Born: 11 October 1908, Japan
Died: 7 December 1988
Country most active: United States
Also known as: 八島 光, Yashima Mitsu, Tomoe Sasako, 笹子 智江, Sasako Tomoe
The following is republished from the Central Intelligence Agency. This piece falls under under public domain, as copyright does not apply to “any work of the U.S. Government” where “a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. Government as part of that person’s official duties” (See, 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, 105).
A Young Artist and Imperial Japan Dissident
Mitsu Yashima (born Tomoe Sasako) was born on October 11, 1908 in Innoshima, Japan. From an early age, Mitsu had a passion for art and pleaded with her father to allow her to pursue studies in art until he finally relented. Mitsu first enrolled in Kobe College in Nishinomiya, Japan before going on to study at the Bunka Gakuin in Tokyo in 1926, where she met and fell in love with her future husband, artist Taro Yashima (born Jun Atsushi Iwamatsu).
Mitsu and Taro became politically active and were heavily involved with protesting the growing militarism of the Japanese Empire. The Imperial Government repeatedly detained and tortured them, and Mitsu endured months of beatings and starvation, even while pregnant. She gave birth to a son Makoto, nicknamed Mako, in 1933 after her release from prison.
As Japan’s military ambitions continued to expand, Mitsu’s parents encouraged the outspoken young couple to flee Japan, worried that they risked another imprisonment, and, in Taro’s case, conscription into the Japanese Imperial Army. In 1939, Mitsu and Taro heeded their advice. The couple tearfully left young Mako behind with Mitsu’s parents out of fear their child would not survive the voyage to America.
Settling in America and Joining the OSS
Mitsu and Taro were scraping by as poor art students in Manhattan on December 7, 1941, the infamous day of Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. The United States soon declared war on the Empire of Japan, leaving the couple torn between love of their homeland and desire to serve their new country. Mitsu would later recall, “I felt conflicted about the war at first, but I was eventually won over by the American people.”
Because the couple lived on the East Coast, the U.S. Government did not order them into internment camps once war broke out, unlike those of Japanese descent living on the West Coast. Taro joined the U.S. Army and later the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), CIA’s predecessor organization. He was on assignment to India when V-J Day happened, and shortly thereafter, he was sent on a mission to Japan—the first time he had been back to his homeland since fleeing in 1939—where he found his son alive and well. Meanwhile, Mitsu, wanting to do her part for America’s war effort, relocated to Washington, D.C. and began work on the OSS’ “Voice of the People” radio program. The broadcasts were recorded, shipped, and beamed into Japan. Mitsu did so well that the OSS moved her and the project to San Francisco.
In an interview after the war ended, Mitsu explained, “My job was to talk to the women in Japan and urge them to run away from the war effort.” Her voice coming through the radio would convince Japanese women to leave the major cities and not believe the propaganda coming from the Imperial Government.
Despite her success with the OSS, outside of work, Mitsu faced hostility and overt discrimination because of her Japanese heritage.
The Post-War Years: A Return to Art
The U.S. granted Mitsu and Taro permanent resident status after the war ended because of their service to the country. They were also able to bring their son, Mako, to the States to join Momo, his baby sister.
Mitsu and Taro then worked together on a number of creative projects, including some top-selling children’s books. A few revolved around their daughter Momo, who grew up to become a successful actor, just like her Academy Award-nominated brother, Mako. Many may remember Mako from various movie roles that include the critically acclaimed The Sand Pebbles (1966), the epic Conan the Barbarian (1982) and Conan the Destroyer (1984) series, Seven Years in Tibet (1997), Pearl Harbor (2001), and Memoirs of a Geisha (2005). He died in 2006.
Mitsu devoted herself to inspiring young Asian Americans in her local community in San Francisco and passing on her knowledge of art. Mitsu’s life-long passion continued until her death in Los Angeles at the age of 80 in 1988.
The following is republished from the Densho Encyclopedia, in line with the Creative Commons licensing. It was written by Patricia Wakida.
Mitsu Yashima (1908-88) was an illustrator and watercolor and oil painter, best known for her collaborative work with husband Taro Yashima on the popular children’s books, Plenty to Watch (1954) and Momo’s Kitten (1961). She was born Tomoe Sasako on October 11, 1908, in Innoshima, Japan, as one of eight children. Her father was the chief designer and general manager of a shipyard, which allowed her to attend college. In 1926, she chose to study art at the Bunka Gakuin in Tokyo, where she met her future husband, Taro Yashima (born Jun Atsushi Iwamatsu), who was studying at the Ueno Imperial Art Academy. The couple were both heavily involved in student politics, and were members of the left-wing Proletarian Artists’ Union, which protested against the growing militarism of the Japanese government. She and her husband would spend up to nine months in jail as a result of their political activity, and Yashima reportedly suffered many beatings in the six-foot square cell she shared with from five to fifteen other prisoners.
Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, Yashima and her husband decided to enter the United States on tourist visas, leaving behind their very young son Mako in the care of his grandmother. In New York, they studied at the Art Student League and were able to successfully obtain student visas that allowed them to stay in the U.S. On December 7, 1941, the Yashimas were still living in Manhattan as art students, but because they lived on the East Coast, they were able to avoid mass incarceration with other Japanese Americans who lived on the West Coast. Instead, they worked on a project for the Office of War Information , and Taro joined the Office of Strategic Services, where he remained until 1945. While he was on assignment in India, Yashima worked for six months in 1944-45, on a U.S. to Japan propaganda radio program called “Voice of the People,” which required her to move to San Francisco. The anti-Japanese hostility she encountered in California forced her to return to New York by the end of the war. Concerns about their work with the U.S. government also convinced the couple to change their names, taking the surname Yashima (meaning “eight islands,” a reference to Japan), which they kept for the rest of their lives.
In 1949, they were finally able to arrange for their son Taro to join them in the United States and the family was granted permanent U.S. residency status. Their daughter, Momo, was born in 1948 in New York’s Lower East Side. During this period, Yashima was the main breadwinner, earning money doing piecework such as painting designs on hand lotion dispensers sold in department stores.
In the early 1950s, the Yashima family moved to Los Angeles, California, and opened the Yashima Art Institute and the East West Studio, where she occasionally taught classes, and was active with the Women’s Strike for Peace Group. Throughout the 50s, she and her husband co-illustrated and wrote several successful children’s books. In 1968, growing tensions forced her to leave her husband and move to San Francisco, once their daughter had graduated from college.
For the following decades, she lived in Bernal Heights, teaching art in the Japanese community at Kimochi and the Japantown Art and Media Workshop. She also gave lectures at the University of California, Berkeley, and contributed to numerous early Asian American newsletters and magazines, and became a mentor and inspiration for younger Asian American activists.
Throughout her life, she remained politically active and creating art, making portraits of friends and family, still lifes, landscapes and politically informed illustrations. She also made an appearance as the grandmother in John Korty’s ” Farewell to Manzanar,” a two-hour film about the wartime mass incarceration of Japanese Americans, a film which also featured her daughter Momo and son Mako, who was now an established Hollywood actor. In 1980, a solo exhibition, Mitsu Yashima: An Exhibit of Artworks from the Past 40 Years, was mounted at the Japanese American Citizens League National Headquarters in San Francisco.
In 1983, Yashima returned to Los Angeles where she lived with her daughter for the last five years of her life.
She died on December 7, 1988, in Los Angeles, California.