Karen Tei Yamashita papers, circa 1907-2024, bulk 1980-2014

Collection context

Summary

Abstract:
Karen Tei Yamashita (January 8, 1951) is a novelist, short-story writer, playwright, and professor, known for her works of Asian American literature and magic realism, including I Hotel (2010), which was a finalist selection for the National Book Award. This collection documents her creative life, reflecting the biographical, academic, literary, and theatrical aspects of Yamashita's professional career. The collection primarily contains material relating to correspondence, story publication, theatrical productions, and research, with some papers relating to professional activities, speaking events, and living abroad.
Extent:
69.85 Linear Feet (109 boxes) and 4.09 GB (approximately 3,791 digital files)
Language:
English, Japanese, Portuguese
Preferred citation:

Karen Tei Yamashita papers. MS 465. Special Collections and Archives, University Library, University of California, Santa Cruz.

Background

Scope and content:

This collection documents the creative life of Yamashita, reflecting the biographical, academic, literary, and theatrical aspects of her professional career. The holding contains large amounts of correspondence as well as publication, production, and research materials generated from writing Yamashita's major works, with some papers relating to her professional activities, speaking events, and living abroad. Correspondence primarily includes handwritten and typed letters, cards, email printouts, and mainly addresses specific works and personal greetings. Correspondents include organizations, publishers, colleagues, friends, and family writing mainly in regards to research, draft feedback, publication, publicity, and recognition. Publication and production materials mostly comprise manuscripts at different stages, cover or poster art and illustrations, props, set and costume designs, contracts, and copyright documents, with some original publicity clippings and photocopies of mass market and independent newspaper reviews and articles. In addition are articles, essays, and interviews with Yamashita. Accumulated background research for her works primarily include clippings, handouts and other forms of ephemera related to the topics of Japan, Brazil, Asian diaspora, the arts, and teaching. Some media exists across the collection, such as videocassettes, audio cassettes, floppy disks, and compact discs (CD). Furthermore, some photographic images and materials exist as well. The collection also includes digital files pertaining to a variety of Yamashita's literary works and her professional career.

Biographical / historical:

Karen Tei Yamashita (January 8, 1951) is a novelist, short-story writer, playwright, and professor. Although born in Oakland, California, Yamashita spent most of her childhood in Gardena, Los Angeles County, California. From 1969 to 1973, Yamashita attended Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, and spent her junior year abroad at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan. Yamashita graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1973 with Bachelors of Arts degrees in English and Japanese literature. A year later, contemplating a career in anthropology, Yamashita received the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship and traveled to Sao Paulo in 1975 to research Japanese immigrant communities in Brazil. Yamashita would remain in Brazil for nine years, where she met and married artist and architect Ronaldo Lopes de Oliveira, with whom she has had two children. In 1984, the family moved to Gardena, California, where Yamashita worked for twelve years as an Executive Assistant at KCET, one of the local PBS stations in Southern California. In 1997, Yamashita became a Professor at the University of California Santa Cruz, relocating to Santa Cruz after a six-month stay in Seto, Japan.

Yamashita's literary career began during her first months in Brazil when she wrote and submitted the short story "The Bath" (1975), which would become her first professional publication. "The Bath" was followed by other short stories, some award-winning and published in multiple translations, including "Asaka-no-Miya" (1979) and "The Orange" (1991). Additional short works by Yamashita include "Madama B" (1993) and "The Dentist and the Dental Hygienist" (1995). Yamashita's short stories explore a diverse set of topics, including the Japanese diaspora and technology, and consider the intersections of race, gender, love, and stereotype. At the same time she wrote short stories, Yamashita composed performance pieces including Omen: An American Kabuki (1978), Hannah Kusoh: An American Butoh (1989), Tokyo Carmen vs. L.A. Carmen: A Performance Collaboration (1990), and Noh Bozos: A Circus Performance in Ten Amazing Acts (1993). Many of these were performed around Los Angeles in the 1980s and 1990s. Yamashita's other scripts include the collaborative musical Rock Candy (1987) and the multimedia-inspired Jan Ken Pon (2012). Much of Yamashita's performance work is experimental, using music, dance, videoclips, and imaginative sets and costumes to playfully explore race and gender with attention to the collaborative nature of performance. Selected plays, written from the 1980s through the 2010s, were published in the collection Anime Wong: Fictions of Performance (2014).

