, 2008. Print. This graphic memoir describes the harsh conditions Yashima experienced as an artist-activist in Japan prior to World War II and his immigration to the United States.