Uehara, Masa

Biography

Biographical Narrative

Masa Uehara, daughter of Tokusei and Mitsu, was raised in Japan. She and Gary Snyder were introduced in 1966 at a dinner party hosted by Hisao Kanaseki, one of her university professors and a friend of Snyder's. At the time of their introduction Uehara had recently graduated from Kobe University and was planning to pursue graduate studies at Ochanomizu Women's University.

Uehara and Snyder married on August 6, 1967 in a ceremony which took place on the rim of an active volcano on Suwa-no-se, a small island north of Okinawa. In April 1968, their first son, Kai, was born in Kyoto. The family left Japan in December 1968 to make their home in California. A second son, Gen, was born in 1969. In 1970, Snyder and Uehara and their two young sons took up residence on San Juan Ridge, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, near Nevada City, California.

Uehara studied ballet, Japanese classical dance, and Bharat Natyam in Japan and the United States. She was a member of the Balasaraswati dance troupe in Berkeley and performed in Japan, India, and many parts of the United States. She later undertook graduate study in Graphic Design/Visual Communications at California State University, Chico and started her own free-lance design business.

Uehara and Snyder divorced in 1989.

Source: Yamazato, Katsunori. "Seeking a fulcrum: Gary Snyder and Japan (1956-1975)" Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Davis, 1987.

From the guide to the Masa Uehara Collection, 1966-1981, (University of California, Davis. General Library. Dept. of Special Collections.)