Mari Yoriko Sabusawa (July 10, 1920 – September 25, 1994) was a translator, activist, and philanthropist. She was the third wife of novelist James A. Michener, whom she married on October 23, 1955, in

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Early life

A second-generation Japanese American, Sabusawa was born to Harry and Riki Sabusawa and raised in Las Animas, Colorado. Her family moved to

Long Beach, California Long Beach is a city in Los Angeles County, California. It is the 42nd-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 466,742 as of 2020. A charter city, Long Beach is the seventh-most populous city in California. Incorporate ...

in 1936. Sabusawa graduated from

Long Beach Polytechnic High School Long Beach Polytechnic High School, founded in 1895 as Long Beach High School, is a four-year public high school located at 1600 Atlantic Avenue in Long Beach, California, United States. The school serves portions of Long Beach, including Bixby ...

in 1938, and then began studying at Long Beach Junior College. Following the attack on

Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the Naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the Re ...

and enactment of

Executive Order 9066 Executive Order 9066 was a United States presidential executive order signed and issued during World War II by United States president Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942. This order authorized the secretary of war to prescribe certain ...

, Subasawa and her family were sent to California's Santa Anita Assembly Center and then interned at the

Granada War Relocation Center The Amache National Historic Site, formally the Granada War Relocation Center but known to the internees as Camp Amache, was a concentration camp for Japanese Americans in Prowers County, Colorado. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor o ...

(Camp Amache) in Colorado. Shortly thereafter, she was allowed to leave for

Antioch College Antioch College is a private liberal arts college in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Founded in 1850 by the Christian Connection, the college began operating in 1852 as a non-sectarian institution; politician and education reformer Horace Mann was its f ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

where she received a degree in political science and international relations. Through Antioch's cooperative job program, she translated Japanese propaganda for the US intelligence service in Washington DC before attending graduate school at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

. In 1948, Sabusawa became the first female president of the Chicago chapter of the

Japanese American Citizens League The is an Asian American civil rights charity, headquartered in San Francisco, with regional chapters across the United States. The Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) describes itself as the oldest and largest Asian American civil right ...

(JACL). During the early 1950s, she was engaged in community work, especially around questions of civil rights Sabusawa was editor of the

American Library Association The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with 49,727 members a ...

's ''Bulletin'' in Chicago in 1954 when she met her husband.

Activism

Both Sabusawa and Michener were involved in the

1956 Hungarian Revolution The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (23 October – 10 November 1956; hu, 1956-os forradalom), also known as the Hungarian Uprising, was a countrywide revolution against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic (1949–1989) and the Hunga ...

against the USSR. Many Hungarians were killed, forcing many to flee. They made their home in

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a safe haven and helped many escape and make residence in the US. This would influence Michener's novel, ''

The Bridge at Andau ''The Bridge at Andau'' is a 1957 nonfiction book by the American author James Michener chronicling the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Living in Austria in the 1950s, Michener was at the border of Austria and Hungary during the period in which a s ...

'', 1957. Sabusawa spoke out in support of American-Japanese marriages in the 1950s. She urged her husband not to run for Congress as a Democrat in 1962, but nevertheless supported him when he did. Sabusawa was encouraged and helped in the research of some of Michener's novels, such as, ''

'', ''

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

'', and ''

The Source ''The Source'' is an American hip hop and entertainment website, and a magazine that publishes annually or . It is the world's longest-running rap periodical, being founded as a newsletter in 1988 by Jonathan Shecter. David Mays was the ma ...

''. Michener also wrote ''

Centennial {{other uses, Centennial (disambiguation), Centenary (disambiguation) A centennial, or centenary in British English, is a 100th anniversary or otherwise relates to a century, a period of 100 years. Notable events Notable centennial events at a ...

'', written in 1974, which was later produced into a miniseries by the same name. It was filmed in part at

Bent's Fort Bent's Old Fort is an 1833 fort located in Otero County in southeastern Colorado, United States. A company owned by Charles Bent and William Bent and Ceran St. Vrain built the fort to trade with Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho Plains Indians and ...

, close to Sabusawa's hometown of Las Animas, Colorado. Together with her husband, Sabusawa was involved with charitable donations, with main fields of their philanthropy being art and higher education. Notably, she established the Mari Sabusawa Michener Endowment, which funded all the educational programs at the

James A. Michener Art Museum The Michener Art Museum is a private, non-profit museum that is located in Doylestown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1988, it was named for the Pulitzer Prize–winning writer James A. Michener, a Doylestown resident. Situated within ...

Doylestown, Pennsylvania Doylestown is a borough and the county seat of Bucks County in Pennsylvania, United States. It is located northwest of Trenton, north of Center City, Philadelphia, southeast of Allentown, and southwest of New York City. As of the 2020 cen ...

Death

Sabusawa died in

Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the county seat, seat and largest city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and Williamson County, Texas, Williamson co ...

, on September 25, 1994. She left a bequest of $5 million to the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

for the construction of what would become the

Blanton Museum of Art The Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art (often referred to as the Blanton or the BMA) at the University of Texas at Austin is one of the largest university art museums in the U.S. with 189,340 square feet devoted to temporary exhibitions, permanent coll ...

in addition to the hundreds of paintings the couple gave the university during their lifetimes.

References

External links

James A. Michener Biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sabusawa, Mari Yoriko American magazine editors Antioch College alumni 1920 births 1994 deaths Japanese-American internees Japanese-American civil rights activists 20th-century American translators 20th-century American non-fiction writers People from Las Animas, Colorado American women non-fiction writers 20th-century American women writers Women magazine editors University of Chicago alumni American women philanthropists