Teiko Tomita (December 1, 1896 March 13, 1990) was a Japanese tanka poet who lived in the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Tho ...

. Her

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was Yukari.

Early life

Tomita was born Teiko Matsui on December 1, 1896 in

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of ...

, Japan. She was the second of nine children. She began writing tanka when she was in high school. She took on the penname Yukari. After high school, Tomita earned a teaching certificate, and taught in elementary schools until 1920, when she married a farmer named Masakazu Tomita. They had been exchanging letters for two years, but had never met in person. He lived in

Wapato, Washington Wapato is a town in Yakima County, Washington, Yakima County, Washington (state), Washington, United States. The population was 4,607 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It has a Hispanic majority. History Origins The town was founded ...

, so Tomita moved to the United States to be with him. They had five children, but one died as a child.

Career

Tomita and her new husband farmed on the

Yakima Indian Reservation The Yakama Indian Reservation (spelled Yakima until 1994) is a Native American reservation in Washington state of the federally recognized tribe known as the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation. The tribe is made up of Klikitat ...

. However, they lost the lease on the farm soon after Tomita's arrival. Masakazu worked as a foreman at a nursery in Satus. They moved to

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in 1929. In 1939, Tomita joined a tanka club in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

. Some of her poetry was published in Japan. After the

bombing of Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Haw ...

, Tomita burned all of her poetry so that the

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, t ...

would not assume that she had any loyalty to Japan. Regardless, she and her family were incarcerated at

Tule Lake Tule Lake ( ) is an intermittent lake covering an area of , long and across, in northeastern Siskiyou County and northwestern Modoc County in California, along the border with Oregon. Geography Tule Lake is fed by the Lost River. The eleva ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

and Heart Mountain in

Wyoming Wyoming () is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the southwest, and Colorado to the s ...

as part of the enforcement of Executive Order 9066. After she was released in 1945, Tomita briefly lived in

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

, but returned to Seattle after the war and became a

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. In 1967, Tomita was forced to relocate a second time when it was found that her home was in the buffer zone around the Seattle Tacoma Airport. She moved to Seattle. Despite burning all of her poetry at the beginning of the war, she resumed writing while incarcerated at Tule Lake. She wrote poetry as a way to deal with the situations around her. Some frequent symbols that appeared in her poems include the

cherry tree A cherry is the fruit of many plants of the genus ''Prunus'', and is a fleshy drupe (stone fruit). Commercial cherries are obtained from cultivars of several species, such as the sweet ''Prunus avium'' and the sour ''Prunus cerasus''. The na ...

and

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. She wrote poetry for the rest of her life. Tomita died on March 13, 1990.

Selected bibliography

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tomita, Teiko 1896 births 1990 deaths Japanese poets Japanese-American internees People from Osaka Prefecture American poets American poets of Asian descent American women writers of Asian descent American writers of Japanese descent Japanese emigrants to the United States