Many teachers are busy creating lessons for the second semester. Some of these lessons may be about World War II war relocation camps. If you are, you will no doubt want to examine Desert Exile: The Uprooting of a Japanese-American Family by Yoshiko Uchida. This slender volume is a beautifully written personal history of the author’s Japanese American family.
In the book, the author describes her life as one of 110,000 Japanese American internees, many of whom were American citizens. Following the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor by the Empire of Japan, these individuals were incarcerated in relocation camps. As the daughter of Japanese immigrants, Yoshiko was a twenty-year-old student in her senior year at the University of Berkeley in San Francisco at the time. She describes her existence before the bombing, and daily life in the relocation camp. In the specific case of Yoshiko, her family was incarcerated first in Tanforan, California, and then in Topaz, Utah, for the duration of World War II.
Her purpose in writing Desert Exile is to describe an internment camp experience, and how she felt when she was imprisoned by her own government simply because she happened to look like the enemy.
As a children’s author, Yoshiko has created a canon of Japanese American literature where none existed before. She is considered the first Nissei writer to devote an entire career to writing for young people about her own cultural heritage. In this role, she has offered important books for young readers of all ethnic backgrounds.
You can read Desert Exile for your own edification. Or you can suggest it as leisure reading for your students. Or you might want to incorporate it in whole or in part in your lesson plans. Any way you go, the book is a great resource. You can find Desert Exile on amazon.com.
