Mitsuye Yamada’s First Book of Poetry on Japanese American Incarceration, First Edition, 1976

Mitsuye Yamada Camp Notes

Book

YAMADA, Mitsuye. “Camp Notes and Other Poems.” San Lorenzo, California: Shameless Hussy Press, 1976. First edition. 48 pp. Yamada’s first collection of poetry draws on notes she wrote while incarcerated at the Minidoka concentration camp in Idaho during World War II. Published more than thirty years later by a feminist press, the poems address forced removal, confinement, family relationships, and the experience of being treated as an outsider in the United States. The collection brings a Japanese American woman’s perspective to the literature of wartime incarceration and the history of Asian American women’s writing.

The collection includes poems about Yamada’s Issei parents alongside the “Camp Notes” and other poems. Illustrated by Jeni and Hedi Yamada, with calligraphy by Yoshikazu Yamada. Original red illustrated wrappers. Published in 1976, “Camp Notes” appeared as Japanese Americans were organizing for an acknowledgment of the racial injustice and economic losses caused by their wartime removal and incarceration. Younger activists, influenced by the civil rights and Asian American movements, challenged the silence surrounding the camps and called for an official apology and compensation. The book appeared in the same year that President Gerald Ford formally confirmed the termination of Executive Order 9066, though meaningful federal redress remained more than a decade away. Published by the feminist Shameless Hussy Press, Yamada’s collection brought a Japanese American woman’s voice to these discussions, preserving the emotional and family consequences of incarceration alongside its political history. Wrappers show spotting, rubbing, and discoloration; staining along the lower edge of the title page, with wear and exposed binding material at the inner gutter. Overall in good condition.

Item #24087

Price: $350.00