Yoshiko Uchida Influences

Kirsten Baker

Ms. Brown

11th Grade Literature

20 December 2016

How The Life of Yoshiko Uchida Influenced Her Writing

In Yoshiko Uchida’s text her lifestyle, culture, and historic influences related to her writing in numerous ways.

Uchida was born on November 24, 1921 to Japanese immigrants Dwight Takashi Uchida and Iku Umegaki Uchida. Both parents were educated at Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan. Her father worked as an assistant manager at a large Japanese import-export firm while her mother wrote classical Japanese poetry, known as tanka. Yoshiko and her older sister grew up in a happy home in a Japanese American community. Uchida’s family observed Japanese customs and socialized with other Japanese Americans. She was raised to respect

”Tomorrow, at last, the ship would dock in San Francisco and she would meet face to face the man she was soon to marry. Hana was overcome with excitement at the thought of being in America and terrified of the meeting about to take place. What would she say to Taro Takeda when they first met, and for all the days and years after? Uchida Chapter 1)”. In many states, marriages between white Americans and people of Japanese descent were outlawed. For that reason Japanese American men often sought arranged marriages, which relates to their culture. When Hana arrives in California in 1917, the period of the largest influx of immigrants to the United States was ending. Picture Bride takes place in the years of about twenty-six years, between 1917 and 1943. These years in U.S. history included both World War I and World War II as well as the Great Depression. This relates to Uchida’s life; born in 1921, 3 years after WWI. Her parents were immigrants who had to get used to the American People, along with

Any number of single men would drift in during the day to buy a pair of socks for fifteen cents or handkerchief they didn't need, or ten cents worth of bean paste. Then they would linger to chat with Hana. When Taro was there, they asked her about japan and her voyage to America. But when Hana was as alone while Taro went to the bank or the wholesalers, the men would troll in and not even make a pretence or a purchase. (Uchida 28).” It seems as if people only respected Hana when someone else was around, if not, then the customers were nearly adversaries against Hana. In Yoshiko Uchida’s memoir, The Invisible Thread: she came to realize that she neither belonged to America, nor Japan, she was in the middle. “She felt this bias from her classmates while attending the affluent and predominantly white University High School in Oakland. (Wroble, Lisa A 2007)”. Uchida made a connection to the way she was being treated in class to Hana’s treatment at the