Ichioka, Yuji

Yuji Ichioka was born in San Francisco, Calif. in 1936, as a son of Japanese immigrants. The family was interned at the Topaz internment camp in Utah during the Pacific War, after which they returned to the San Francisco Bay Area to start a new life in Berkeley. After Ichioka's high school graduation in 1954, he served in the United States Army in Germany. Following his discharge, he attended UCLA and graduated in 1962. Intending to pursue Chinese history with a fellowship, Ichioka moved to New York City to enroll in a Columbia University graduate program, but he quit soon after. He traveled to Japan for the first time in the winter of 1966, an experience that inspired him to study Japanese language and pursue research on Japanese immigrant experience in the United States. After he returned from that trip, Ichioka enrolled in an MA program in Japanese history at UC Berkeley, which he completed in 1968. Around this time, Ichioka also took the initiative to form the Asian American Political Alliance and steered a younger generation of Asian Americans to a civil right/anti-war movement. Recruited as instructor of the first Asian American studies course at UCLA, he moved to Los Angeles in 1969, where he took part in the establishment of the UCLA Asian American Studies Center. As a Research Associate and Adjunct Associate Professor of History, his research and writing centered on Japanese American history. During his career as a professional historian, Ichioka traveled numerous times to Japan for research and teaching, while publishing 2 major monographs,2 edited books, 2 major annotated bibliographies and dozens of journal articles. Ichioka was married to Emma Gee, a scholar of Asian American women and history, as well as a writer and labor activist. Ichioka died in September 2002.

Biography

Yuji Ichioka (1936-2002) was born in San Francisco, California, as a son of Japanese immigrants. Having interned at the Topaz internment camp in Utah during the Pacific War, he returned to the San Francisco bay area with his parents and siblings to start a new life in Berkeley, where he stayed until his high school graduation in 1954. Ichioka then served in the United States Army to station in Germany, and after his discharge, he attended UCLA and graduated in 1962. Intending to pursue graduate study in Chinese history with a fellowship from Columbia University, Ichioka moved to New York City, but he quit the program soon after. Having served as a youth parole worker with the New York State Training School for Boys, he traveled to Japan for the first time in the winter of 1966, an experience that inspired him to take up the study of Japanese language and pursue research on Japanese immigrant experience in the United States. After he returned from the trans-Pacific trip, Ichioka enrolled in an MA program in Japanese history at the University of California at Berkeley, which he completed in 1968. Around this time, he also played a central role in forming the Asian American Political Alliance, and Ichioka, along with his partner Emma Gee whom he had met at Columbia, steered the younger generations of Asian Americans to a civil right/antiwar movement. Recruited as the instructor of the first Asian American studies course at UCLA, Ichioka took part in the establishment of the UCLA Asian American Studies Center while maintaining his ties to early leaders in UC Berkeley's ethnic studies. By 1972, Ichioka permanently moved to southern California, where he continued his research and writing on Japanese American history until his death in September 2002. At UCLA he was Research Associate and Adjunct Associate Professor of History. Ichioka was married to Emma Gee, a scholar of Asian American woman history, as well as a writer and labor activist.

During his career as a professional historian, Ichioka traveled numerous times to Japan for research and teaching while writing two major monographs: The Issei: The World of the First Generation Japanese Immigrants, 1885-1924 (1988), and Before Internment: Essays in Prewar Japanese American History (posthumously published in 2006). Other publications of his include; 2 edited volumes: Karl G. Yoneda, Ganbatte: Sixty-Year Struggle of a Kibei Worker (1983), and Views from Within: The Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Study (1989); 2 annotated bibliographies: A Buried Past (1974), and A Buried Past II (1999); and a dozens of path-breaking journal articles in Amerasia Journal, Pacific Historical Review, Agricultural History, and California History, among others. Ichioka was among the first few Asian Americanists who showed an interest in studies of Asian immigration to Latin America when such a subject was unconceivable in the field, and he took a few trips to Peru and Brazil for networking and preliminary research for a comparative study project and international conference on Japanese in the Americas.