Yamashita began work as a critically-acclaimed novelist after returning from Brazil to Southern California in the 1980s. Her first two novels, Through the Arc of the Rain Forest (1990) and Brazil-Maru (1992), take place in Brazil and are influenced by her time in that country. Arc is a story of environmental destruction in the rainforest, while Brazil-Maru tells the story of early twentieth century Japanese immigrants in Brazil. Both Arc and Brazil-Maru have been translated into Japanese, and Arc was also published in Portuguese translation under the title Matacao, uma lenda tropical (2003). Yamashita's next novel, Tropic of Orange (1997), is set in Los Angeles and Mexico and follows a diverse cast of characters in an unsettled future where the Tropic of Cancer is moving northwards. Circle K Cycles (2001), a collection of short stories that was inspired by Yamashita's six-month stay in Japan and based on web journals written during that stay, reflects on Japanese-Brazilian experiences in Japan at the end of the twentieth century. Yamashita's most recent novel, I Hotel (2010), is an extensively-researched exploration of the Asian American Movement in the San Francisco Bay Area in from the 1960s to the 1970s, told through ten distinct yet interrelated novellas.

Throughout her more than three-decade writing career, Yamashita has received numerous awards, grants, and recognitions. Yamashita received awards including the Rockefeller Playwright-in-Residence Fellowship in 1977, the Japan Foundation Artist Fellowship in 1997, and the United States Artists Ford Foundation Fellowship in 2011. In addition to winning several short story contests early in her career, Yamashita received an American Book Award in 1991 and a Janet Heidinger Kafka Award in 1992 for Arc, while Brazil-Maru was voted one of The Village Voice's 25 best books of 1993. Tropic was a finalist for the Paterson Fiction Prize in 1998, and I Hotel was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2010. I Hotel received extensive additional recognition including a California Book Award (2010), American Book Award (2011) and an Asian American Literary Award (2011).

Yamashita began her career as an educator in 1997 at the University of California Santa Cruz, where she is a Professor of Literature and Creative Writing affiliated with Latin American and Latino Studies, East Asian Studies, and Critical Race and Ethnic Studies. She has been a visiting scholar and guest lecturer at universities around the world. Yamashita's commitment to education and diversity has been recognized with an Excellence in Teaching Award (2001), the Chancellor's Award for Diversity (2009), and an appointment as the co-holder of the UC Presidential Chair for Feminist Critical Race and Ethnic Studies (2012-2015).

She currently resides in Santa Cruz with her husband and continues writing to this day.

Date Event
1951 Born 8 January, Oakland, California
1952 Moved to Gardena, Los Angeles County, California
1969 Enrolled at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota
1971 Spent a year abroad at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan
1973 Graduated with a B.A. from Carleton College
1974-1977 Received the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship
1975
Moved to Sao Paulo, Brazil
Published first short story "The Bath"
1977 Married Ronaldo Lopes de Oliveira
1978 Play performed: Omen: An American Kabuki
1984
Moved with family to Gardena, California
Play performed: Hiroshima Tropical
1986 Co-authored the film Kusei: An Endangered Species
1989 Multimedia performance: Hannah Kusoh: An American Butoh
1990
Published Through the Arc of the Rainforest
Plays performed: Hannah Kusoh and Tokyo Carmen v.s. L.A. Carmen
1991 Musicals performed: Godzilla Comes to Little Tokyo
1992 Published Brazil-Maru
1993 Multimedia performance: Noh Bozos
1997
Published Tropic of Orange
Received the Japan Foundation Artist Fellowship
Spent six months in Seto, Aichi Prefecture, Japan
Published pieces for the web journal CafeCreole
Moved to Santa Cruz, California
Began work as a professor at the University of California Santa Cruz
2001 Published Circle K Cycles
2010 Published I Hotel
2011-2012 Received a United States Artists Ford Fellowship
2012
Appointed as a co-holder of the UC Presidential Chair for Feminist ritical Race and Ethnic Studies
2014 Published Anime Wong: Fictions of Performance

Date Event
1951
Born 8 January, Oakland, California
1952
Moved to Gardena, Los Angeles County, California
1969
Enrolled at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota
1971
Spent a year abroad at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan
1973
Graduated with a B.A. from Carleton College
1974-1977
Received the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship
1975
Moved to Sao Paulo, Brazil
Published first short story "The Bath"
1977
Married Ronaldo Lopes de Oliveira
1978
Play performed: Omen: An American Kabuki
1984
Moved with family to Gardena, California
Play performed: Hiroshima Tropical
1986
Co-authored the film Kusei: An Endangered Species
1989
Multimedia performance: Hannah Kusoh: An American Butoh
1990
Published Through the Arc of the Rainforest
Plays performed: Hannah Kusoh and Tokyo Carmen v.s. L.A. Carmen
1991
Musicals performed: Godzilla Comes to Little Tokyo
1992
Published Brazil-Maru
1993
Multimedia performance: Noh Bozos
1997
Published Tropic of Orange
Received the Japan Foundation Artist Fellowship
Spent six months in Seto, Aichi Prefecture, Japan
Published pieces for the web journal CafeCreole
Moved to Santa Cruz, California
Began work as a professor at the University of California Santa Cruz
2001
Published Circle K Cycles
2010
Published I Hotel
2011-2012
Received a United States Artists Ford Fellowship
2012
Appointed as a co-holder of the UC Presidential Chair for Feminist ritical Race and Ethnic Studies
2014
Published Anime Wong: Fictions of Performance
Acquisition information:
Donated by Karen Tei Yamashita in multiple installments.
Processing information:

This collection contains unprocessed materials. The processed portion of the collection is stored in boxes 1-84.

