Yoshiko Uchida
Yoshiko Uchida (1921-1992) was a prominent Japanese American author known for her significant contributions to children's and young adult literature. Born to Japanese immigrant parents in Alameda, California, Uchida grew up amidst the complexities of cultural identity and faced racial discrimination, especially after the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Following her family's forced relocation to internment camps, Uchida became deeply influenced by her experiences, which later shaped her writing.
Her literary works encompass Japanese folktales, picture books, historical fiction, and autobiographical narratives, with over thirty published titles. Uchida's stories often highlight the struggles of Japanese American characters navigating life in a predominantly white society, providing insights into identity and cultural heritage. Notably, her autobiographies, "Desert Exile" and "The Invisible Thread," recount her family's experiences during internment, while her fictional works, such as the "Rinko trilogy," reflect the challenges faced by children from minority backgrounds.
Uchida's contributions have been recognized with numerous awards, cementing her legacy as a vital voice in enriching the diversity of American children's literature and fostering greater understanding of Japanese American experiences.
Yoshiko Uchida
Japanese American novelist, short-story writer, and children's author
- Born: November 24, 1921
- Birthplace: Alameda, California
- Died: June 21, 1992
- Place of death: Berkeley, California
Early Life
Yoshiko Uchida was born in 1921 in Alameda, California, to Japanese immigrants Dwight Takashi Uchida and Iku Umegaki Uchida. Both parents were educated at Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan. Working as an assistant manager at a large Japanese import-export firm, Uchida’s father provided the family with a comfortable life. Uchida and her older sister grew up in a happy home in a Japanese American community. Her mother wrote classical Japanese poetry, known as tanka, and her father was an avid writer of letters. Influenced by her parents, young Uchida found pleasure in books and writing at an early age.
Uchida’s family observed Japanese customs and socialized with other Japanese Americans, but she considered herself American and longed to be accepted as such. However, she experienced racial discrimination and was mistreated by her peers.
Uchida completed high school in two and a half years. She enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, at age sixteen. Uchida was in her senior year of college when Japan attacked the US naval base at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The surprise military aggression by Japan led US government officials to mistrust Japanese Americans, fearing they might feel more loyal to Japan than the United States. Therefore, the government rounded up all Japanese people on the West Coast, including American citizens, and moved them to internment camps. Uchida’s father was sent to an internment camp in Missoula, Montana. The rest of the Uchida family was taken to the Tanforan Racetrack outside San Francisco on May 1, 1942, and assigned to live in a small, dark horse stall. Despite terrible living conditions, camp residents organized schools and recreational activities, and found other ways to cope with their situation. Yoshiko helped teach small children at camp schools.
Later, her father was released from Missoula so he could join his family at Tanforan. In September 1942, the family was transported to the Topaz War Relocation Center in Utah’s Sevier Desert. This new camp was no better: Their room was frequently covered with a layer of dust that had sieved through the cracks of the roof and walls. When sand storms struck, the sand whirled in the air, and people could hardly see or walk. They lived in the barracks behind barbed wire, and were watched constantly by guards in a tower that overlooked the facility. Uchida also taught school in Topaz. Finally, through the efforts of the National Japanese American Student Relocation Council, Uchida and her sister were released in May 1943. Uchida went to pursue graduate work in education at Smith College in Massachusetts.
Life’s Work
After earning a master’s degree in education from Smith, Uchida taught at the Frankford Friends School near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for one year. She then moved to New York City, where she worked as a secretary for several years. Between 1952 and 1957, Uchida was a full-time writer. She took an administrative position at the University of California, Berkeley in 1957, where she remained until 1962. While working professionally as a secretary, Uchida devoted most of her personal life to writing. She collected Japanese folktales, wrote picture books, children’s books, novels, and autobiographies, and published over thirty children’s and young adult titles.
Uchida’s work can be categorized into four genres: Japanese folktales, picture and children’s books, historical fiction, and autobiography. She published a total of forty Japanese tales between 1949 and 1965 in the books The Dancing Kettle andOther Japanese Folk Tales (1949), The Magic Listening Cup: More Folk Tales from Japan (1955), and The Sea of Gold and Other Tales from Japan (1965). Uchida was the first author to publish such a large collection of Japanese folktales. Her picture and children’s books are set in both Japan and America. The picture books The Forever Christmas Tree (1963), The Birthday Visitor (1975), and The Bracelet (1976) tell stories of friendships between Japanese American girls and their neighbors, among others. Takao and Grandfather’s Sword (1958), Sumi and the Goat and the Tokyo Express (1969), and The Smallest Boy (1970) are each set in Japan. Uchida’s writings drew upon her personal experiences. The Rinko trilogy—A Jar ofDreams (1981), The Best Bad Thing (1983), and The Happiest Ending (1985)—includes stories about an eleven-year-old named Rinko living in a prejudiced society during the Great Depression.
In her autobiographies, Desert Exile (1982) and The Invisible Thread (1991), Uchida recounts stories of her family, childhood, student days, and experiences at the internment camps. Her works Journey to Topaz (1971) and Journey Home (1978) are also based on her internment camp experience. The historical novel PaperBride (1987) describes the main character Hana’s journey to America, where she weds a man in an arranged marriage. The Young Adult Library Services Association designated the novel an outstanding book for the collegebound and lifelong learners.
