Wendy Yoshimura
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wendy Masako Yoshimura (born January 17, 1943) is a watercolor artist living in Oakland, California. She is famous for her involvement with the Symbionese Liberation Army.
Contents |
[edit] Early life
She was born at the Manzanar Internment Camp for Japanese Americans where her American-born parents were incarcerated. After the war the Yoshimura family moved to Etajima, a small island off the coast of Hiroshima, where her father worked for the Allied Occupation forces. The family returned to the US when Yoshimura was 13 years old. Because she did not speak English, Yoshimura was initially placed in the second grade in the Fresno school system. She graduated from the California College of Arts and Crafts (now California College of the Arts) in 1969.
[edit] Radical politics and criminal activity
[edit] Revolutionary Army
Yoshimura was associated with the "Revolutionary Army," a radical group founded by her boyfriend Willie Brandt. In 1972, police discovered a weapons and explosives cache in a Berkeley garage she had rented. Police described the finding as a "massive bomb factory"[1].
They also found letters taking credit for planned future bombings targeting the University of California, Berkeley campus including the Naval Architecture building, and notes describing a plan to kidnap or assassinate World Bank President and former defense secretary Robert McNamara. Brandt and two others were arrested and subsequently convicted, but Yoshimura evaded a police dragnet and fled California. She lived under an alias in New Jersey until 1974.
[edit] Symbionese Liberation Army
Also in 1974, the three surviving members of the Berkeley terrorist group Symbionese Liberation Army (Bill Harris, Emily Harris, and Patty Hearst) relocated to rural Pennsylvania after six of their comrades died in a shootout with Los Angeles police. Sports entrepreneur and political activist Jack Scott, who had helped the high-profile fugitives make their way east, arranged for Yoshimura to join them and handle shopping and other public transactions.
After two months, Yoshimura returned alone to California. Some weeks later, Hearst and the Harrises also slipped back into the state. When newspaper headlines tied Yoshimura to the SLA, she reunited with the group at its new hideout in Sacramento, California.
[edit] Arrest and Conviction
In September, 1975, Yoshimura was arrested in San Francisco. She was convicted of the 1972 weapons charges. In 1991 she was granted limited immunity and testified during a grand jury investigation into a fatal 1975 bank robbery thought to be tied to the SLA. No indictments resulted at the time. In 2002 five former SLA members and associates were arrested and pled guilty to charges related to that crime [2].
[edit] Present day and watercolors
Today, Yoshimura lives in north Oakland, California. Her still-life watercolors depicting fruits, vegetables, flowers and seashells are often displayed in the Bay Area. Several prints are online at www.wendyyoshimura.com[3]. She is a member of the Asian American Woman Artists Association and teaches watercolor technique at the Japanese Community Center of Northern California in San Francisco and at her home studio.
She works part time at the Berkeley Juice Bar Collective.
[edit] In literature
American Woman is a fictionalization of Yoshimura's story by Susan Choi that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
