Interviews

1. Her mother came to the U.S. with a group of picture brides

2. Her father bought her mother American clothes after she arrived from Japan

3. FBI agents came to the house while parents were gone

4. Mother was ordered to speak English during FBI house search

5. Grateful for The Quakers’ help in camp and finding jobs outside of camp

6. Her brother’s reasons as a No-No Boy

7. How Camp Notes was published

8. Expressing herself through poetry

9. Advice to writers

Yamada,Mitsuye

(b. 1923) Japanese American poet, activist

Grateful for The Quakers’ help in camp and finding jobs outside of camp

The Quakers were wonderful people; they came – they were the first people, I think, to come voluntarily to our camp, and offered to help us to find – to apply to college. We had no idea how to do this, right? Brought applications to various colleges and universities, and for jobs in the outside world. And so I think many, many of us were helped – were, you know, aided by their kindness, and – and in leaving camp too… I think there were three ways that we could leave camp: whether we – to get accepted by a college, to – for a job, or to volunteer for the army.

I couldn’t get accepted to any college or university, and so – I think his name is Bob O’Brian – this Quaker said, “Well, you know, they’re looking for workers in the cafeteria – or in the dining hall – at the Unviersity of Cincinnati. Would you like to apply for one of those jobs?” And I said, “Well yeah, sure,” you know, it was the closest I could get to a university, and so I got a job as a worker in the dining hall, and I left with my brother for Cincinnati.

Date: August 7, 2018

Location: California, US

Interviewer: Sharon Yamato

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum

Interviewee Bio

Mitsuye Yamada was born in 1923 while her mother was visiting family in Japan. She grew up in Seattle, Washington until World War II when they were sent to Minidoka, Idaho. A Quaker volunteer helped her to leave camp by finding her a job in Cincinnati, Ohio. Yamada attended the University of Cincinnati and earned a BA from New York University and an MA from the University of Chicago.

She was able to become a naturalized U.S. citizen following passage of the McCarran-Walter Immigration Act and received her citizenship in 1955.

She was a constant writer from the time she was young, and her first book of poetry taken from her writings in Minidoka, Camp Notes and Other Poems, was published in 1976. She started teaching and published more books after a health scare when she was 39 years old.

She helped to start a human rights group in Irvine, California that eventually led to her becoming elected to the Amnesty International Board of Directors in the 1980s and has been active in many human rights causes, especially known for her activism for woman's rights. (August 2018)