Emiko Tsuchida
@emikotsuchidaEmiko Tsuchida is freelance writer and digital marketer living in San Francisco. She has written on the representations of mixed race Asian American women and conducted interviews with some of the top Asian American women chefs. Her work has appeared in the Village Voice, the Center for Asian American Media, and the forthcoming Beiging of America series. She is the creator of Tessaku, a project that collects stories from Japanese Americans who experienced the concentration camps.
Updated December 2016
Stories from This Author
Jiro Oyama - Part 4
Sept. 27, 2020 • Emiko Tsuchida
Read Part 3 >> If we were going to go back to fill in some of the gaps, after the loyalty questionnaire, were you drafted or did you volunteer? I was drafted. After I got out of high school and camp, I went out to the University of Cincinnati. The American Friends Service Committee provided a scholarship I think it was about $200 dollars. I live with my elder sister, who was single in Cincinnati working as a housemaid. My …
Jiro Oyama - Part 3
Sept. 20, 2020 • Emiko Tsuchida
Read Part 2 >> How long were you in Santa Anita? I guess it was about eight months. And the thing is that to bring some solace to the crowd of people, they had a group of Hawaiian singers and dancers, and there would be a stage where they would have some sort of intimate entertainment. They tried to start some classes to try to maintain the education. But I don’t think that was successful at all. And then Santa …
Jiro Oyama - Part 2
Sept. 13, 2020 • Emiko Tsuchida
Read Part 1 >> This is actually good because it brings us to Pearl Harbor. So your father’s gone and it sounds like your sister's becoming the head of the household. So what do you remember about the day Pearl Harbor happened? It happened two years after my older sister got married. So we had my younger sister, my brother, and me. My second sister, Minnie, was managing the grocery store. And my brother is starting to go at that …
Jiro Oyama - Part 1
Sept. 6, 2020 • Emiko Tsuchida
“And as I was standing there, I was looking around to see, realizing that everyone was concerned about the attack and that they would be looking at me. I didn’t consider other Japanese, too. It was me that was to blame.” — Jiro Oyama Jiro Oyama’s long, fruitful life represents the essence of the achievement of the American dream. As the youngest son born to a hardworking family in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, his early years were …
Richard Yamashiro - Part 4
June 1, 2020 • Emiko Tsuchida
Read Part 3 >> How did you meet your wife? Well, I was in the army, so I went to a USO dance. That’s where I met her. So she’s Japanese American? Yeah. And that’s another story. I wanted to get married, but I was only 20 years old. And so I asked my parents if they would give me permission to get married. She said, no, I was too young. And so, me and my girlfriend hop on a …
Richard Yamashiro - Part 3
May 25, 2020 • Emiko Tsuchida
Read Part 2 >> So actually, just to backtrack a little bit. When you actually left Manzanar to Tule Lake, how did you get there? Did they put you on a train? Yeah we got on a train. I guess a lot of people were happy, I wasn’t too happy. Tule Lake is horrible. You ever see Tule Lake? Compared to Manzanar? It was horrible because Tule Lake was a dried out lake bed. No soil in there at all it’s …
Richard Yamashiro - Part 2
May 18, 2020 • Emiko Tsuchida
Read Part 1 >> Can we get your parents names and then your sister’s name? My mother’s name was Tomiko. And my father’s name was Eiro. My sister’s name was Lillian, Yoshiko. It’s another thing. My mom when she registered me for school it was my Japanese name. My English name wasn’t even included. Yeah so all through my childhood, I was Eiichi Yamashiro. And try to go to school and have the teacher call the roll. MS (Michael Sera): …
Richard Yamashiro - Part 1
May 11, 2020 • Emiko Tsuchida
“My dad had to get rid of his business. I think that was really hard for him ‘cause he worked so hard. I didn’t realize this until I was much older but that was the hardest thing for him. And that made him kind of bitter, too.” — Richard Yamashiro Getting to speak with Richard Yamashiro is a remarkable experience. At 91 years young, Richard still works a job and has the energy and spunk of someone twenty years his …
Shizuko Yamauchi - Part 2
Feb. 19, 2020 • Emiko Tsuchida
Read Part 1 >> Can you talk about meeting your husband? Did you meet him in Cleveland? Shizuko Yamauchi (SY): No. He was in the service. Nancy Dodd (ND): He was in the 442. SY: Well we had a boarding house, so if they had any leave they would come and stay overnight and go back to the—wherever. So that’s how he came to— So you knew him from San Luis Obispo. Were you corresponding all throughout the war? SY: …
Shizuko Yamauchi - Part 1
Feb. 18, 2020 • Emiko Tsuchida
“All I saw was cots and there were bales of hay or something, straw, that we were supposed to fill the mattress like, for our mattress. That I remember. We just took it, couldn’t be helped, you know. No point in complaining. ” — Shizuko Yamauchi In the spring of 2019, I was asked to conduct an oral history interview by the daughter of someone who had been in camp at Poston. It was a normal enough request, with one …
