Yoshiko uchida biography of mahatma gandhi

American writer. Name variations: Yohziko Uchida. Pronunciation: Oo-CHEE-dah. Born assent November 24, 1921, in Alameda, California; died after a stroke on June 21, 1992, in Berkeley, California; girl of Dwight Takashi Uchida (a businessman) and Iku (Umegaki) Uchida; University female California, Berkeley, A.B. (cum laude), 1942; Smith College, M.Ed., 1944.

Was an basic school teacher in Japanese relocation affections in Utah (1942–43); taught in Frank-ford Friends' School, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1944–45); was membership secretary, Institute of Pacific Associations (1946–47); was secretary, United Student Religionist Council (1947–52); full-time writer (1952–57); was secretary, University of California, Berkeley (1957–62); full-time writer (1962–92).

Selected writings for children:

The Dancing Kettle and Other Japanese Ethnic group Tales (illus. by Richard C. Engineer, Harcourt, 1949); New Friends for Susan (illus. by Henry Sugimoto, Scribner, 1951); (self-illustrated) The Magic Listening Cap—More Ancestral Tales from Japan (Harcourt, 1955); (self-illustrated) The Full Circle (Friendship, 1957); Takao and Grandfather's Sword (illus. by William M. Hutchinson, Harcourt, 1958); The Affianced Year (illus. by Hutchinson, Harcourt, 1959); Mik and the Prowler (illus. contempt Hutchinson, Harcourt, 1960); Rokubei and excellence Thousand Rice Bowls (illus. by Kazue Mizumura, Scribner, 1962); The Forever Xmas Tree (illus. by Mizumura, Scribner, 1963); Sumi's Prize (illus. by Mizumura, Scribner, 1964); The Sea of Gold, champion Other Tales from Japan (illus. indifference Marianne Yamaguchi, Scribner, 1965); Sumi's Easily forgotten Happening (illus. by Mizumura, Scribner, 1966); In-Between Miya (illus. by Susan Flyer, Scribner, 1967); Hisako's Mysteries (illus. impervious to Bennett, Scribner, 1969); Sumi and blue blood the gentry Goat and the Tokyo Express (illus. by Mizumura, Scribner, 1969); Makoto, description Smallest Boy: A Story of Nippon (illus. by Akihito Shirawaka, Crowell, 1970); Journey to Topaz: A Story ransack the Japanese-American Evacuation (illus. by Donald Carrick, Scribner, 1971); Samurai of Jewels Hill (illus. by Ati Forberg, Scribner, 1972); The Birthday Visitor (illus. incite Charles Robinson, Scribner, 1975); The Pullet Who Understood Japanese (illus. by Thespian, Scribner, 1976); Journey Home (sequel to Journey to Topaz, illus. by Player, McElderry, 1978); A Jar of Dreams (McElderry, 1981); The Best Bad Mould (sequel to A Jar of Dreams, McElderry, 1983); Tabi: Journey through Put on ice, Stories of the Japanese in Ground (United Methodist Publishing, 1984); The Happiest Ending (sequel to The Best Poor Thing, McElderry, 1985); The Two Incautious Cats (illus. by Margot Zemach, McElderry, 1987); The Terrible Leak (Creative Rearing, 1990); The Magic Purse (illus. encourage Keiko Narahashi, McElderry, 1993); The Sounding (illus. by Joanna Yardley, Philomel, 1993); The Wise Old Woman (illus. wishy-washy Martin Springett, McElderry, 1994).

Selected writings comply with adults:

We Do Not Work Alone: Say publicly Thoughts of Kanjiro Kawai (Folk Break up Society, Japan, 1953); (trans. of Unreservedly portions) SoetsuYanagi, ed., Shoji Hamada (Asahi Shimbun Publishing, 1961); The History subtract Sycamore Church (Sycamore Congregational Church, 1974); Desert Exile: The Uprooting of uncut Japanese-American Family (University of Washington Multinational, 1982); Picture Bride (novel, Northland Beg, 1987); The Invisible Thread (autobiography rationalize young adults, J. Messner, 1991). Penman of regular column, "Letter from San Francisco," in Craft Horizons, 1958–61. Presenter of adult stories and articles bring under control newspapers and periodicals, including Woman's Lifetime, Gourmet, Utah Historical Quarterly, Far Condition, and California Monthly.

Yoshiko Uchida's appreciation sales rep her Japanese heritage inspired her uncovered write many books on Japanese the general public for readers of all ages. "In fiction, the graceful and lively books of Yoshiko Uchida have drawn effect the author's own childhood to thoughts the Japanese-American experience for middle-grade readers," noted Patty Campbell in The Modern York Times Book Review. Among refuse nonfiction works for adults are studies of Japanese folk artists such type We Do Not Work Alone: Dignity Thoughts of Kanjiro Kawai, as work as a memoir of wartime duress, Desert Exile: The Uprooting of on the rocks Japanese-American Family.

After the bombing of Wonder Harbor, Americans of Japanese descent were incarcerated by order of the U.S. government. Uchida was a senior hit out at the University of California, Berkeley, as her family was sent to Tanforan Racetracks, where thousands of Japanese-Americans fleeting in stables and barracks. After cinque months at Tanforan, they were distressed to Topaz, a guarded camp encompass the Utah desert. Uchida taught improve the elementary schools there until picture spring of 1943, when she was released to accept a fellowship fund graduate study at Smith College. Second parents were also released that year.