Manuscript portion of the collection processed by Annie Tang, with assistance from Melissa Poulsen, graduate fellow in the Center for Archival Research and Training (CART) at UC Santa Cruz. Machine-readable finding aid by Annie Tang.

Digital portion of the collection partially processed by Kate Dundon in 2018. Digital files were received from Karen Yamashita on 22 3.5-inch floppy disks, 10 5.25-inch floppy disks, 34 CDs, 2 zip disks, 1 USB flash drive. With the exception of 5.25-inch floppy disks, files were transferred from original carriers in 2018. Original carriers were retained and are included in the collection. Duplicate files, student and employment records, and other out of scope files were not retained. Files were not reformatted, and file names are original to the creator. Digital materials were integrated into their corresponding series based on content. The original order of the files has been retained.

Arrangement:

There was some original order to Yamashita's papers, with the collection being organized by individual works. Final arrangement was influenced by this original organization. The arrangement of the collection is as follows:

Series 1: Biographical, 1968-2013:

  1. Subseries 1.1: Correspondence, 1968-2013
  2. Subseries 1.2: Publication, 1987-2013
  3. Subseries 1.3: Research, 1987-2013
  4. Subseries 1.4: Activities, 1991-2012
  5. Subseries 1.5: Speaking Events, 1990-2010
  6. Subseries 1.6: Digital Files, 1996-2009

Series 2: Books, 1907-2014:

  1. Subseries 2.1: Brazil-Maru, 1953-2006
  2. Subseries 2.2: Through the Arc of the Rain Forest, 1980s-2004
  3. Subseries 2.3: Tropic of Orange, 1970s-2006
  4. Subseries 2.4: Circle K Cycles, 1990s-2003
  5. Subseries 2.5: I Hotel, 1907-2011
  6. Subseries 2.6: Anime Wong, 2000-2014

Series 3: Dramatic Works, 1978-2013:

  1. Subseries 3.1: Omen: An American Kabuki, 1976-1989
  2. Subseries 3.2: Asaka-No-Miya, 1980s-1984
  3. Subseries 3.3: O Kage, circa 1980s
  4. Subseries 3.4: Xina, early 1980s-1985
  5. Subseries 3.5: Hiroshima Tropical, early 1980s-1989
  6. Subseries 3.6: Hannah Kusoh: An American Butoh, 1984-1993
  7. Subseries 3.7: GiLAwrecks, aka Godzilla Comes to Little Tokyo, 1985-1993
  8. Subseries 3.8: Kusei: An Endangered Species, 1986-1989
  9. Subseries 3.9: Tokyo Carmen vs. L.A. Carmen, 1989-1990s
  10. Subseries 3.10: Rock Candy, 1986-1991
  11. Subseries 3.11: Noh Bozos, 1990-1994
  12. Subseries 3.12: Anime Wong, 1996-2013
  13. Subseries 3.13: Siamese Twins and Mongoloids: Three Abstractions on Asian America, 2012
  14. Subseries 3.14: Jan Ken Pon, 2012

Series 4: Other Writings, 1970s-2012

Physical / technical requirements:

The Library is currently limited in its ability to provide access to digital content on 5.25-inch floppy disks. Please contact Special Collections for information regarding access.

Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Restrictions:

Collection is open for research. Audiovisual media is unavailable until reformatted. Contact Special Collections and Archives in advance to request access to audiovisual media. Digital files are available in the UCSC Special Collections and Archives reading room. Some files require reformatting before they can be accessed. Technical limitations may hinder the Library's ability to provide access to some digital files. Access to digital files on original carriers is prohibited; users must request to view access copies. Contact Special Collections and Archives in advance to request access to digital files.

This collection contains unprocessed additions, which require advance notice for access. These additons MAY CONTAIN RESTRICTED MATERIALS. Special Collections staff must review this material prior to access. Please contact Special Collections and Archives in advance to request access.

Terms of access:

Copyright for the items in this collection is owned by the creators and their heirs. Reproduction or distribution of any work protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires permission from the copyright owner. It is the responsibility of the user to determine whether a use is fair use, and to obtain any necessary permissions. For more information see UCSC Special Collections and Archives policy on Reproduction and Use.

Preferred citation:

Karen Tei Yamashita papers. MS 465. Special Collections and Archives, University Library, University of California, Santa Cruz.

Location of this collection:
Special Collections and Archives, University Library
1156 High Street
Santa Cruz, CA 95064, US
Contact:
(831) 459-2547