Uchida received numerous awards, honors, and citations for her work. In 1952, she was awarded the Ford Foundation Foreign Study and Research Fellowship. One of her collections, The Magic Listening Cup, was chosen by the New YorkHerald Tribune as the Children’s Spring Books Festival honor book in 1955. Samurai of Gold Hill (1985) and AJar of Dreams (1993) won the silver medal for the best juvenile book by a California author. Uchida was particularly recognized regionally. The California Association of Teachers of English honored her with the Award of Merit for her entire body of work, and she was the winner of two Commonwealth Club of California Juvenile Book Award Medals and the California Reading Association Award. Other organizations, such as the International Reading Association, Children’s Council for Social Studies, and Children’s Book Council, selected many of Uchida’s works as notable books. In addition, Uchida received an award from the Japanese American Citizen League for promoting understanding of Japanese culture and Japanese American experiences in the United States. Several other Japanese American groups honored her as well, presenting her with the California Japanese Alumni Association Award, the Japanese American of the Biennium Award, and the Nikkei in Education Award. Among her other accolades were the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award, a Distinguished Service Award from the University of Oregon, and the Morris S. Rosenblatt Award from the Utah State Historical Society.
Uchida died of a stroke on June 21, 1992, in Berkeley, California. Three of her stories— The Magic Purse (1993), The Bracelet (1993), and The Wise Old Woman (1994)—were published posthumously.
Significance
Uchida introduced many Japanese folktales to American children and enhanced the cultural diversity of children’s literature in the United States. Her portrayal of the hardships endured by Japanese Americans is authentic and truthful. Many characters in her books are painfully aware of their differences in a white-majority society; they feel caught between two cultures. Through her works, Uchida has spoken not only to Japanese American children but also to children in other ethnic groups about identity and personal worth. She has created characters with whom ethnic minority children identify.
From Uchida’s books, Japanese American children can find continuity with their own personal history and help them to appreciate their culture and heritage. In her autobiographies, Uchida gives a true account of the Japanese American internment camp during World War II. In addition, her works of fiction help make younger readers aware of an unfortunate chapter in American history, when the US government treated some of its own citizens like enemies.
Author Works
Children's/Young Adult Literature:
The Dancing Kettle, and Other Japanese Folk Tales, 1949
New Shoes for Susan, 1951
The Magic Listening Cap: More Folk Tales from Japan, 1955
The Full Circle, 1957
Takao and Grandfather's Sword, 1958
The Promised Year, 1959
Mik and the Prowler, 1960
Rokubei and the Thousand Rice Bowls, 1962
The Forever Christmas Tree, 1963
Sumi's Prize, 1964
The Sea of Gold, and Other Tales from Japan, 1965 (with Marianne Yamaguchi)
Sumi's Special Happening, 1966 (with Kazue Mizumura)
In-Between Miya, 1967
Hisako's Mysteries, 1969 (with Susan Bennett)
Sumi and the Goat and the Tokyo Express, 1969 (with Kazue Mizumura)
Makoto, the Smallest Boy, 1970 (with Akihito Shirakawa)
Journey to Topaz: A Story of the Japanese-American Evacuation, 1971
Samurai of Gold Hill, 1972
The Birthday Visitor, 1975
The Rooster Who Understood Japanese, 1976 (with Charles Robinson)
Journey Home, 1978
A Jar of Dreams, 1982
The Best Bad Thing, 1983
The Happiest Ending, 1985
Picture Bride, 1987
Two Foolish Cats, 1987
In Good Company, 1989 (with Richard L. Allington)
The Terrible Leak, 1990 (with Kazue Mizumura)
The Magic Purse, 1993
The Bracelet, 1993
The Wise Old Woman, 1994
Nonfiction:
Desert Exile: The Uprooting of a Japanese American Family, 1982
The Invisible Thread: An Autobiography, 1991
Bibliography
Bader, Barbara. "Multiculturalism Takes Root." Horn Book Magazine, vol. 79, no. 2, 2003, pp. 143–62. Literary Reference Center Plus, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lkh&AN=9187923&site=lrc-plus. Accessed 30 June 2017. Provides some biographical details and examines identity in several of Uchida's works for children, including New Shoes for Susan, Journey to Topaz, Journey Home, and A Jar of Dreams.
Fishkin, Shelley Fisher. Writing America: Literary Landmarks from Walden Pond to Wounded Knee. Rutgers UP, 2015. Contains a passage on Uchida's Picture Bride and its relationship to Manzanar National Historic Site.
Harada, Violet H. "Caught between Two Worlds: Themes of Family, Community, and Ethnic Identity in Yoshiko Uchida's Works for Children." Children's Literature in Education, vol. 29, no. 1, Mar. 1998, pp. 19–30. Literary Reference Center Plus, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lkh&AN=488006&site=lrc-plus. Accessed 30 June 2017. Compares Uchida's writings about internment with those of other Japanese American writers. Explores Uchida's depictions of race relations and ethnic survival.
McDiffett, Danton. “Prejudice and Pride: Japanese Americans in the Young Adult Novels of Yoshiko Uchida.” English Journal 90 (January, 2001): 60–65. McDiffett discusses discrimination against Japanese Americans and other hardships during the Great Depression and World War II, as portrayed in Uchida’s work.
Oh, Seiwoong. Encyclopedia of Asian-American Literature. Facts On File, 2007. Contains a detailed profile of Uchida, as well as several entries on her better-known books.
Uchida, Yoshiko. Desert Exile: The Uprooting of a Japanese-American Family. Seattle: U of Washington P, 1982. Print. Uchida’s autobiography relates her childhood and her time in the internment camps during World War II.
Uchida, Yoshiko. The Invisible Thread. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Messner, 1991. Another autobiographical work, this one aimed at middle grades.