By Brian Dunlap

On the night of October 7, 1934, in Los Ángeles, “11 Nisei writers and poets, seven women and four men,” gathered to discuss the creation of a literary organization for second generation Japanese Americans. Prolific columnist and poet Mary Oyama said, “for the first time ever, creative Nesei writers sat down together at one table.”

Present were Teru Izumida, a modern dancer and poet and essayist; Carl Kondo, fiction writer and poet; Lillie Oyama, Mary’s little sister, the lone artist; Ellen Thun, poet, a “Korean Nisei;” acclaimed poet Bunichi Kagawa, the only Issei; and poet James Shinkai, among others. These were writers who had their own unique understandings of the world and knew their points of view necessitated written interpretation. Although they were denied access to the mainstream press do to racism, they built their own network of Nisei literati, which eventually lead to this night in the Fall of 1934.

The Nisei literati, especially the women, wrote short stories, essays and poems about ethnic, generational, and gendered experiences published in the ethnic press that eventually spanned the West Coast—L.A. to Seattle. And in L.A.’s Little Tokyo their cultural arts scene was energetic with encouragement and support from women’s Nisei social clubs and in the literary realm, by support from Mary Oyama. She assumed key role “in organizing and nurturing” their efforts, becoming “a literary den mother,” searching for second generation talent and drawing them into the literary community she was fostering.

Mary had studied journalism at USC before becoming a popular advice columnist. However most of her writing was intended for a female audience. She wrote on the conflict Nisei women encountered in their desire to have both a career and a family, among other more typical issues young women faced. Even with all Mary Oyama took on, she was still able to produce a large body of work encompassing poetry, fiction, book reviews, essays, letters to the editor, and several columns, including one in the former Los Ángeles Japanese language newspaper Kashu Mainichi.

However, as these Nisei writers still hoped to find success on a larger and even national literary stage, their production fizzled with the onslaught of the Great Depression and World War II, including Japanese internment. Yet, the Nisei literary movement was heavily female-dominated and two of the movement’s most famous writers were Southern California Nisei, Hisaye Yamamoto and Wakako Yamauchi. Yamamoto’s stories reflected “the experiences of rural Japanese families like her own.”

In the end, the Nisei Writers Group in Los Ángeles and the wider Nisei literary community have left behind a treasure trove of documentation about “their goals, interests, anxieties, influences, experimentation, and interaction with each other.”

 

Works Cited

Matsumoto, Valerie J. City Girls: The Nisei Social World in Los Angeles, 1920-1950. Oxford:       Oxford University Press, 2014. pp.84-100; 111; 119-121.