Mitsuye Yamada, like many of us, was an immigrant. She arrived in the U.S. with her father at a young age, much like dreamers today. She was born on July 5, 1923 in Fukuoka Japan, although her parents were both first generation Japanese-American. The whole family returned to Seattle three years later.

Her father was very involved in the Japanese community in Seattle. He was the founder and president of Senryu—Japanese Poet—Society and was an interpreter for the U.S. Immigration Service during WWII.

Although a U.S. born citizen, he was wrongfully accused of being a Japanese spy and the family was sent into an internment camp. A part of U.S. history that is seemingly forgotten.

After renouncing loyalty to Japan, Yamada and her brother were able to leave the internment camp. She was then able to pursue her love of writing and teaching and even went onto become an English professor at Cypress College.

She didn’t always feel free to speak about the dark times in the internment camp. “It’s an experience that one had to be ashamed of,” she told Tableau Magazine, only telling her children once her daughter saw a news report about internment camps.

However, her powerful words still lived on paper. Yamada had written about those times in her works such as Camp Notes and other Poems and 3 Asian American Writers Speak Out on Feminism. In the latter, she wrote “We must remember that one of the most insidious ways of keeping women and minorities powerless is to let them only talk about harmless and inconsequential subjects."

Her life experience is one of a kind and we learn through Yamada that there is strength and power in sharing your story.