Hisaye Yamamoto is an American author. Her short story collection Seventeen Syllables and Other Stories was published in 1988. Her short stories are a mixture of humor and poignancy. In her short stories, Yamamoto explores family, love, and race. She also writes about her experiences of growing up as a child in Japan.
My Father Can Beat Muhammad Ali (1986)
Hisaye Yamamoto’s My Father Can Beat Muhammad Ali is about a Japanese American father, Henry Kusumoto. He believes Muhammad Ali is the greatest fighter of all time, but he claims that he could beat him. Henry has two cans of beer with his dinner. In the film, he also meets an Eskimo prison inmate and develops a friendship with him.
Yamamoto’s collection Seventeen Syllables and Other Stories is one of her most popular books. The stories explore the plight of Japanese immigrants in America, the gap between first and second generation immigrants, and the difficult role of women. The book also features an interesting portrayal of a Japanese-American family.
Underground Lady (1986)
The movie is a cross between an American movie and an Asian movie. The director Sab Shimono adapted both stories and unified them. The story follows the life of Yoneko, a Nisei girl who has a crush on a man living in a Filipino farm land. Her mother has an affair with the same man, which makes her feel even more isolated than before.
Hisaye yamamoto’s short stories
Hisaye Yamamoto was a Japanese-American writer, who lived and worked in Southern California. In her short stories, she depicted the complex relationships between different ethnic groups, especially between the nisei and issei. Many of her stories focus on nisei parents and children, and on the tense relationships between nisei men and women. While many Japanese-American writers focus on the problems of their own culture, Yamamoto’s writings often portrayed the nuances of an unusual relationship between two different ethnic groups.
Yamamoto’s first short story was published in 1948, in Partisan Review. Later, she was published in other major literary and mass-circulation journals and Asian American periodicals. She was honored with a Stanford writing fellowship by Yvor Winters. Her first story, “The High Heeled Shoes,” was her first short story, and her work is characterized by racial, gender, and class themes.
Yamamoto was twenty years old when her family was interned. While there, she became a strong advocate against war. She worked as a journalist for the Poston Chronicle and published short stories based on her experiences. In the meantime, she devoted much of her time to raising her family. In fact, she managed to work on her writing despite her internment, and she published a number of collections, including Seventeen Syllables and Other Stories, which are now available.
Yamamoto’s writing often depicted the strained relationship between Japanese immigrants and the rest of the American population. One of her stories, “Wilshire Bus,” is about a young Japanese American who witnesses a white man harassing a Chinese couple on a bus. She resolves that she is not the only one who is resentful. Another story, “The Brown House,” is about a woman who enables her husband’s gambling habit.
Her family
Hisaye Yamamoto was born in Redondo Beach, California. Her father was a farmer. Her mother was an educated woman who was interested in literature. She encouraged her daughter to study. After she graduated, Hisaye found a job in a Los Angeles newspaper. She later married Anthony DeSoto and settled in Los Angeles.
Hisaye’s mother encouraged her to write when she was a young girl. Her short stories deal with issues between children of immigrants and children born in the United States. The final issue of Hisaye’s paper was published in March 1942, when all Japanese Americans in California were deported to internment camps. Hisaye’s article in the last issue explains her family’s fate.
Yamamoto’s short stories continued to be anthologized and published as books in the 1980s. Her stories, many of which dealt with the internment experience, received critical acclaim and were featured in the Best American Short Stories series. In 1991, two of her stories were adapted for a one-hour drama on PBS’s “American Playhouse.” Hisaye Yamamoto’s life and work have been hailed as exemplary for skill, humor, and a deep understanding of community culture.
When Hisaye Yamamoto returned to Los Angeles in 1945, she found a job at the Los Angeles Tribune. After experiencing the racial prejudice, she started writing short stories. When she was 27, she was accepted for her first literary magazine. In 1948, she had adopted a five-month-old boy.
After becoming a writer, Yamamoto married Anthony DeSoto, who died in 2003. Together, they raised five children.
Her work
Yamamoto’s life and work are both inspired by her experiences as a Japanese immigrant and a product of her environment. As a young girl, she experienced racism and daily violence as a result of her ethnicity, and found refuge in her writing. In the 1940s, her family was forced to relocate because of race-focused laws. As a teenager, she found comfort in writing and found a voice in American culture.
Hisaye’s short stories were published in several journals from the late 1940s until the late 1980s. The stories were collected together into a book, “Awake” (1988), and reprinted several times, often with additional stories. Hisaye’s stories are praised for their skill, humor, and understanding of a community.
Hisaye Yamamoto was the first Asian American writer to receive literary recognition after the World War II. Her work centered on the experiences of Japanese immigrants to the United States, and explored the generation gap between first and second-generation Japanese Americans and their children.
At this time, Yamamoto started writing fiction and reports for the Poston Chronicle.
Her short stories are subtle, layered with metaphor and irony, and they often deal with the cultural tension between nisei and issei. Yamamoto’s short stories became anthologized.