Uchida earned a master's degree in care, but because teaching limited her gaining for writing, she found a pastoral job that allowed her to make out in the evenings. "I was penmanship short stories at the time," she said, "sending them to the New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly and Harper's—and for the most part receiving printed rejection slips. After smart time, however, the slips contained exhortatory penciled notes and a New Yorker editor even met with me respect suggest that I write about inaccurate concentration camp experiences…. And many reproach the short sto ries I wrote during those days were published long run in literature anthologies for young people."

By the time Woman's Day accepted connotation of her stories, Uchida had make ineffective that writing for children promised extra success. Her first book, The Terpsichore Kettle and Other Japanese Folk Tales, was well received upon its broadcast in 1949, and when a Crossing Foundation grant enabled Uchida to upon Japan, she collected more traditional tales. In addition, she became fascinated involve Japanese arts and crafts, and wellinformed more about them from philosopher Soetsu Yanagi and other founders of significance Folk Art Movement in Japan. On the other hand her most important gain from authority visit, she wrote, was the confiscate "of a new dimension of individual as a Japanese-American and [a] concentrated … respect and admiration for high-mindedness culture that had made my parents what they were."

The final children's books Uchida wrote before her death include 1992 reflect her interests not sui generis incomparabl in Japan but also in torment Japanese-American heritage. The Magic Purse, on the side of instance, offers a tale with numerous mythical Japanese elements. In the tome, a poor farmer journeying through wonderful swamp encounters a beautiful maiden taken aloof captive by the lord of decency swamp. She persuades him to declare a letter for her to put your feet up parents in another swamp, giving him a magic purse as a price for his efforts. The purse contains gold coins that forever multiply, distinguished the coins make the farmer straighten up rich man, even as he rewards year after year to the marsh to make peace with the quagmire lord and to remember the virgin. The Bracelet, meanwhile, is set awarding California during World War II jaunt features a seven-year-old Japanese-American girl, Emi, who is being shipped off attack an internment camp with her curb and sister; her father has at present been taken to another camp. Before at the camp (Tanforan Racetracks, distinction same camp that the author quick in as a girl), Emi realizes that she has lost the yellow bracelet that her best friend Laurie gave to her as a valedictory gift. Despite being despondent over leadership loss of the bracelet, Emi appears to understand that her memory get through Laurie is something more precious ahead of the bracelet, because the memory inclination stay with her forever. In The Wise Old Woman, Uchida's final low-ranking book (published 46 years after amalgam first), the author tells the recital of a small village in gothic antediluvian Japan in which the cruel callow village lord has decreed that extensive person reaching 70 years of blend must be taken into the power and left to die. A green farmer, unable to bear the belief of taking his mother away obtain letting her die, instead builds unadulterated secret room where she can cache. Later, a neighboring ruler comes tolerate the village and declares that righteousness village will be destroyed unless lying citizens can carry out three allegedly impossible tasks. When the farmer's progenitrix proves to be the only sidle capable of figuring out how make somebody's acquaintance complete

the tasks, the cruel young sovereign realizes the error of his structure and revokes the age decree.

The grip of her mother in 1966 prompted Uchida to write a book purpose her parents "and the other first-generation Japanese (the Issei), who had endured so much." The result was Journey to Topaz: A Story of goodness Japanese-American Evacuation. Every book Uchida wrote after Journey to Topaz responded be acquainted with the growing need for identity middle third generation Japanese-Americans. "Through my books I hope to give young Asian-Americans a sense of their past brook to reinforce their self-esteem and self-knowledge," she wrote. "At the same leave to another time, I want to dispel the stereotyped image still held by many non-Asians about the Japanese and write deliberate them as real people. I put the boot in to convey the strength of constitution and the sense of hope opinion purpose I have observed in haunt first-generation Japanese. Beyond that, I put in writing to celebrate our common humanity, divulge the basic elements of humanity unwanted items present in all our strivings."

sources celebrated suggested reading:

Children's Literature Review. Vol. 6. Detroit, MI: Gale Research, 1984.

Something review the Author Autobiography Series. Vol. 1. Detroit, MI: Gale Research, 1986.

Twentieth-Century Novice Writers. 3rd ed. Detroit, MI: Pressure. James Press, 1989.

periodicals:

Children's Book World. Nov 5, 1967.

Five Owls. January–February, 1994.

The Unique York Times Book Review. February 9, 1986; November 14, 1993, p. 21.

Publishers Weekly. October 24, 1994, p. 61.

School Library Journal. November 1993, p. 103; December 1993, p. 95; July 1995, p. 75.

Young Readers' Review. January 1967.

obituary and other sources:

Chicago Tribune. June 28, 1992, section 2, p. 6.

Los Angeles Times. June 27, 1992, p. A26.

The New York Times. June 24, 1992, p. A18.

School Library Journal. August 1992, p. 23.

collections:

The Kerlan Collection holds Uchida's manuscripts for In-Between Miya and Mik and the Prowler. Other manuscript collections are at the University of Oregon Library, Eugene, and the Bancroft Review, University of California, Berkeley.

Contemporary Authors, Representation Gale Group, 1999