Evelyn Yoshimura

Evelyn Yoshimura is a Japanese-American scholar and ethnic studies activist.

Name: Evelyn Yoshimura 

DOB: 1948

Nationality: Japanese American

“Truth is not always pretty, not in this world…We try to keep from hearing about the feelings, concerns, and problems of fellow human beings when it disturbs us, when it makes us feel uneasy.” (Gidra)

For Asian Americans in the 20th century, their truth and suffering felt silenced and unknown, overlooked even by their oppressors. The Civil Rights movement, Black Power movement, and the light that was being shed on African Americans and Latin Americans in the late 20th century inspired young and brave Asian Americans to speak up, and create a movement for themselves. One prominent figure in this movement was Evelyn Yoshimura. 

When Evelyn Yoshimura was born in 1948, the Japanese-American community was still feeling the aftereffects of internment during WWII. Yoshimura’s parents, along with thousands of other Japanese Americans during WWII, were forced into internment camps in Poston, Arizona. More than 110,000 citizens of Japanese ancestry were uprooted from the West Coast and forcefully relocated to 10 different internment camps across California, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Arkansas. Yoshimura’s parents had been relocated to the three camps in Poston Arizona, where instead of fences, its remote location and scorching, endless land kept prisoners from escape. 

Years later, released internees returned to their old homes to find them already occupied, their property and familiar landscape completely changed in the time they had spent in the camps. Many had nothing but the clothes on their back, a $20,000 “reimbursement” and an accompanying apology by the Civil Liberties Act to restart their lives. The Nisei generation, second-generation Japanese American immigrants uprooted by the internment camps, and Asian immigrants as a whole were labeled the “model minority,” a group silently seeking upward movement and assimilation back into communities. Perhaps it was because of the history of the internment camps or the turbulent scene of racial politics at the time, but Asian Americans gave into the “model minority” title: Silent enough to be overlooked, but still different enough to be discriminated against. 

Evelyn Yoshimura’s worldview and motivations behind her activism in her life were shaped by her experiences as a young child. Yoshimura’s childhood in a largely back community during the civil rights era of the 1960s, she witnessed the power of Black Power, rebellion, and racial pride. Her experience with racism as a young child had led her to “disengage from society” as a youth, and she had no interest in racial politics or questioned the reasons behind the derogatory terms strangers would call out at her for her eyes or darker skin. The turning point for Yoshimura came when a stranger selling Muhammad Speaks called out to her: “Hey Asian Sister.” His friendly tone, the word “sister,” as if the two strangers were family, touched Yoshimura. “Nobody had ever called me that before,” Yoshimura recalled in an interview for PBS, “I was either a Japanese girl, Oriental or some derogatory thing, but nobody ever called me an Asian sister.” 

The emergence of Black Power and the new sense of community and activism by the black community inspired Yoshimura to action for her community as well. The progress made by the African Americans, “further along than the Asian American movement at the time,” inspired Yoshimura to action. Yoshimura, similarly to many other Japanese Americans at the time, was influenced greatly by the incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII. She felt the anger, frustration, and betrayal in her father’s voice when he talked late into the night about his experience in the camps in Poston, Arizona. 

   During her time at Cal State Long Beach, Yoshimura worked extensively in her community for the “Yellow Power” movement. She pushed for the development of the beginning of an Asian American Studies Program, and played a vital role in creating a community for asian american students. Yoshimura helped create many “third places” for Asian Americans, public places where they could relax and immerse in the comfort of their own culture and the presence of others like them. Yoshimura helpd found the Amerasia Bookstore in Little Tokyo. Amerasia, a “child of ‘60s activism,” was more than just a bookstore– it was a cultural institution for Asian Americans and a hub for the birth of many movements. Asian American artists, writers, poets, journalists, were able to publish stories that sparked empathy and acted as catalysts for change. Creative expressions about suffering, such as Aiiieeeee! by poet Lawson Inada and playwright Frank China, and  and critical pieces on U.S imperialism and racism, were made accessible by the Amerasia Bookstore, and amplified the voices of Asian American activists. 

Following the huge upsurge of activism in the 1960s, Yoshimura and a group of like-minded Asian American students in Los Angeles began Gidra, a paper run by student-volunteers that discussed issues Asian Americans faced. By discussing the harsher truth about the legacy of wartime internment on Japanese Americans, publishing “scathing reviews” of racist media belitlling Asian American suffering, Gidra broke the silence on the label “model minority.” 

Evelyn Yoshimura embodies the definition of a changemaker, as she devoted decades of her life to social activism and grassroots organizing. “It is not for me to lead the change anymore though,” Yoshimura said in an interview with Little Tokyo Service Center as she retired after almost forty years on the job, passing down the torch to a younger generation of Asian Americans. 

Written by Hayeon Kwak

Links to other resources

Discover Nikkei (Interview)

Little Tokyo Service Center (Interview)

Japanese Internment Camps

Growing Up Japanese American in Crenshaw and Leimart Park

Asian American Little Magazines: Gidra