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Desert Exile: The Uprooting of a Japanese American Family
Desert Exile: The Uprooting of a Japanese American Family by Yoshiko Uchida, published in hardcover by the University of Washington Press in 1982. This illustrated first edition is accompanied by its dust jacket and presents Uchida’s autobiographical account of her family’s life in Berkeley and their forced removal and incarceration at Tanforan and Topaz during the Second World War.
Written for an adult audience, Desert Exile became an important and frequently studied firsthand account of Japanese American wartime incarceration. Uchida combines family history with recollections of daily life, displacement, prejudice, resilience, and the effort to preserve dignity under unjust conditions.
This copy is personally inscribed and signed by Yoshiko Uchida to Audrey, with best wishes for the success of her project, and dated February 1983. It is not merely flat signed; the dated inscription gives the copy an individual association and was written within a year of the book’s original publication.
Also included is an unusual 1983 New Year postcard or printed letter from Setsu and Kango Takamura, with a handwritten addressee that appears to read Miss Deborah Gesensway. Its family message discusses Setsu’s recovery from a broken hip, Kango’s decades-long custom of sending New Year cards, gratitude for supportive correspondence, and hopes for peace. Kango Takamura was an Issei artist and Hollywood photographic retoucher whose drawings and watercolours documented his wartime confinement at Santa Fe and Manzanar, giving the enclosure a meaningful connection to the broader history addressed by the book.
The seller grades the book Very Good. The dust jacket has light visible rubbing and minor edge and corner wear, while the photographed interior pages appear generally clean. The Takamura postcard or letter has printed and handwritten content as shown. Please examine all photographs carefully, as they form part of the description.
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Desert Exile: The Uprooting of a Japanese American Family by Yoshiko Uchida, published in hardcover by the University of Washington Press in 1982. This illustrated first edition is accompanied by its dust jacket and presents Uchida’s autobiographical account of her family’s life in Berkeley and their forced removal and incarceration at Tanforan and Topaz during the Second World War.
Written for an adult audience, Desert Exile became an important and frequently studied firsthand account of Japanese American wartime incarceration. Uchida combines family history with recollections of daily life, displacement, prejudice, resilience, and the effort to preserve dignity under unjust conditions.
This copy is personally inscribed and signed by Yoshiko Uchida to Audrey, with best wishes for the success of her project, and dated February 1983. It is not merely flat signed; the dated inscription gives the copy an individual association and was written within a year of the book’s original publication.
Also included is an unusual 1983 New Year postcard or printed letter from Setsu and Kango Takamura, with a handwritten addressee that appears to read Miss Deborah Gesensway. Its family message discusses Setsu’s recovery from a broken hip, Kango’s decades-long custom of sending New Year cards, gratitude for supportive correspondence, and hopes for peace. Kango Takamura was an Issei artist and Hollywood photographic retoucher whose drawings and watercolours documented his wartime confinement at Santa Fe and Manzanar, giving the enclosure a meaningful connection to the broader history addressed by the book.
The seller grades the book Very Good. The dust jacket has light visible rubbing and minor edge and corner wear, while the photographed interior pages appear generally clean. The Takamura postcard or letter has printed and handwritten content as shown. Please examine all photographs carefully, as they form part of the description.
